Talk:Smokey Bear/Archives/2012

Date of Smokey's Creation

The first line of the page says 1994; this is obviously incorrect. Right? It should be 1944. --AaronM 14:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

How did his first poster appear in 1944 if he was based on a bear caught in 1950?

If you read carefully, you will see that there is no contradiction; the phrase "based on" is not used or implied.Slowmover 03:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

So, is he a fictional bear or a real bear, based on fact..?

The story is here [1]. Omphaloscope » talk 02:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Smokey was originally an advertising concept, circa 1944. Then when a real bear cub was found in 1950 the decision was made to make him the "living symbol" of fire prevention.Corsair1944 (talk) 03:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

How do we know the original story wasn't true (attributed falsely as fictional), and not that the bear found in 1950, after operating under a pseudonym for some time, was eventually correctly identified as that bear? Like the discovery of Troy.Robert Goodman (talk) 04:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Outfit

Smokey usually wears blue jeans, not tan trousers.

Hotfoot Teddy

Name of the first bear: was it originally Hotfoot (as my sources said) or Hotfoot Teddy? ~ender 2005-10-04 01:34:MST

sutra

minor correction; see my emendation to the STB Sutra page for more. Kmarzahl 16:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

wc3

One of WarCraft III - The Frozen Throne's unit's, the Druid of the Claw's "annoyed-sound" uses the "...forest fires."-version.

The

His correct name is Smokey Bear, Not Smokey the bear. It is not Santa the Claus, it is not Easter the Bunny.... According the the US Forest Service web site http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/wayne/facts/smokey_bear.html Smokey Bear... But Everyone identifies with Smokey the Bear, so it sticks. (not signed)

I agree with you 100%. What I tell people is, you won't say Mickey the Mouse or Donald the Duck, would you? Check smokeybear.com, there is a story that "the" was added by the songwriters. --K72ndst 18:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to say that I read or heard that the "the" was taken out, possibly by an Act of Congress, so the name could be Politically Correct. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jmchuff (talk • contribs) 04:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

What about Kermit the Frog or Oscar the Grouch? I mean I would be wrong to "Kermit Frog" or "Oscar Grouch". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.229.178.191 (talk) 01:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

Or Sonic the Hedgehog? I've always heard him referred to as Smokey the Bear, never Smokey Bear. I always figured his name was just Smokey, and "the Bear" is added to show you're talking about the bear and not something else. I'm not saying that the page should be changed to refer to him as "Smokey the Bear", but shouldn't there at least be a sentence at the top of the page that says "also known as Smokey the Bear", or something like that? TBIRallySport 18:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Then if the Interior Dept. disclaims the "the", does that not mean that Smokey The Bear is a separate figure in the public domain who should have an entry of hir own? I write "hir" because AFAIK neither bear's sex is known -- it being too dangerous to attempt to find out.Robert Goodman (talk) 04:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Smokey is the "property" of the US Forest Service, which is in the Department of Agriculture. Dept of Interior has no control of Smokey although they use him for their fire prevention efforts with the Forest Service's permission. The Forest Service also allows other firefighting agencies (state, local, other federal) use of Smokey for prevention work.Corsair1944 (talk) 04:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

• I moved the explanation of why he is Smokey Bear and not Smokey The Bear to the top. It's pretty much the first thing anyone asks so there is no reason to bury it deep in the article. Fanra 12:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Since the mascot's first name is Smokey and it is a bear, "Smokey the bear" is obviously not wrong, per se. Though it's not the official name, it seems reasonable to refer to it as unofficial in the lead in. 12.216.42.143 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:30, 6 March 2009 (UTC).

2008 commercial

I saw a NEW SMOKEY THE BEAR COMMERICAL.. he was DIGITIALIZED and I believe he had a new message, something about the internet, this just happened very recently... so i think this page needs to be updated,, but I cant find any information on the web about the New Digital Smokety the bear. I think the message had to do with Internet safety. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.118.192 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 7 February 2008

Image licences.

Could someone clarify under what kind of licence we are including the pictures of Smokey Bear in the article. I checked the image pages, and the licenses there are seriously ambigous... -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• The license for Smokey Bear is covered by 18 U.S.C. 711 (US federal law). It prohibits anyone who, "...knowingly and for profit manufactures, reproduces, or uses the character “Smokey Bear”..." Since Wikipedia is not for profit, we can use it. Fanra (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Campaign Results: reduction in area lost?

