A nearly wordless masterpiece carried entirely by one incredible bear. We marvel at The Bear (1988), led by Bart the Bear in one of the most powerful animal performances on film.

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Episode intro (00:00) 

Paul: Wow. Wow.Paul: What am I talking about? The 1988 film The Bear, starring Bart the Bear and just — wow. It was great. [cat meows] But did you know. 

Melissa: Was that a child? Jordan: [imitates cat]. Paul: What? Pan. That was Pan.

Paul: But did you know that Bart the Bear actually hosted a segment of the Oscars with Michael Meyers in 1998? Or did you know there's, like, a sequel to Bart? Jordan: To Bart? Paul: What am I even talking about?

Audrey: Are you talking about, like, the bear got reincarnated?

Paul: I guess you just got to fucking listen and find out. Yo, one about all this and more as we're Hoofin’ it in Hollywood.Paul: [Roars]Jordan: Owowowow

Melissa: Oh. Wow. [cat meows] Oh.

Melissa: She's just crying.

Paul: Hello. Welcome to Hoofin’ it in Hollywood. I'm your host, Paul. And today with me, I have my co-host, Jordan.

Jordan: Hello.

Paul: Melissa.

Melissa: Hi.

Paul: And. Audrey.

Audrey: Hey. No, I don't like it. [cat meows] I was trying something new.

Paul: Wait. That fucking cat.

Audrey: I was trying something new. Hiii. No. Hi. We’ll just go with that.

Paul: Jordan, take it away.

Melissa: Perfect.

Film facts: About the movie (01:46) 

Hosted by Jordan

[Punky rock music segment intro]: 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Film facts, film facts, film facts!

Jordan: What's one word that you guys would use to describe The Bear. And not the Hulu show The Bear — The 1988 film The Bear. The Bear. The 1988 film The Bear. What's one word used to describe it?

Paul: I think you guys already heard what my word was. It was “wooooow.” Yeah. We'll get into it. But this movie blew my mind.

Melissa: My word definitely is “ASMR,” because the sound editing in this movie was insane. You could hear every single lick. Everything they were doing, like you were right there.

Jordan: Every lick [makes licking sound].

Melissa: They were right in your face or in your ear eating. So I said ASMRAudrey: I would say unhinged. [Melissa: Oh, yeah]. I just feel like it was, like, unnaturally natural. I don't even know. I don't know. It was unhinged. That's all I got.

Jordan: I like it. Unhinged. Mine is kind of riffing off the same thing. I'm going to hyphenate mine and say “trippin’ balls” because the bear tripped balls. And that's the only thing that I remember. I watched this when I was a kid, and that's the only thing I remembered was the bear tripping balls scene.

Melissa: You mean the best part of the movie?

Jordan: All right, everybody, The Bear. 1988 French film. It was a family action drama directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, written by Gérard Bruck. Starring animals: Bart the Bear and Youk the bear. Human stars Tchéky Karyo, Jack Wallace, and Andre Lacombe. Only three humans in this movie, basically. And a bunch of animals. And that's it. The box office. What I could find… it seemed like the budget was around $20 million. And then I saw the box office at like 30 million the first weekend, and then it earned like 120 over its lifetime. So people liked it. 

But it was also 1989 that it released in the United States. And so it went up against Batman, which was the number one film that year, and two movies with animals and this is crazy — Canine and Turner and Hooch.It was well-liked pretty much by everybody and won a lot of awards. It won French Academy Award, it won a Cesar Award for Best Director. It won a Genesis Award for Best Foreign Feature film. And the Genesis Award... I don't remember if we talked about them before, but they were kind of like the Humane Society's Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Film Editing in the American Academy Awards. Some criticisms, I guess, that it received strange dream sequences, seemed out of place with the rest of the film.

Audrey: Those were the best scenes.

Jordan: This movie was based on a novella called The Grizzly King, written by James Oliver Curwood in 1916. Most of this movie was set in British Columbia, but it was actually filmed in Italy and Austria, in the Dolomite Mountains, and there was also some shots at a Belgian zoo. The dialog was very, very sparse. It was just mainly about the action and the sort of natural beauty of the mountains.

Paul: Honestly, it was a gorgeous movie. [Jordan: It was] God damn dude.

Melissa: Yeah for sure. Audrey: Yeah, it was really beautiful.

Jordan: It was just gorgeous to look at and just, well… everything was just purposeful. It was just really nice. Let's talk about the animal rules that I brought up before. Again, these are just wild animals. They're slightly humanized a little where they, like, make the cub kind of makes noises that you can tell aren't really bear cub noises.

Jordan: And they, they put some funny things. Yeah. So there's that. But that's about it. They don't talk. There's no inner monologue. They don't interact with people like that. They recognize them. They interact just like they're normal animals. So let's talk about the movie itself. It starts off and it's a cub foraging for honey with his mom. His mom is violently killed by a rockslide, and it's pretty horrifying, actually. It's really sad.

Audrey: I was like, Paul, what did you do? What are we watching?

Paul: I had no clue, man.

Jordan: Yeah, right off the bat, that's how that happens. It's like, “oh, good, it's a mom and it's cub,” and then, yeah, bam. Now, after the mom died, the bear has a dream about frogs and these frogs, which are really creepy. And they're like, claymation, and the bear's just dreaming about frogs for some reason, and that's like a nightmare. And it's really weird. And I just remember kind of being weirded out about it when I was a kid. What did you guys think about that dude?

Paul: Seeing a like, a nightmare from a bear's perspective was like, terrifying.

Melissa: I love that scene. It's my favorite. It's just because, again, like, you're not even expecting like a claymation puppet scene out of nowhere in a real movie. So that, like, blew my mind.Audrey: As soon as that one started, I was like, “well, this movie's great.” It was very unexpected, but I liked the idea of mixing that sort of very, like, close to a nature documentary with something so out there, like what a cub might dream of.

