Barney Bear

I think I've mentioned a couple of times recently that I've started recording parts of TCM's Saturday matinee block on my DVR. There are the Popeye cartoons which come roughly at 10:00 AM, as well as other cartoons which kick off the block at 8:00 AM. For a while TCM was showing cartoons featuring a character I didn't know much about, Barney Bear, but it gave me the chance to record one called Bear Raid Warden.

As you might guess -- and I'm not giving away much since this is a one-reel cartoon -- Barney here plays a World War II air raid warden working out of a cabin deep in the forest. The short opens up with an own that's asleep but still hooting, and when Barney hears it the hooting sound just like an air-raid siren should sound to him, which gets him out of bed looking for the source. Now, of course, one was also supposed to put out one's lights, or at least black out the windows so that light sources didn't escape from inside the house, and when the owl's eyes open, they let out a ridiculout amount of light.

But that's not the real source of aggravation for poor Barney Bear. He next finds a firefly, and in the fly's defense, it can't not glow. Not that Barney seems to understand this, as he tries to extinguish the fly's glow. That only serves to make the firefly angrier and more determined to keep on glowing, leading to all sorts of sight gags which, to the movie's benefit, mostly work.

Barney Bear was devised some time early by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who were part of MGM's animation department in the days before the studio had the Tom and Jerry cartoons and, I think, before people like Tex Avery or Hanna and Barbera came to MGM. By this time, however, with the war on, Harman and Ising left the studio to do their part for the war, so this was directed by people not original to the character. From what I've read, MGM "dumbed down" the shorts after Harman and Ising left, but that doesn't really seem to be the case here.

I looked up Bear Raid Warden on YouTube, but it doesn't seem to be available in its entirety.