I have a problem with the following line: "Smokey's forest fire prevention campaign has reduced the area lost annually from 22 million to 4 million acres (89,000 to 16,000 km)." How could this possibly be known with any certainty? It's impossible to know what portion of the reduction in forest fires is attributable to the smokey bear campaign. The only source given is the Ad Council's own web site which in turn does not give a source. I propose this sentence be deleted. Byset (talk) 21:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that it can't be known for certain that Smokey's campaign is responsible, however, I think we can put in that the Ad Council claims it to be so. Fanra (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics B-Class Assesment required

This article needs the B-Class checklist filled in to remain a B-Class article for the Comics WikiProject. If the checklist is not filled in by 7th August this article will be re-assessed as C-Class. The checklist should be filled out referencing the guidance given at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. For further details please contact the Comics WikiProject. Comics-awb (talk) 17:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

C-Class rated for Comics Project

As this B-Class article has yet to receive a review, it has been rated as C-Class. If you disagree and would like to request an assesment, please visit Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comics/Assessment#Requesting_an_assessment and list the article. Hiding T 14:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

i love you! and thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.17.207 (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hitler/Tojo poster

In my opinion, the Hitler/Tojo poster adds almost nothing to this article, and is really a distraction from the topic. Unless other editors disagree, I propose to remove it. Cullen328 (talk) 01:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly disagree. Hitler and Tojo are backed by pictures of forest fires and the caption is about war-caused forest fires. It makes a very nice illustration of the fact that the first main thrust of the "war on forest fires" was actually a wartime one, and that's why Smokey was "born" in WW II. Most people don't know that. I didn't know that (though I did know that the long bombing distances from Japan and Germany made fire one of the few viable weapons each country had). SBHarris 03:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly disagree, for the first use of "icons" [negative ones] in a fire prevention campaign, as SBHarris expresses above.---Look2See1 t a l k → 04:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If the subject of the article was something like "U.S. campaigns against forest fires", I would agree with both of you. However, the subject is the mascot, and this poster has nothing to do with that character. However, I will leave it in pending further discussion since you two disagree so strongly. Cullen328 (talk) 05:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If there WAS an article about "U.S. campaigns against forest fires", it would contain mostly the history of Smokey Bear, and it wouldn't be long before somebody suggested merging it with THIS article. :( But if you really want to create such an article, you can move the WW II forest fire warning poster to it, without my objection. Leave a summary of it behind here in THIS article. SBHarris 17:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Wicked super strongly agree - remove it, per Cullen328's comment above. The poster has nothing to do with Smokey Bear, which is the topic of this article. And it is enormously distracting. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Disagree: Image is informative regarding the evolution of Smokey Bear. Fear-based images such as this were the predecessors to the much more friendly imagery of Smokey. One can't separate the mascot from the history of the fire-prevention campaign it emerged from. AtticusX (talk) 15:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Response Would the three editors who disagree change their minds if they knew that the Hitler/Tojo poster and other similar wartime posters were far from the first use of an icon or the first main thrust of the campaign against forest fires? This campaign goes back nearly 110 years, and as early as the 1920s, Forest Service educational materials used cartoon characters. In 1937, the "first nationwide forest fire prevention campaign" conducted by the Forest Service used a color poster with Uncle Sam dressed as a forest ranger, and the artwork was by James Montgomery Flagg. The slogan was "Your Forests - Your Fault - Your Loss!" President Roosevelt accepted the original painting at the White House and it toured many large cities nationwide. Scroll down to 1937 here: [2]

In 1940, before the U.S. entered the war, another poster campaign featured the grim reaper on horseback, starting a forest fire. That's on the same website where the Hitler/Tojo poster was found. The Bambi campaign of 1943 - 1944 is mentioned briefly in the article but not illustrated, presumably because of Disney copyright concerns.

The fact that the three who are opposed wrongly thought that the war propaganda posters were the beginning of the campaign or the first use of iconic imagery clearly shows that the prominent use of this particular image in this article is misleading. It has to do with WP:UNDUE and the neutral point of view. We don't have a representative sample of non-Smokey or pre-Smokey imagery in the article, and if we did it would be a different article. This particular image, showing Adolph Hitler and an arguably racist caricature of Tojo, skews the history of Smokey and injects inappropriate emotionalism into the treatment of the mascot. The overall campaign has been going on over 100 years. U.S. involvement in World War II lasted less than four years. The image is an example of undue weight. That's my view of things. Cullen328 (talk) 18:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Both the Hitler and Tojo pictures are of course caricatures. Hitler really didn't look as insane as he was, you know. If you'd like to note that these are wartime caricatures in the illustration, I'd have no problem with it (in the discussion of the poster itself you can talk about racist imagry, too, but this article is not the place for it-- nor the place to simply omit history because it's not politically correct for year 2010). Indeed, I'd like to add the grim reaper illustration to the article, as an example of pre-war forest fire symbology and anti-fire campaigns. All these things are pre-figuring symbols of Smokey, and as such, they represent what artists were trying to do, before they finally hit on an animal symbol that was universal, unoffensive, non-scary, and timeless. Bambi might have served, but you know how Disney is about their characters. SBHarris 00:45, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The Honey Tree

Isn't the date under the picture incorrect? If Smokey died in 1976, he wouldn't be eating from the new 'honey tree' set up in 1984.Dennis Wilson (talk) 10:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The official entry for the photo is here. It is pretty clear about the year. I'm guessing that this has to be Smokey Bear II, who was still alive then. Don Lammers (talk) 14:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)