Paul: Yeah. What was even crazier was, the claymation frogs looked like frogs, and then they started to turn into, like, monsters midway. So like it started to turn into, like, just like a weird 80s film and you're like, what the fuck is happening?.

Melissa: You're like, “am I tripping balls? Or are they actually growing fangs?” Remember? Like some of them. Really creepy. There's a second dream sequence scene later on that is still like the claymation puppetry type vibe, which I love. Like I'm a sucker for any type of effects like that. So it really drew me in and I think he was dreaming, It was really sad though. He was like having memories of his mom.

Paul: Yeah, that one was even sadder.

Melissa: Yeah, it was real. Like it hit me. I was like, oh, okay, this movie has everything now I'm depressed more than.Audrey 

Yeah, that one was sad.

Jordan: So the cub kind of sticks around for a while, but basically has to leave because he's getting hungry and it's kind of like interspersed with what starts happening with the older bear, which is a Kodiak bear. And this is Bart, I'm sorry, the younger bear I’ll referr to as Youk, but it's just the younger cub and the older. They don't really have names in the movie either.

We see the older Kodiak bear being hunted by two men. They're called Tom and Bill, and they're stalking up on this bear, and Tom shoots it before Bill is ready and he just grazes it. And then the bear is able to run away, and Tom can't do anything. So he kind of chides Bill, just kind of, you know, just kind of like, “hey, you do this better next time. We'll get him.”And so they go back and they find that the bear has killed one of their horses and maimed the other one.Blood sprayed everywhere in the camp, too. Jordan: There is a lot of blood in this movie.

Paul: A lot of crayon colored blood.

Jordan: The older bear's licking his wounds, and the younger bear comes along, and there's kind of a little bit of, arrrgh at first. “Who is this little thing?” And then the little bear starts licking the bullet hole and kind of soothes the older bear, and they kind of have a cautious friendship to begin with. And then the next few scenes, it shows the friendship kind of blossoming and growing.

Jordan: And the little bears, he eats mushrooms, and they must be psychedelic mushrooms, because then he has kind of has a trip about the mushrooms. It's just weird things like that that happen.

Paul: But my favorite scene probably was the bear fucking scene.

Melissa: Please describe it. In detail.

Paul: But it comes across this giant field and there's a semi-attractive bear on the other end of it. I didn't know it was female, but the moment that clicked for me was when that female bear started to walk away and they'd show that like juicy, butt walking away.

Jordan: The close up on the butt.

Paul: And I was like, oh, he's trying to tap dude. And then when they show him in the trees, I want to know how they did that part. Like if it was like dudes in like, a bear pelt, like pretending to be a fucking bear.

Melissa: That's totally what I told Jordan. Iit had to be people in bear suits.

Jordan: So I'm almost surprised that they didn't put in one short shot of claymation eyeballs bulging out. Yeah, cartoonish when he saw, because there was so much personification. I think it also needs to be said that there were definitely like, post sound effects added to just be like. [Imitating bear: Rah rah] this is ridiculous.[Movie clip of sounds]

Melissa: Those sounds were just too, almost like close to human lovemaking sounds. I was a little like ehh Okay.

Jordan: Overall, you just see these two bears bonding, and the young bear is learning, where maybe in nature, that wouldn't really happen. The big bear probably would have just eaten or maimed the younger bear. And then at this point, we get back with the hunters. They've kind of picked up the trail again. Their buddy has come with a whole bunch of dogs, one of them being Tom's dog.

Jordan: They track down the bears, and the little bear hides, and they're kind of chasing after the big bear. And the big bear kills and maims some of the dogs, and one of them is Tom's dog and it gets maimed and Bill has to put it down. And that's really sad for Tom. So you can see this kind of like revenge. Like he hates this bear. They, he, they got their horse, he got his dog, and he fucking eats the bear. So then they find the little baby and they take it back to their camp, and it spends the night there, and there's some shenanigans that go on.

Audrey: Yeah. They like, tie it up there.

Jordan: Yeah, they tie it up to a tree, but he gave it a lot of rope so that it could climb up the trees. At one point he climbs down and sleeps in the bear, there's some bear furs that these guys have killed.

Paul: So sad.

Audrey: That was so sad. Their pelts. Can you imagine if, like, it was a human just sleeping on a human pelts? Oh, no. Like a pile of like.

Paul: No. Yeah, that kid's sleeping on adult pelts.

Melissa: No. I'm good, not imagining that.

Jordan: I didn't imagine that. Did you imagine that when you saw the movie?

Audrey: I didn't. I didn't think of it until just now.

Jordan: Okay, okay. Ohhhkay.

Paul: That's our, like, bedspread right now.

Audrey: Oh, no.

Jordan: But yeah, the thing. Okay. So the other thing about that was that he had chewed through his rope, but he stayed with the hunters because he wanted to be around those bears and that makes Bill kind of develop a soft spot for the cub. They go back on the hunt, he goes to get some water and he gets cornered by the big bear.Bill does, and he thinks he's going to die. The big bear is just screaming like[Movie clip of bear roaring]

Jordan: You know, right in his face. And he's just cowering. And then the big bear kind of looks and just takes off, and he sits there stunned. He goes and runs to get his rifle, and then he chases after where he saw the bear, and he points his rifle at it and he's about to shoot. And the bear kind of looks back at him and there's almost like this understanding moment where they just look at each other, and then he disarms his gun and lets the bear go.

Jordan: And then his partners come and they're like, “oh, we're going to get it.” And he goes, “no, don't kill it.” He said a quote, I don't remember what the quote was, but he said something about every man needs a secret side.[Movie clip: Every man has a secret side. By God. That's the way it should be.]

Audrey: [In a gruff voice] Every man can have a secret. So that's something I believe. [Normal voice] It was like something like that.

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan: It's pretty much like that.

Jordan: So they spared the bear’s life. They're just mutual, let's just let each other live and let live thing. And that's how the movie ends. The hunters leave, the little bear chases. There's the cute scene I think they do in every movie where they're just like, “go on, git.” He makes the bears go away. So my favorite scene was just a shot at the end, and it kind of it was just amazingly set up. It was just you could see part of a mountain on the left side in the background and part and the right side, and then like right in the valley, a third of the way over, like rule of thirds-ish was the bear just overseeing everything.And it was, it just brought everything together. But that's it. It was not much happens. I mean, there like, like five main story beats that probably occurred, but there was a lot of action and there was the moment, the understanding moment. And that was, I think, key. I think that's what Jean-Jacques was going for, was this kinship. And I mean, in my opinion, he nailed it and.

Paul: Totally.

Jordan: The cinematography was amazing. I didn't mind watching this again. We, Mel and I had just watched this, I think, when we first started the podcast, because we talked about this as maybe like one of the ones to do. And so we watched it again and I was just, still, I just loved it. What did you guys think

Audrey: Yeah, I really liked this one. It was good. There were a couple scenes that were hard to watch and I had to look away. But overall I really liked it.

Paul: Yeah, I would say I absolutely love this movie. It's gorgeous. It's so gorgeous. Like, just visuals alone are amazing. And that moment at the end where the unspoken kind of bond between the human and the bear, like when he had that spin moment, it just. It worked. I don't know if it's because I wanted a happy ending or what, but like that flipped, I was like, all right, dude, I'll I'll fucking take it in this movie.

Melissa: Overall, the movie I thought was amazing. The cinematography is amazing, it's all animal acting, which I love. You know, the bears are on, on the screen the entire movie. They're super impressive. And the only thing I didn't like was the sounds that they gave them to sort of them human ish or like, yeah, and it kind of took you out of it. So yeah, I didn't care for that. Audrey: I felt the same way. I, I don't understand why that's the route they chose to go. I think people could have gotten the bear's emotions without needing to do those weird sounds, I agree.

Paul: Do you have anything else, Jordan?

Jordan: No.

Paul: All right. I'm going to take it over for Creature Chronicles.

Creature chronicles: About the animal actors (16:10) 

Hosted by Paul

[Piano music segment introduction: Hm? What's that? It's Creature Chronicles.]

Paul: One thing that was kind of interesting about this film is when you're an adult, like, I don't know about you, but I don't look at animals or anything like that on a regular basis. So watching —

Audrey: You have two dogs and a cat.

Paul: I don't look at the giant, cool bears and like, non-household animals on a regular basis. And so like, when you see something like an exotic animal like that, you're, it's kind of mind blowing. It feels like you're seeing it for the first time and seeing that bear is just like, like I love it. And I now want to fuse with one, kind of like that dude in Midsommar, where he's wearing that bearskin.

Paul: I want to do that. Except for not bearskin, but to be one with a bear.

Melissa: We can probably make that happen. Audrey: So, like, like a druid.

Paul: Yeah. With, like a, a fusion dance, like from DBZ clip.

Audrey: Like a druid?

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. All right, so Bart the Bear, he was known as the John Wayne of bears. Like for acting-wise, because he's amazing. He's a male Kodiak bear. He weighed close to 15,000 pounds when he was at his peak. And he was close to ten feet high, like nine foot, 7.5 in. So like this boy, this was a big boy, dude.

Paul: So let's talk a little bit about Kodiak bears really quick. They are among the largest bears in the world. They can weigh anywhere between 600 and 15,000 pounds. Sorry, weigh —

Jordan: You said 15,000 pounds the first time. Was that right?

Paul: I did. I did. No, Bart was 1,500 pounds.

Audrey: Okay. I was like,

Paul: And so male bears can weigh 600 and 1500 pounds.

Jordan: I was waiting for a chance to jump in because I heard that, and that’s like really heavy

Audrey: I was like.

Paul: Yeah, no, no, no, I totally messed that up. I meant say 1500. And so they can be found only in Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago. They're mostly solitary, but they gathered peacefully during salmon runs. So when they're trying to eat some fish, dude, they're gonna hang out at the fish trough. They typically avoid humans. Attacks are incredibly rare. They use vocalizations and body language to reduce conflicts. Maybe that's what happened at the end of that movie, when he came up and screamed and got all tough. So let's jump into the history of Bart the Bear. Bart the Bear was born January 19th, 1977, in Baltimore, Maryland, in the Baltimore Zoo, and when he was a cub, he was purchased by the trainers Doug and Lynn Seus of Wasatch Rocky Mountain Wildlife, Inc, located in Heber City, Utah, and they got Bart when he was like 5 pounds old.

Audrey: 5 pounds old. What does that mean?

Paul: He was tiny.

Melissa: I want to start. What am I trying to say? Sorry. Referencing people by their pound.

Paul: So the Seus’s trained Bart with a praise and reward system throughout his life, but his first role was the Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. And he was just a little baby at that point. He was only a cub at the time because the show took place in 1977, so they started training them insanely young. He had a couple different films that he was a part of and TV shows before he landed the gig, the bear in the movie The Bear, and he was about 11 years old at this time when he was filming, and the director actually auditioned about 50 bear actors from all over the world before selecting Bart.

Audrey: I just love thinking about, thinking about, about animal auditions.

Jordan: We laughed about that last time.

Paul: Yeah, he lands this gig because he has this, a very calm demeanor and the role he played. I actually did track down a name. Jordan, the name that they don't use in the film at all or appears anywhere except for in the script is called Kaar. Kaar.

Jordan: Well, sounds made up.

