1966 Directed by Larry Roemer
The Ballad of Smokey the Bear tells the story, or a story of Smokey the Bear. The premise has Smokey’s big brother, voiced by James Cagney, telling the story of how his brother got his name. It’s a long winded and rambling tale that has very little Smokey and a great deal of a cranky Jimmy. The story has the animals trying to find out who set a forest fire and is poisoning the water. Its not giving anything away to say it’s an escaped circus gorilla that smokes cigars.
USA
USA
The contemporary American suburbs must have erupted with cheers to the heavens on November 24, 1966 when Big Brother Bear went “you smell all smokey. Guess we’ll have to call you Smokey after this!”
The Ballad of Smokey the Bear is unafraid to go pretty thematically dark (par the course, I guess, when you're dealing with forest fires), while maintaining a lot of appeal and building a pretty fleshed-out and likeable cast of characters in just an hour. It's an early Rankin-Bass triumph for sure, and while I'm not surprised that it hasn't become canonized like its predecessor, Rudolph (which shares much of the same personnel) -- this one is decidedly weirder -- it deserves more attention than it receives. So, remember, kids -- only YOU can stop escaped zoo gorillas from causing unmitigated animal death
Many bonus points for stop motion which always looks gorgeous, but this is a family friendly, "nice" version of Smokey Bear's origins. Loads of songs but nothing really sticks out. Kinda wish we'd spent more time with the adult Smokey and less time on his dull childhood. Adult Smokey is an underappreciated gay icon who can GET. IT.
the fact that he was named after his own trauma of burning a forest down is messed up on so many levels
I mean rankin bass is usually pretty lazy but this one was pretty low effort lol. Smokey really is not in it that much and he's a kid the whole time! The songs are forgettable too (except the titular ballad). I liked the fox and the beaver tho
"Lit the match in the well when the last one would fail"
When I hobo'd in Griffith Park, and earlier, when I was a small child being read to, Smokey The Bear became a sigil that I could cling to in times of trouble. The stories we read always having that warm & oven-baked potency that real life never accumulates, until the ding of dreams siezes those blankets of dough, and plucks apple notes out of the air, pungent enough to taste the unfamiliar language of dreams, and kiss our open eyes, like apple seeds in the A.M., back to the farm, and the crisp calendar dew.
This book they read me as a child, purportedly the True Story of "The…
Imagine bragging about your brother this long to your kids
Smokey’s brother got the shit end of the genetics stick
