BEAR FEAT (1949)
Cartoon
Article 4036 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-19-2012
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voices of Bea Benederet, Billy Bletcher, Stan Freberg
Country: USA
What it is: Three bears cartoon

When Papa Bear gets the idea to train the family to become a trick bear act for the circus, he finds he has contend with his overeager and destructive son, Baby Bear.

The addition of the Walt Lee guide to my sources for my movie hunt lists has opened up the floodgates to a form that heretofore I’ve only flirted with for this project – the cartoon. The reason for this is that most of my other sources restrict themselves to feature-length films, and the only other source that really aspires to completeness (the Don Willis guides) restricts itself to Horror and Science Fiction, thereby skipping the primary fantastic genre (Fantasy) to which cartoons belong. As a lover of animation, I’m not going to complain.

This is one of the Three Bears cartoons made by Chuck Jones in the late forties/early fifties, featuring the furiously angry Papa Bear, the game but whiny Mama Bear, and the oversized walking disaster area Baby Bear. It’s one of those series that really didn’t use Mel Blanc all that much. This is pretty typical of the series, with Papa Bear suffering all sorts of indignities and accidents caused by a combination of his own bad temper and Baby Bear’s penchant for leaving destruction in his wake. My favorite moment here is a gag involving a somersault act into an easy chair; it’s one of those gags that takes its own sweet time making its way to a great punch line.