Paul: And so just a fun story about, you know, like Bart was always— he was generally pretty good on set. I mean, it's a bear. So, like when you're filming with a bear, of course, they're kind of do their own shit. But there was an incident on the set because the director actually wanted to get some publicity photos with Bart the Bear, so he, like, got in the cage with them for the photos, and he got attacked, and injured.

Paul: But he still remained impressed with his acting the entire time. He was never upset with Bart, even though he had to have the wound drained for two months afterwards.

Jordan: Crazy.

Audrey: Yeah, I read that, that he had to have a shunt that drained the wound.

Melissa: Holy shit. 

Paul: Yeah. So like he got, —Audrey: Because it was the back of his head.

Paul: Yeah. So he did a killer job on the film. So much so that there was a campaign to try to score Bart the Bear an Oscar nomination for his work. Unfortunately, the Academy Awards were like, “...no, not for bears.”.

Audrey:  I would give him one

Jordan: I would have.

Melissa: I would too.

Paul: I completely agree. After The Bear, he starred in a bunch of other movies afterwards, like Legends of the Fall in 1994 with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. And according to Lynn Seus, one of the trainers,said “Tony Hopkins was absolutely brilliant with Bart. He acknowledged and respected Bart like a fellow actor. He would spend hours looking at Bart and admiring him. He did so many of his own scenes with Bart.” And I can just imagine Anthony Hopkins just creepily sitting in a room with Bart, staring at him and just probably trying to talk to him like, “hey, are you bear?”

Audrey: Getting acting tips from him.

Paul: [imitating Anthony Hopkins (?)] How would you do this?

Paul: I can't do Anthony Hopkins.

Audrey: I mean, you definitely cannot. [Melissa: Nope]

Paul: I can't do. I can't do Tony Hopkins. Apparently.

Audrey: [Imitating Anthony Hopkins (?)] Hello, Bear. [Normal voice] I also cannot. Melissa: That's not any better, you know.

Paul: [Imitating Christopher Walken (?)] Bear. Hey, bear. How did I do in the lasts scene? Do you think I nailed it? So, over his career, he was in over 35 pieces of media. This included film, television shows. He was also in some advertising pieces, too, like there's a Labatt Blue commercial with them, a commercial and the Kodiak film.

Jordan: Was he the bear in The Great Outdoors that gets his butt skin blown off by the shotgun? And it's just like a bare butt?

Paul: Yeah, he be! And why I failed to mention the most famous role he was in — Homeward Bound, which was our first episode.

Audrey: That's how we first learned about Bart.

Jordan: Full circle.

Paul: Later on in Bart and the Seus's career, the Seuses ended up founding the Vital Ground Foundation, which was a nonprofit conservation organization that works to preserve threatened wildlife habitats. Along with Rocky Mountains and Kodiak Island, among other places in North America. So they turned Bart into the spokes bear [Jordan: Spokesbear], for that bear, they would say, like, check out Bart! Donate! basically.

Paul: So they did that in 1990. And so since then, they protected or enhanced over 1 million acres focusing on areas for grizzly bear recovery. And it's still going today. So you can, we'll link it to the show notes, so you can check out the website. You can make a donation if you really want to. And then in 1998, Bart did make it to the Academy Awards, but to actually host a segment on it with Mike Myers, he, like, basically presents an envelope for him. And there's this really cute footage that you can find online and part like, they open the doors and like, Bart, stand in there and he's just like,

Melissa: Can we, like, watch a clip of that?

Paul: Oh, I'm so happy you asked.

Melissa: Yeah, because I want to see it. I haven't seen it.

Paul: Okay, can you guys see this?

Audrey: Yep. Yeah.[Video clip: Ladies and gentlemen, Bart the Bear!] 

Paul: Could you imagine being in the crowd and seeing this moment? The doors open. Oh, he dropped the envelope! Mike Myers looks scared as shit. Melissa: I mean, I would be too.

Paul: Okay, so let's talk about, like, the humane treatment of bears inside of entertainment. There is some violence that takes place. There is some historical and contemporary practices involved with violent trading methods. But there is a trend in the entertainment industry to use more ethical treatment of bears, driven by public awareness. They're basically doing that with CGI, so looking up to try to see if there's any violence in particular against Bart, there wasn't much, but Audrey, I wanted to toss it to you because you had found something I did not find.

Audrey: So I watched the behind the scenes video. Some parts were hard to watch because the way that the trainer dealt with Bart just felt gross. And there was one scene in particular and I was watching it, and I was just like, oh! The director or whoever's behind the camera says to Bart's trainer, like, catch a baseball bat on his back.And they're like, “oh, do you like baseball?” And he's like, “oh, no, no. You know, I make no bones about it. That's a wild animal. You're not supposed to show the discipline, but that's a wild animal over there.” And so then they cut to scenes of him like holding up the bat. I thought he actually hit Bart, but I turned away.

Paul: He doesn't, but...

Audrey: On set, he doesn't hit him. But, like, him and the other trainer has bats that are like, yeah, attached to their back.

Paul: And his tone, he's just like [rough voice] Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

Audrey: And then once Bart calms down, he's [voice like talking to a puppy] Good boy. Good boy. [Normal voice] Then like, makes out with him or whatever. It's just it's really... it's just really weird to watch, and it's gross. And I just wanted him to eat all of them, especially his trainer.

Paul: So I can't say yes or no that Bart had a tough career. From everything I'm saying, it looks like it was awesome, but yeah. So let's move on to Bart's death. In October 1998, Bart was diagnosed with cancer and went through a couple surgeries, two, in fact, to remove tumors from his right paw. The cancer then returned and it was taking away his strength and his appetite, and they had to euthanize him.And that took place May 10th, 2000. He was 23 at the time, and his passing location was Heber City, Utah. After he received his cancer diagnosis, Bart actually became a second spokesman for the Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University.

Jordan: The bear’s terminally ill, and they still make him go out and do, appear in public appearances.

