The Smokey Bear Show (1969)

Genre

animation, kids, family

Country

United States

Length

1 season, 51 episodes

Rated

TV-G

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This animated series follows Smokey Bear, the forest fire prevention mascot, as he teaches animal friends and viewers about fire safety and good citizenship. Each episode presents a fable where characters learn consequences of carelessness or greed. The show ran on Saturday mornings in 1969.

educativegentledatedlightheartedcampywhimsicalmoralizingsimple

What happens

The Smokey Bear Show is an American-Japanese animated television series that aired on ABC's Saturday morning schedule, produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The show features Smokey Bear, the icon of the United States Forest Service, who was well known for his 1947 slogan, "Remember... only YOU can prevent forest fires". It aired for one season of 17 episodes starting on September 6, 1969, then aired in reruns on Sunday mornings for the 1970–71 season, due to the show's inability to compete with CBS' The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour and NBC's The Heckle and Jeckle Show. Copies of all 17 episodes were deposited at the Library of Congress, but only 4 episodes from other sources have been made publicly available as of 2023. The Smokey Bear Show was based on stories created for the Dell Comics Smokey the Bear comic books, which were published as part of Dell's Four Color anthology series from 1955 to 1961. The comic featured anthropomorphic animals acting out fables of carelessness and greed, including a story about two bears who are Communist spies, and another about two cynical weasels who want to feed a baby bird to a bobcat in order to sell pictures of the "tragedy" to a magazine. The series adapted the comic's tales for the show, but toned down some of the morbid content. It did not garner high ratings. American broadcaster and voice-over artist Jackson Weaver performed the voice for the adult Smokey; the cub Smokey was voiced by Canadian actress Billie Mae Richards. Other voices were provided by Carl Banas and Paul Soles. The series' animation was outsourced to Japanese studio Toei Doga (now known as Toei Animation), who were also responsible for their overseas animation work on The King Kong Show (its international co-production with Rankin/Bass) in 1966, The Wacky World of Mother Goose in 1967, and the Thanksgiving special The Mouse on the Mayflower in 1968. Previously, Rankin/Bass produced a General Electric Fantasy Hour television special for NBC in 1966, The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, which featured their trademark stop-motion animation called "Animagic". While the character is often referred to in popular culture as "Smokey the Bear" (including in the Dell Comics series), the correct name is "Smokey Bear", which is reflected in the cartoon's title and the spinoff Gold Key Comics series. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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