Happy Birthday, Smokey!
-your longtime pal, Yogi
http://www.smokeybear.com/
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"Smokey's Journey" (1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s...2000s)
http://www.smokeybear.com/vault/default.asp?js=1
Happy Birthday, Smokey! I remember as a boy seeing Smokey during his brief stint at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. It was not a happy time for the old bruin. He and others were displayed in the typical Victorian style of large rectangular cages on elevated concrete platforms, and it saddened me to see him so confined. Mercifully, reforms were instituted so that animal exhibits now reflect a more natural and humane habitat.
They need to get they’re facts straight, Smokey was a young cub when found in 1950 after a huge fire in Capitan NM.
I hate to sound like a pill, but Smokey the Bear was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the beginning of the infantilization of the American people and the first example of government through slick marketing.
Of course, we have now reached the point where government is nothing but slick marketing. But it all started with Smokey the Bear.
I wish I could find the Far Side cartoon with Smokey blindfolded blowing out the candles that look like little trees, and saying “Can I look now?”