Paul: I don't think he was like he was like wearing a suit. I think, they were just filming him and like using him in the background. So talking about his quirks, what he's known for, it was his calm presence. He was also very playful. He seriously seemed like he like to fuck around when they were filming. There are a bunch of bloopers out there. He's seriously like close to making out with Doug and a bunch in them. It's kind of awesome. And he like, fucking loved marshmallows, dude. He loved marshmallows a bunch. And there's this, like, one account of a woman who was feeding Bart a marshmallow at one point, and he gently took it from her thumb and apparently that moment was etched in her memory forever.

Audrey: Did she have it, like speared on top of her thumb? Which is a weird way to feed a bear.

Paul: And oh no, no no no no, it was like a group of people coming through and they were feeding him marshmallows, it was like a set of a movie.

Audrey: But why was it on her thumb? Like, did she stick her thumb in there like Peter Piper Melissa: It was on her nail?

Paul: Now, you bring up a really good point. I just grabbed it because I was like, oh, that's kind of cute. I didn't even think about the fact that, like, she was loading her fingers with marshmallows and like, sticking a glove of marshmallows... So now let's get to the sequel.Jordan: Bart sequel? Paul: There's a Bart the Bear 2. So, there was a unrelated Alaskan brown bear in 2000 that was adopted by Doug and Lynn Seus. They first called him Little Bart, and then he grew up to 1,400 pounds. And then they were like, all right, fuck it, we're calling you Bart the Bear 2. And so he also had an acting career. He was in the film Evan Almighty, Into the Wilds, Game of Thrones, when they had a bear in an episode of that.And unfortunately, he did pass away in 2021, so he was only 21 years old at the time. Bart the Bear 2 actually has a sister called Honey Bump. Both of them served as an ambassador for the Vital Grounds organization.

Melissa: That's the nickname I call Jordan.

Paul: Honey Bump?Jordan: Honey Bump!Audrey: Honey Bump.

Paul: Honey Bump, Honey Bump.Jordan: Gross.

Paul: Bart the Bear's legacy was so big that they decided they needed another part. All right, that's all I have. I'm now going to turn it over to Audrey to do some movie magic.

Movie magic: How did they make the animals do that? (29:47) 

Hosted by Audrey

[Soft music, echoing voice: "Get ready for: movie magic."] 

Audrey: We're going to start with a game of real or fake. Before I give the scenes that I lined up to ask you about, were there any scenes where you think you spotted a fake bear?

Jordan: Yes, but I don't remember.

Paul: Yes, because you were sitting next to me and said, that's a fake ass, bear.

Melissa: I feel like you could definitely tell the mom bear at the beginning when she gets crushed by the rockslide is definitely fake.

Jordan: Yeah, I hope so.[laughter]

Jordan: There is a scene where I think the cub was a stuffed animal.

Audrey: So let's go through some scenes, including the ones you mentioned. The bear digging in the area with the beehive. Real bees or fake bees? Melissa: I'm going to say real. Paul: I'm going to say real, too.

Jordan: Real.

Audrey: Real bees. Baby bear floating on a log? Jordan: RealMelissa: Oh that's tough. I think it, I think it was real Paul: Bull. I think it's fake.

Audrey: Real baby bear.

Baby bear and Puma encounter — real or movie magic? Melissa: Movie magic.

Paul: I thought the puma was real.

Jordan: I felt like that one was kind of the same way that Homeward Bound, how they did that with the cougar or whatever. And I think that was movie magic.

Audrey: You would think that that would be movie magic. But it is not.

Paul: It was real.

Audrey: Baby bear licking big bear snout?

Jordan: Real.

Melissa: Oh, wait, I think that was fake. I think that was another —

Jordan: Oh, was that the stuffed animal?

Melissa: I yeah, I noticed it was fake looking.

Paul: Real.

Audrey: Real Melissa: What? I don't believe you. Audrey: Bart pushing the rock off the cliff. And then [imitates bear] raaawwr.

Paul: Real.Jordan: Real.

Melissa: I guess I'm going with movie magic. Audrey: Real.

Paul: Oh, they're all real. They're all real. They're all real. Jordan: Yes, Bart!

Audrey: Baby bear snuggling with the dead bear. Were either of the bears fake?

Paul: You think they had a dead bear there?

Audrey: I’m asking you!Paul: No, fake.Melissa: I'm calling movie magic.

Jordan: I think it was a real bear, but sleeping.

Audrey: No, it was. It was a pelt. Okay, let me tell you. You may have noticed that I never said fake bear because — So there were some animatronics, but when they got them on scene, the director decided that they looked too fake. And so they used them for very limited scenes. We're going to start out with just a couple of small things and then talk about the types of movie magic. So mostly one baby bear was used, but there were actually many on set. And there's literally like these women in what looks like a nursery area with baby bears feeding them formula out of a bottle. Whoever was in charge of animal care talked about tracking their urine output and how much formula they ate. So it really was like the way you track a human baby, which was kind of crazy.To make sure that the baby bears all looked the same they used hair dye and dyed them all the same color.Melissa: I feel like for a couple scenes you could tell. Like, that maybe the coloring was just slightly different between baby bears. Just a little.Audrey: I think right now is a good time to pause and show you my very favorite behind the scenes moment. Let me share my screen. [Laughter]

Melissa: Oh oh. It looks like me carrying Wayne around. Can we watch that again?

Paul: It doesn’t look real.

Melissa: He looks like a stuffed animal.

Paul: Like a porcelain bear, dude.

Audrey: I thought it was stuffed! And then when I realized that it was a real bear, he's just like, holding it up, seated in his hand. And the bear is just totally calm. This little baby bear looks like a little kid, and it.

Melissa: Oh, it looks like a little kid in a bear suit.

Melissa: It does look.

Audrey: I'm crying, ohh. It was so cute. So there were tons of different animal actors on set. I'll go in order of size. There was other insects, snails, frogs, birds, a puma, and a bear, among others.

