El Oso Volador

Just watched this Rudolf Ising cartoon for M-G-M on the Daily Motion site as linked from the Cartoons, Model Sheets, and Stuff site. It stars Barney Bear as a pilot for a small plane that literally has a personality of its own. This plane does things Barney does not want him to do like get in fights with a pelican or the much bigger planes that fly above them. Not hilarious but there are some amusing touches throughout concerning the small plane and the bear's attempts to control him. Compared to fellow studio directors Tex Avery and Hanna-Barbera, Ising doesn't seem to aim for laughs but chuckles. That's okay as this was still a pretty entertaining cartoon. So on that note, The Flying Bear is worth a look.

In the 1930s, the Harmon-Ising production team produced some of the most awful cartoons ever made. They tended to be sickeningly sweet and included a lot of singing--which might be entertaining to very small kids, but the average person trying to watch their films today would find them downright annoying. Unlike later Warner Brothers and MGM cartoons (two studios that they worked for), there was no edge to the toons and almost no humor--much like injecting massive doses of the Teletubbies and musicals into a normal toon! In light of this awful background, I was surprised that I actually DID enjoy this film. While it was pretty cute in its anthropomorphic airplane and early, cuter incarnation of Barney Bear, it still had good quality animation and a winning story,...and absolutely NO SINGING (hallelujah!).

Barney is building an airplane and it's a cute and tiny little thing compared to all the modern fighters and bombers. Not a whole lot happens during the course of the cartoon, but just seeing the film unfold was an interesting time capsule. Not a great cartoon by any means, still it held my interest and was a quality product.

While not one of my favourite cartoon characters, Barney Bear was a very funny and likable character where his sluggishness was a huge part of his charm. He was also interesting for being modelled on both his creator Rudolf Ising (who also was his first voice actor until 1941) and the mannerisms of Wallace Beery.

To me, the early Barney Bear cartoons are among Ising's better cartoons. The same goes to 'The Flying Bear', which may not be one of Barney's best or funniest efforts but it is very hard to dislike. It may be slight and predictable at times and occasionally tries too hard to be cute, also not being as funny as previous and succeeding Barney cartoons. All that said, 'The Flying Bear' still wins one over and doesn't have much wrong with it. In fact, it does everything very well, if just lacking the extra something.

Barney's personality again is very well established and he proves again why he was deserving of his own series and it was sad he didn't last longer. The animation is colourful and beautifully drawn with fluid movements and meticulous attention to detail. The amount of detail given to Barney's character design was incredibly and it was a shame that it became simplified later on and lost its special uniqueness.

Music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed, even enhancing the impact of actions and gestures. 'The Flying Bear' is beautifully timed and provides a lot of amusing chuckles and just as charm endearing charm.

As well as Barney the plane also makes a good impression, being amusing and adorable.

Overall, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox