Barney Bear

Barney Bear is an American series of animated cartoon short subjects produced by MGM Cartoons. The title character is an anthropomorphic cartoon character, a sluggish, sleepy bear who often is in pursuit of nothing except for peace and quiet. 26 cartoons were produced between 1939 and 1954.

The character was created for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by director Rudolf Ising, who based the bear's grumpy yet pleasant disposition on his own and derived many of his mannerisms from the screen actor Wallace Beery. The character was voiced by Rudolf Ising from 1939 to 1943, Pinto Colvig in 1941, Billy Bletcher from 1944 to 1949, Paul Frees from 1952 until 1954, Frank Welker in 1980, Lou Scheimer in 1980, Jeff Bergman in 2004, and Richard McGonagle from 2012 to 2013. Barney Bear made his first appearance in The Bear That Couldn't Sleep in 1939, and, by 1941, was the star of his own series, getting an Oscar nomination for his fourth cartoon, the 1941 short The Rookie Bear. Ising left the studio in 1943. Three additional cartoons were produced and directed by George Gordon before he too left in 1945.

Ising's original Barney design contained a plethora of detail: shaggy fur, wrinkled clothing, and six eyebrows; as the series progressed, the design was gradually simplified and streamlined, reaching its peak in three late 1940s shorts, the only output of the short-lived directorial team of Preston Blair and Michael Lah. Lah and Blair's cartoons had a direction much more closer to cartoons by Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery. Both worked as animators (and Lah ultimately as co-director) on several of Avery's pictures. The last original Barney Bear cartoons were released between 1952 and 1954, directed by Ex-Disney/Lantz animator Dick Lundy. Lundy used Avery's unit to produce these cartoons while the latter was taking a one-year sabbatical from the studio. In the films from the late 1940s and early 1950s, Barney's design was streamlined and simplified, much the same as those of Tom and Jerry.

In the 1941 cartoon The Prospecting Bear, Barney is paired with a donkey named Benny Burro. Though Benny would only make two further cartoon appearances, he would later feature as Barney's partner in numerous comic book stories. In the 1944 Avery cartoon Screwball Squirrel, Barney Bear is mentioned by Sammy Squirrel as he talks to Screwy Squirrel at the beginning.

Barney Bear would not appear in new material again until Filmation's The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show in 1980. More recently, Barney Bear appeared in the direct-to-video films Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse in 2012 and Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure in 2013. Giant Adventure once again paired Barney with Benny Burro. Barney Bear also made cameo appearances in Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes in 2010 and Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz in 2016.

The series begins with the title character, Barney Bear, usually trying to accomplish a task in his series. He can be a bit lazy, but not too lazy. But he tends to overdo or do his task the wrong way. He also has a hard time going to sleep, but when he finally does go to sleep, he is a heavy sleeper. Mostly, he doesn't talk, but sometimes, he does.

At times, he was paired with Benny Burro, a curious donkey who accompanies him on several occasions, but mostly when he's in the west (Benny never spoke, but he did in the comic books).

Like many animated cartoons from the 1930s to the early 1950s, Barney Bear featured racial stereotypes. After explosions, for example, characters with blasted faces would resemble stereotypical blacks, with large lips, bow-tied hair and speaking in black vernacular.