Title: The Unbearable Bear
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 04/17/43
Credits: - (but Chuck Jones)
Series: Merrie Melodies (on a Blue Ribbon rerelease)
Running time (of viewed version): 7:48
Commercial DVD Availability: Looney Tunes the Chuck Jones Collection Mouse [Blu-ray]
Synopsis: Fox home invades a family of police bears, Sniffles craps it up.
Comments: Opening shot of abstractly silhouetted building and trees. British fox thief. Effects shot of more light on the fox's face when he takes a drag on his cigarette. A noticeable lack of certain lines (inked, that is) in the backgrounds. "Blues in the Night" shows up. Momma bear has an unusually regular voice, especially for being quite angry. Hokey smoke, Sniffles still exists, tho he's all hyper now. Man, this is quite like the Grinch in parts (the Grinch is something like a blackout cartoon about Who gifts, a Daffy Duck vengeance cartoon where Daffy wins, and a "don't wake them up" cartoon, all blended together...). The fox is pretending to be Robin Hood. Sniffles looks strangely like a licensing version of Sniffles. Extremely dramatic shot choices. Pistol work. A "you can't wake them up" cartoon. Complex fox fingers. Would bears really have a bear skin rug in the living room? I have no real recollection of this cartoon, but the fox stole bit at the end is familiar to me, if from this cartoon or something else, I'm not sure. This is a great looking cartoon; even Sniffles doesn't ruin it, tho he lessens it by his presence. We identify with the cop at the end, because we would also like to snuff out Sniffles.
Someone posted this on Daily Motion:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x46eqt_the-unbearable-bear_people
A early Chuck Jones-Michael Maltese collaboration, which showed Mike Barrier's point that a Maltese-written cartoon for Jones would be crammed full of gags, while Chuck's ones of the same period from Tedd Pierce would usually have more room for the slower/cuter kinds of animation Jones was slowly moving away from.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of plot complications and the quiet/noise contrasts, it foreshadows two of the later Jones/Maltese/Pierce collaborations, "Fair and Worm-er" and "What's Brewin', Bruin?"