Tribulations de deux oursons

I was in this movie, it was interesting to see how it was developed. Many of the scenes were shot at Old Faithful Inn and in the surrounding areas. A long piano playing scene in the Inn was not used. One of my scenes showed me putting up a tent at the bottom of a hill and at the edge of a lake. This site was not far from the Old Faithful Inn. Two different hills were used for the filming. Sometimes the trailer was towed down a trail and the crew would pitch a log under the trailer to make it bounce, and the girls would throw things after the trailer. I did not like the 2nd site as it was steeper, and the loose trailer came at me very fast. I had to jump out of the way. On the last filming I dived in the water. I lost the hammer. I did not know that I could dive like that until I saw the movie when it played in Pocatello, Idaho. The grass had been sprayed green and there was ice on the water. The cast would go to a rangers cabin where a nearby hot pool could be used for bathing. The last time we went, I said, "We must be crazy, we're taking our clothes off in a blizzard." Many Yellowstone park savages (employees) were in the movie. I bought Chuck Draper a cowboy hat. MCCGARDEN@COMCAST.NET The scene noted by another reviewer where the bears tear up the kitchen was a re-shoot for more footage of destruction. A total of eight cubs was used to get the cub scenes. I think the Old Faithful employee kitchen area was used for filming.

Two bear cubs are separated from their mother. She spends the summer tracking them down while the cubs wander the tourist areas, mooching, driving motorboats and enjoying themselves in a hotel kitchen.

Rex Allen narrates, of course, with many a bear pun and some great nature photography and tricks by trained bears. What set my teeth on edge, was the people: not the rangers, but the tourists, treating wild animals like Teddy bears. Even so, it's a charming, silly movie, intended, at 48 minutes, as a second feature. So long as you don't think 50-pound bear cubs are huggable, you should enjoy this harmless story.

While watching the Sunday Disney Movie one evening, our dad jumped up and yelled the "There's the 'Diaper Daddy' (dad always gave his vehicles names - from 1959 to 1964 he had at least 2 kids in diapers)! There in the background, was our red Chevy station wagon driving past with a large piece of plastic flapping in the wind. A couple of summers prior, we went on vacation, traveling from Valentine, Nebraska to Seattle Washington, stopping various places, including Yellowstone to see 'Old Faithful'. It seems that we were stopping at least once a day during the trip to re-tie the plastic to keep our luggage dry. By the time the movie had gone from the theater to the television, it had been a couple of years and we no longer had 'Diaper Daddy' and was driving 'Tator digger' because it bottomed out every time it hit a bump in the road. Bob C. Hookham

I bought this video off eBay, because it combines two of my favorite things in the world – Disney and Yellowstone National Park. I also bought it because I've heard great stories from my father and aunt of what Yellowstone was like when they were kids. Well, this video is the perfect way to remember those times. The roads were different, the cars were different, picnic areas would also serve as camping spots, and most significantly, bears were very abundant as tourists fed them Pop Tarts, marshmallows, and other snacks. Go to Yellowstone now and you will be extremely lucky to see a bear from a far distance.

In the movie, it's almost scary to see the tourists get so close to the bears. These are wild, unpredictable animals, not pets!! The movie's narrator notes this, but nothing too serious really happens. The story is kind of nice and a little bit dopey, but that's all good. A mother bear is separated from her two cubs when they crawl into a family's food box and are accidentally taken to a campground. The mother bear tracks down the family only to have missed her kids, but she refuses to leave. The rangers have to take her in and put a large splotch of yellow paint on her forehead, and if she is in trouble again, she will be destroyed.

So it's kind of surprising to actually feel concern in this story. You just don't expect that. You feel sad for the mother bear and the cubs, but they do all right as they try to tack each other down over a few months. Some hijinks ensue as the cubs drive a boat (you have to see it to believe it) and enjoy a smorgasbord of goodies at Old Faithful Inn. These are all real bears doing this, but you can tell the camerawork gets a little iffy. For example, if you want a cub to struggle getting a pot off its head, simply just play, rewind, play, rewind, and so on. It's pretty funny to see.

Nevertheless, this is just a nice little story. It's perfect for my family and I, and also for those who've enjoyed vacations to Yellowstone and/or people that just enjoy Disney's storytelling.

My IMDb Rating: 9/10

I have been to Yellowstone National Park twice and spent a lot of time in there...and loved every minute of it. However, although we spend a total of about 2-3 weeks there, we only very rarely saw any bears. This isn't a complaint but I am mentioning this because the bears and the way they acted in "Yellowstone Cubs" is clearly an antique...and such bear/human interactions simply don't take place there today like they did in this film. In the film, you see idiots actually hand feeding and even kissing wild black bears!!!! Not surprisingly, sometimes the bears ripped people's faces off....and eventually the Park Service changed the rules and clamped down on such idiotic behaviors by people. Seeing the stupid folks standing only inches from these wild animals will probably cause your blood pressure to shoot up a few hundred points!! I know that my daughter was angry as she watched the people behaving horribly.

When the story begins, you see a large mother black bear and her two cubs, who the narrator dubbed Tubby and Tuffy. They seem pretty cute and watching them scampering about is pretty entertaining. Soon, however, the park is open for the season and that's when the problems start. Idiotic people start interacting with them and eventually the two cubs are separated from their mother due to a really moronic family that decided to hand-feed the mother...as the cubs climb into the people's trailer. Soon the cubs find themselves at a camp ground and they run amok. Will they ever find their mother??

This film is an antique in many ways. I mentioned how in the old days, folks foolishly interacted with bears. This, fortunately has stopped...though I have still recently seen folks standing only a couple feet from Bison and Big Horn Sheep at the park!! The other way it's an antique is that instead of being a documentary about wildlife, the film is heavily orchestrated...placing bears around people and situations and creating a story around it. They anthropomorphize the bears--making them seem human-like in their actions and naming them furthers this outdated method of filmmaking. It's also horrifying that they likely placed the bears around various geothermals or ate movie film in order to make the film look cool! Or, if they didn't place them there, instead of shooing them away, they let the cubs muck about the mud pots and steam (which could have scalded them) and campgrounds! Crazy, huh?!

So is this worth seeing? Well, yes and no. It is a great look at the bad old days of human-bear interaction. You can see people (and even a ranger) doing some VERY stupid things with the bears! You'll likely be shocked as you watch. But it also isn't all that educational as instead of learning about bears and their behaviors in the wild, it's more about telling a story and entertaining. Very 1963 in its sensibilities but still worth seeing...particularly if you are planning on visiting our national parks, particularly Yellowstone.

By the way, for fun, show this film to park rangers and watch them to see if they have strokes or heart attacks! I am sure, at the very least, you'll hear an ear-full from them about the filmmakers and the crazy things they did with wild animals to make this movie 'more entertaining'.