Smokey Bear

Smokey Bear is a mascot of the United States Forest Service created in 1944 to educate the public on the dangers of forest fires.

Early fire prevention campaigns

Initially the Forest Service used Bambi, from the Walt Disney film, on its posters, but Bambi was only loaned to them by Disney for one year, so a new animal mascot had to be created. The bear's first poster was prepared on August 9, 1944. In 1952, after Smokey Bear became popular enough to attract commercial interest, The Smokey Bear Act, an Act of Congress was passed to take Smokey out of the public domain and place him under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture. The Act provided for the use of Smokey's royalties for continued education on forest fire prevention.

It is the longest running public-service campaign in U.S. history. The cartoon character of Smokey was designed by Richard Scarry for Little Golden Books. At the height of his popularity, Smokey received so much fan mail that he was assigned his own ZIP Code, 20252. Smokey's real-life counterpart was a black bear cub who in the spring of 1950 was caught in the Capitan Gap fire, a wildfire in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. He had climbed a tree to escape the blaze, but his paws and hind legs had been burned. At first he was called Hotfoot Teddy, but was later redubbed Smokey, after the mascot. A local rancher who had been helping fight the fire took the cub home with him, but he needed veterinary aid so a New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Ranger took the bear to Santa Fe. Smokey was sent to the National Zoo in Washington, DC.

Smokey is typically depicted as a bear in a biped humanoid form wearing blue jeans and a flatbrimmed campaign hat. He is presumably wearing the campaign hat because at that time park rangers often wore them.

Revisions to tagline and policies

Smokey is famous for his slogan:

Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Smokey's slogan oversimplifies the larger situation; most forest fires are actually caused by lightning or railway trains.

As of April 2001, this slogan has been changed to the following:

Only YOU can prevent wildfires.About.com. Retrieved April 15, 2006.

The character has been seen less in recent years as the Forest Service has changed its policy from one of absolute prevention of forest fires to one of controlled burning. Nevertheless, the Service continues to promote fire safety to citizens.

Smokey Bear in popular culture

"Smokey the Bear" is a popular song written in 1952 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins. The subject is Smokey Bear. According to the Forest Service's Smokey Bear website, a the was added to keep the song's rhythm.

One notable 1973 ad featured actress Joanna Cassidy delivering a fire prevention message, but was revealed at the end to be Smokey Bear in disguise, saying, "If this was me, would you have listened?"

Smokey Bear is also referenced on the Spinal Tap song, America.

CB radio users often use the word "Smokey" or "bear" as code for "highway patrol" or "state police", alluding to the flatbrimmed campaign hat that many state troopers wear.

A parody of Smokey, along with his catchphrase, was used for an episode of Dexter's Laboratory, in which Smokey is renamed Smokum.

In the Simpsons episode Mountain of Madness, Bart Simpson encounters an interactive educational Smokey-shaped exhibit at a national park:

(The bear has two buttons, "You" and "Me")
Smokey: Only who can prevent forest fires?
(Bart presses the "You" button.)
Smokey: You pressed "You," referring to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is "You".
(Bart kicks the bear.)

Comedian Mitch Hedberg recommended that the United States adopt "Smacky the Frog", whom he claims is England's "forest-fire-prevention representative".

A bear that looked similar to Smokey Bear appeared in South Park in season one, during the Halloween special. It was an educational video in which Eric Cartman was forced to watch because he dressed up as Adolf Hitler. Bear: "So remember kids, dressing up like Hitler is not cool."

Stephen Colbert, on The Colbert Report, commonly states his hatred of bears, believing them godless killing machines. Smokey is no exception, and Colbert believes has not been deprogrammed by the Forest Service. He also thinks Smokey's fur his highly flammable, and suggests a damper mascot like Smokey Dolphin. He does however believe a bear is apt as the mascot for a different episode segment on flood prevention, Drowney Bear.

References

Notes

External links

SmokeyBear.com
U.S. Forest Service National Symbols Program
Smokey Bear and Fire Prevention via US Forest Service
A mugshot
Smokey Bear Act of 1952
Fire causes - 2000 statistics

Public service announcement characters | Fictional bears | Fire prevention | Public service announcements | USDA Forest Service

Smokey de Boor