Paul: Holy cow.

Audrey: Okay, so the types of movie magic that I binned in this movie were food motivated, trained behaviors; natural behaviors; and putting animals in insane positions. I really think that that's what it comes down to. What made this whole thing work is huge amounts of preparation. So in the behind the scenes video, the director showed a binder-level storyboards translated into four languages because the people who were working on the movie spoke four different languages.

Paul: That's insane.

Audrey: And he did that so that when they woke up in the morning, everybody knew what they were doing that way, how they were going to do it and what they were aiming for. The director encouraged natural behavior as much as possible, so he liked to just record the animals doing what they naturally would, which is great. But also kind of strange. And it kind of bleeds into the putting animals in weird situations category, because this… an example of this is like the baby cub and just putting a frog in front of it and being like, oh, what's a baby cub gonna do? Let's just watch this baby cub hop around after a frog.

Melissa: It could have ate it or something. Audrey: Yeah. And so they had frogs on set, and that's how they did that scene. They were just like, here you go, a little baby cub. Here's a frog. So the next category would be food motivated tricks. The director said bears only work for food. So some days they would go through 10 pounds of apples, 12 bags of marshmallows, a tin of salmon, two fresh salmon, and eight chickens.

Melissa: What about bananas?

Jordan: Bananas?

Audrey: Don't worry. Oh, I looked into it. 

Paul: You got a banana fact? Okay.

Melissa: Did I speak too soon? Audrey: My banana fact is that bears don't like bananas very much. So I think what we've really uncovered here is that Big Banana didn't start influencing the movie industry until like the 90s, because that's when that's when we started seeing bananas.

Jordan: The timeline is really starting to… we're getting it narrowed down.

Paul: Yeah. I have a real question.

Audrey: Yeah.

Paul: Do they eat mushrooms?

Audrey: Yes they do. Really.

Paul: That was real.

Audrey: They like mushrooms. [Paul: Whoa]. Okay. I looked it up because I had the same thought. So some of the other trained behaviors: that limp that Bart did took years to train. They trained Bart to push that rock. You remember that scene where he pushed the rock? And then when you hear the behind the scenes, the trainer says, “smile.” And so he makes like a roaring face when he… his smile command, that's what it looks like.

Melissa: Oh.

Audrey: So he got to push it. And then he was like, “smile, Bart!” And Bart was like, RAH!

Paul: That's so cool.

Audrey: And then the next one sort of fits in this category and sort of fits in the next category, which is putting animals in insane situations. And that is that they put honey on the bear's snouts to make them lick each other, because when they do— Paul: That was honey. Audrey: It was. And you hear the director saying, “I told you not to put honey on the baby bear's snout,” because I think they were worried about the big bear eating the baby bear [Mel gasps] like they purposely chose a baby bear to work with Bart. That was very like, demure. Other insane situations that they put the animals in. How do you make it look like a baby bear and a puma are about to have a confrontation? Well you simply film them about to have a confrontation. Jordan: Of course Audrey: They talked about having to have the puma’s arrival at that rock be timed perfectly with the baby bear floating on that log through the rapid river, which, by the way, was a rapid river.So the baby bear’s floating on the log or whatever. And they had to get the timing right for it to arrive at the rocks the same time the puma did. So not only was that scene real, but they filmed it multiple times.

Jordan: I wonder how many times they had to do it.

Audrey: My other favorite thing about the puma scene is that I feel like the puma trainer was lowkey dissinging on Bart's trainer, because Bart, there were always like wire lines around to keep him in where he needed to be. The trainer wouldn't get more than 13 ft away from him. They just like they did a lot of things to keep Bart in control.

Audrey: And the Puma trainer was like, “I don't know if you noticed there were no electric wires, no net. He just goes home.” Jordan: Throwing shade. Audrey: That's exactly what it felt like. It was really funny. “I don't know if you noticed.” The last scene that's in this, like putting animals in insane situations thing. They had a bunch of birds that they put in a tree. So that the baby bear could scare them out. And I'm like, this is where I feel like the director is just… he has exactly what he wants in mind, and he has to get it like, did you really need?

Jordan: There was no stock footage. He just made every single thing you could, right?

Audrey: It's like, do you really need to go so far as to plant the birds in the trees to scare them out?

Jordan: Like I appreciate that. After seeing so many bird react shots in the other movies that we watch where it's just an obvious nature film from the 70s of an owl going “whooo?”.

Audrey: Yeah, that's, it was pretty awesome. It was. And it was impressive to see that he did all this stuff. Just some random tidbits. The scat was made of pudding that they put in a tube and then squeezed out onto the ground because bear poop kind of looks like human poop. The bear print — when I saw that bear print, I immediately call bullshit — I was like, that is the stupidest bear print I've ever seen. You have a bear. Just make it walk through the mud. Like what? But no, they took a rubber boot with a fake bear print, like fake bear paw.

Paul: Yeah, it looked like shit.

Audrey: Of course they had to change the environment to film, because that's just what we do. So they moved trees. They, like, dug up a tree and moved it. They used an excavator to move rocks around to change the way the river was flowing.

Paul: Wow.Jordan: Did they. Oh my God. Melissa: Damn.

Audrey: So they had a giant fire hose that they just sprayed and created a shitload of mud. Something I thought was brilliant is that they kep the butterflies cool before they were ready to use them, because since insects, you know, get their energy from the heat in the environment around them, if you cool them down, they move very slowly.So they put them in coolers until they were ready for the scene. That way they could like place it on the bear's nose or whatever, wait for the sun to heat it up and it would be like [sounds] fly away. Ok, anyway, that's all I got for movie magic. But I do have one more behind the scenes video for you.

Audrey: This is the part with the bees, and they're all running from the bees.

