The Bee-Deviled Bruin

Chuck Jones debuted this dysfunctional ursine brood in 1944's "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears" and then turned them into recurring characters before retiring them after "A Bear for Punishment" (I guess that he wanted to focus more on Pepe Le Pew and Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote). In one of their funniest outings, the Three Bears run out of honey after the brain-dead Junyer eats the entire jar. So, the eternally angry Pa tries everything possible to retrieve honey out of a beehive, so guess what happens! He should have listened to Ma!

The Three Bears were a total parody of the notion of the nuclear family. Chuck Jones once asserted that they predicted "All in the Family" by about twenty years: the grouchy father, the mousy mother, and the next generation doesn't belong. Whatever they were, the bears always represented the hilarity that the Warner Bros. cartoons constituted during their prime, and "The Bee-Deviled Bruin" is a hoot. You're sure to love it.

Chuck Jones' Three Bears cartoons are all entertaining, 'Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears' and 'What's Brewin' Bruin' had a slight finding-their-feet feel but all of them are well made, incredibly entertaining and the bears are nearly always depicted brilliantly (apart from Mama Bear starting off on the bland side).

'The Bee Deviled Bruin' is for me the second best of the series, after their last cartoon 'A Bear in Punishment'. It is sad that they didn't make more after this point, they were great characters and their cartoons contained some of the funniest material of any cartoons from the late 40s.

As ever, the animation has Jones' distinctive animation style all over it, especially in the character designs, the bears did start off scrappy in 'Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears' but became more refined in the rest of their cartoons. Everything is vibrantly coloured, the backgrounds are rich and meticulous in detail and it's all beautifully drawn. The music from Carl Stalling is typically outstanding, there is so much energy and life to the rhythms, orchestration is cleverly matched and lush and it fits so well with the action and adds to the impact.

Of their cartoons, while 'A Bear for Punishment' is the funniest, darkest and most satirical, 'The Bee Deviled Bruin' is also one of the funniest. What happens in the cartoon is not very surprising, but one doesn't care with pacing so lively, dialogue so witty and sharply biting, priceless rapport between Papa and Junyer and imaginative and often hilarious sight gags.

Papa and Junyer are rich in personality and don't disappoint at all characterisation-wise. Mama Bear isn't quite as interesting, but she is far less bland than in their first two cartoons. Voice acting is stellar, once again like 'Bear Feat' Mel Blanc has very little to do other than vocal effects which is somewhat of a waste, but Bea Benaderet and Stan Freberg are excellent and Billy Bletcher is flat out brilliant as Papa, few could do gruff and bad-tempered like Bletcher.

Overall, really wonderful cartoon and the second best of the Three Bears series. 10/10 Bethany Cox