Un sommeil d'ours

The tourists have left with the summer. Park Ranger Donald Duck orders the bears off to a cave to hibernate, which they do with some grumbling. But Humphrey Bear's snoring keeps them all awake. So they kick him out. After some failed attempts to make do outside, he pretends to sleepwalk into Donald's quarters.

This late Disney cartoon takes a while to get up to speed, but once it does, it's funny. Largely that's due to Donald's usual bad-tempered reactions to everything that upsets him, and everything upsets him.

The next short on Disney plus was the 1955 effort, another Donald Duck one named "Bearly Asleep". Puns! Off to a good start. For me it was charming enough but lacking the wit of some of the better efforts.

Donald Duck (Clarence Nash) is the Ranger at a National Park. Having waved away the last of the summer tourists, it becomes time to organise the bears for the winter's hibernation. One bear though, Humphrey (James MacDonald) has been dozing already and so struggles to drop off. When he does, his snoring causes the other bears to kick him out and he is forced to find somewhere else to sleep. He decides that Ranger Donald's cabin is the most attractive alternative.

So, again it's quite a charming time. It's more focused on Humphrey the bear than Donald, which was a bit of a surprise to me. I have to be honest and say somehow that Humphrey has rather passed me by, so I wasn't expecting him to feature so heavily, or that Wikipedia would advise me of quite as comprehensive a history for him. He seemed a touch more slapstick a character than the classic shorts have otherwise been. That perhaps came at the expense of a bit of wit, or timing, what made, for example, "The Band Concert" made some twenty years earlier, such a delight.

It's solid though, don't get me wrong, classic animation style and vocal work. There' are just better examples out there.

The story is routine, and it is not until about just under half-way through that something funny happens. And when that happens, while more amusing than hilarious(the HUMPHREY PINCHED ME line is an example of the latter though) the gags are still plentiful and imaginative. The animation is colourful and vibrant, even the lagging lip-sync and scratchy picture quality of the Youtube video couldn't hide that, and the music has great energy and beauty. But Bearly Asleep is worth watching for Donald and Humphrey. Donald is wonderfully temperamental, but I found the scene-stealer to be Humphrey. I find him adorable and very lovable, and on several occasions here I felt sorry for him especially when he was out in the cold looking for somewhere to hibernate, and was glad when he got a happy ending.

Overall, not amazing but amusing and worth watching for the two lead characters. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Humphrey is BEARLY ASLEEP for the Winter when his snoring gets him ostracized from the ursine cave. Will Ranger Duck be persuaded to give him more salubrious hibernation accommodations?

This was one of a short series of cartoons to feature Humphrey. The film is quite routine, but the Duck and the Bear are always humorous to watch. Clarence "Ducky" Nash supplied Donald's unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Winter has come at the park that Donald Duck manages, so, he sends his bears to hibernate for the season. But, the always slow and chaotic Humphrey the Bear gets kicked out of his own den by the others because of his constant snoring and talking-in-his-sleep. He then tries to bunk in with Donald, with his frustrating and fiery personality drives Humphrey out.

The cartoon mostly centers on Humphrey being his panicky, frantic and annoying self - not a very funny one, but, with all the running around and slapstick action, it's probably amusing for little kids.

Grade C+