Melissa: Ohh no.[Director speaking on recording:  It's much more fun to be here at 1800 meters and was running after the bears, running away from the bees, telling us to [unintelligible].].

Melissa: Hopefully nobody was allergic to bees because that could have been a disaster.

Paul: So go together okay. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

Melissa: Oh yeah. That screen shot is amazing.

Paul: All right. I'll turn it over to Melissa for audience anecdotes.

Audience anecdotes (41:45) 

Hosted by Melissa

[Music in an 80s pop style with an echoing voice: "All aboard for audience anecdotes."]

Melissa:  It's time for animal reviews. What did you guys think of Bart's performance as the bear? The rating scale I came up with for this episode will be out of five honeycombs, because when they were eating those at the beginning of the movie, it made them look delicious. Audrey: It did make them look delicious.

Paul: I was going to say I will give Bart a five out of five honeycombs. All the honey because he was on screen 24/7  doing stuff I've never seen a bear do before. It worked for me. Five out of five honeycombs.

Audrey: I totally agree. Five out of five honeycombs for Bart. I mean, he took years to learn how to limp.

Paul: That's insane.

Melissa: Yeah. That's crazy. Audrey: That makes him sound kind of bad because it took me years to learn how to limp. But that's impressive is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And just. Yeah, I mean, he performed beautifully. It was great.

Jordan: Same. I know I always give, I think every animal five out of five, whatever it is, but five out of five honeycombs for Bart and for all the reasons that you guys said, I mean, he just, he's amazing to look at in whatever movie he’s in. I just always loved Bart the Bear as a kid.

Melissa: I'm also giving him five honeycombs like big old juicy honeycombs. He was just in almost every scene of the movie, did some insane stunts I've never seen animals do before, and I also feel like he was really good with his, even like his expressions and things. Because in the movie, you know, obviously the bears don't talk and there's not a lot of spoken dialogue.And I just feel like you still got a feeling of like what was going on in the scenes, just based on the acting of him.

Jordan: He had that lip sneer when he would get really mad and his lip would just kind of like curl up and you just, he just, it looked like rage.

Melissa: You know, maybe.

Jordan: It really wasn't. But he could also just be really gentle to like the way that he was acting with the cub for a lot of it, even if they did have to put honey on the cubs snout.

Melissa: All right, now we're going to take a look at some audience reviews. Rotten tomatoes Popcorn Meter gave the movie an 82% average rating, so one reviewer would — [Melissa makes gagging sound].

Melissa: Redo that

Audrey: I felt like I got like a—

Paul: Frog in your mouth.

Melissa: Yeah, one of those f***ing frogs from the dream sequence in my throat. Okay, so one review that didn't have a name from 2012 gave it four out of five stars, and they said, Bart the Bear deserves a f***ing Oscar. Audrey: Bart the Bear does deserve a f***ing Oscar. Melissa: Hands down.Jordan: Yeah, they should have made a Oscar ceremony for it.

Paul: They dropped an f bomb in the review?

Melissa: They did. But I could not agree with that statement anymore. He deserves a f***ing Oscar.I found a couple more reviews from Letterboxd, and the average rating on there was 3.8 out of five stars. This review is from… I don't even know how to say this name, Ladel-Nick. I don't know, I'm butchering that, but they gave it a two and a half stars and said, “bro, that s*** was a real a** trained bear. They made that shit actually happen. They trained that bear so hard that it was able to ignore its animal instincts and just act all buddy buddy with the Baby Bear actor,” and in parentheses, here you go, Audrey, “Bears kill cubs if it's not theirs.” Okay, that's a typo. So there you go. And then they said, “too bad the movie itself is kind of ass.”

Audrey: Rude!

Paul: After all that.

Melissa: The last review I have is from Fratterbillis. I don't I don't know how to say any of these screen names. They gave it three and a half stars and said, “Jeremy Allen White ain't got nothing on my boy Bart.”

Jordan: There's the bear, reference. 

Paul: Dude. If the bear, if Bart, would just said, “yes, chef,” like midway through, like when they're eating that fish or if, like—

Jordan: What if they threw a frog dream in the bear?

Audrey: That would be amazing.

Paul: Oh, and they make frog legs the next day.

Audrey: What if that guy carrying the baby bear would have been like, “corner?!”

Melissa. Oh my God.It's now surprise scenario time. So I want to know if you were the trapper that was at the end of the movie. If you came face to face with the bear, what would you say to him to make him not attack you and run away? So remember the movie how they just had that mutual kind of glance and then the bear left? What would you say to him that would make him turn around and leave? 

Audrey: Okay, I've got this. I would not say anything. I would simply hold up a marshmallow speared upon my thumb and say, “Bart,” no, wait, I said, I wouldn't say anything... I would say something. “Bart.” I would point the marshmallow thumb at his mouth and he would say… and walk away

Melissa: So if he came up on me while taking a shower and I went [laughter] well, I meant like, if I wasn't in the shower. Jordan: Cooling off in the water.Melissa: Not in my shower at home. First of all, I'd be very concerned why there was a bear in my bathroom. No, but I would say so to get on his good side and make him not want to attack me, I would pretty much just be like, yo bro, you got mad. Love making skills. I heard you in the forest getting busy with your lady. I'm super jealous. Good job. And then he would just be like, yep, thanks and take off. He'd be so happy that I complimented him.

Paul: Mine was actually going to be similar. I would not say anything. I would paint my rump to look like that bear. And then we would have to go out together hand in hand.

Audrey: Dude, Paul, your butt is so flat.

Paul: I that's I would. No, I would contour it dude. I would contour it.Melissa: Contouring the shit out of your a**

Audrey: Baby, contouring is not going to save that butt. Paul: Okay, listenAudrey: Do you contour a pancake to look like a mountain? Melissa: Flat butt club.

Paul: Listen, let’s not judge the flat butt club. Okay, second of all, if I'm going to make a bear. But I'm not just going to like, a present, a pancake to it. I'm going to fluff it up and, like, I'm assuming I have some pillows I could put down there. 

Melissa: I guess I'll let it slide. Technically, you were supposed to say something that would make them not attack.

Paul: You, but okay, I would say like, “hey, hey, baby.” Like, maybe I'd have a cigarette or something.

Jordan: I feel like it's got to be funny.

Melissa: No, no pressure Jordan.

Jordan: It's got to be funny. And I don't know how to say funny things to bears.

Melissa: It doesn't have to be funny.

Jordan: What do you say to a bear? Like it's such a moment where you would go back and wish you said the right thing after you said something really stupid like it?Probably the only thing I can think of is like, “Da bears” [laughter].

Jordan: So I just say, like Ditka. I’d be like, “Ditka sucks.” And he'd be like, yeah, “Da bears.Go bears.”

Melissa: Oh, I love that though.

Paul: That would be amazing.

Jordan: Actually, he'd probably kill me then.

Paul: Could you imagine if you were a bear? Put yourself in your bear's mind and like, you come across a ginger dude, taking a bath and a shower and a waterfall.And then he just goes, “Da bears.”

Melissa: Somebody needs to draw that. Like animate that.

Paul: Bear would be just like I don’t know what’s doing

Jordan: It would give the bear pause enough for me to finish [Audrey screams BEAR PAWS] get the bear off out of my face it would give the bear paws.

Paul: What if you just say “Go bears. And then you trust fall off the waterfall.”

Melissa: Oh, God. Good job guys. I'm proud of you. Audrey: Thanks for the intriguing scenario.

Paul: Yeah, that was good.

Melissa: All right. Now we have arrived at the “adopt, take to the no kill shelter, or taxidermy” segment of our show. I'm going to give you the bear—so, Bart. But the bear, the claymation dream frogs, because they're a reoccurring theme, and then I put the cougar. But what was it, a puma. Puma? Okay, but that's that's the third option.

Jordan: Okay, I'm doing it first because I am adopting the claymation dream frogs.

Melissa: What are you going to do with them?

Jordan: They're going to live with Dunston and Bo Tat because I've adopted both of them, too. So my menagerie is growing, and they're chilling with the cats. Giving them all pleasurable dreams.I'm taking to the no kill shelter, Bart, because he deserves nice, peaceful rest and not working for the last year of his terminally ill life. Which leaves the last one as… I always forget how to say it… stuffying

Melissa: Taxidermy, taxidermy thing.

Jordan: Yeah, I guess I'm taxidermy. Who was the third one again?

Audrey: Puma.

Jordan: Yeah, I'm taxidermy that because that would be sweet to just like have laying around.

Audrey: I would send Bart and the no kill shelter for similar reasons to Jordan. Let him have a happy last couple of years. I would adopt the puma because, as the trainer in the behind the scenes video said, “he doesn't need wires, he doesn't need nets. He simply goes home. He's a very well behaved puma. I don't know if you noticed.”

Jordan: I don't know if you noticed.

Audrey: And then I'm taxidermying the dream frogs and putting them all over my house and also hiding them so that when people come over, they'll be like, just doing whatever and be like “the f***?” And like the dream frog will just be peeking out, like, inside of their mug, you know?

Paul: Like in the toilet?Melissa: I love it. Paul: I would adopt Bart because if I'm ever going to have a chance to do a fusion dance with a bear, I'm going to need one. So he's going to be in my home so we can fuse together. I would take to the no kill shelter the claymation frogs, because I want them to get as far out in the f***ing world as they can to just wreak havoc.

Jordan: So you’re disseminating them.

Paul: Yep. Yeah, we know what they did with the baby bear. Let's see what they do with humanity. And so then I guess that means I'm taxidermying the puma and I mean, that would be cool, I guess.

Jordan: Yeah, we both have a taxidermy puma.

Paul: Yeah. Right on.

Audrey: And yet my puma would be alive and well behaved, and we would just hang.

Jordan: You could come lay next to our dead pumas.

Melissa: I don't know, this one was kind of tough, but I think I would take the Bear or Bart to the no kill shelter as well. I don't know, just because, again, like you guys said, I kind of want him to have a good life.

Jordan: He deserves it.

Melissa: Maybe away from trainers so he can just chill. I would have to, I think, adopt the claymation dream frog because. Is that what you said, Jordan? I just we're on the same page here. They're just cool looking. We could put them up as decoration around the house, and I would taxidermy the cougar or puma or whatever you want to call it, and I don't know what I would do with them, but just put them somewhere.

Audrey: I'm the only one hanging with the puma? I think. So shocking.

Paul: Why wouldn't you want Bart? Dude?

Audrey: Because Bart's a bear and—

Paul: He's cute and he's huge.

Melissa: He probably eats a lot and takes humongous shits. You're going to clean that up?

Paul: But could you imagine sleeping in his nest, dude? Like when he curls up.

Audrey: That would be warm and cozy. Okay, that would actually be pretty nice. My puma would also be warm though, so yeah. No.

Paul: All right. Melissa, you got anything else?

Melissa: Nope. That's it.

Paul: All right. Thank you.

Paul: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today to talk about Bart the Bear and the, and the film the bear. [meow] God d*** it.

Melissa: The cat is pissed. Paul: And if you stick around with this next one, we're going to be doing the 2024 Academy Award winning animated film flow, featuring animals based on their real life counterparts. So if you like this show, please like, subscribe, comment on it, go to our social platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Like and comment there as well. Or even check out our website for transcription and some other cool stuff like links to what we referenced in the show.

Paul: Thank you everyone and thank you to my co-hosts, Audrey, Melissa, and Jordan. I'll talk to you next time.

All screen captures included in this article are intended to complement review and research of "The Bear"