SMOKEY'S STORY

This film from 1971 is presented by Your State Forester and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service. It features television and film actor Dennis Weaver as he tells Smokey the Bear’s story, the American campaign icon for the U.S. Forest Service. The film is produced by Kaleidoscope Productions and Foote, Cone & Belding. A forest (00:08). A raccoon inside a tree (00:11). A deer (00:14). A duck with its ducklings (00:15). A deer with its fawn (00:22). A bear cub (00:25). Credentials (00:30). "Smokey’s Story" title banner (00:37). A green truck is driving on a forest road where a man walks in the middle (00:49). The man notices the car (00:54). The man, who is Dennis Weaver, and the driver start talking (00:56). A group of children is playing with matches (01:34). Dennis Weaver arrives and talks to the children about the danger of playing with matches and Smokey the Bear (02:03). Dennis and the children introduce themselves (03:35). Dennis begins to tell Smokey the Bear’s story (03:43). Views of the Lincoln National Forest in the state of New Mexico (04:05). Bear cubs climbing in trees (04:08). A squirrel, deer, and birds (04:15). Dennis continues the story about Smokey (04:22). Trees being cut down in the forest (04:32). Children fishing (04:37). A group of campers (04:40). A small fire on the forest ground (04:43). Dennis continues Smokey’s story, and the children ask questions (04:46). The small fire evolved into a great forest fire (05:08). The children ask Dennis questions (05:25). Views of the forest fire (05:43). Forest rangers arrive to fight the fire (05:47). A helicopter transports water (05:59). Forest ranger walking through the burned down areas (06:14). A deer, dead from being burned (06:39). Dennis continues talking and the children ask him questions (06:41). Rangers flying a plane (08:04). The batch of the rangers’ department (08:09). The rangers carry a bear cub rescued from the fire (08:12). Veterinarians provide the bear cub with medical attention (08:17). The bear cub runs in the grass (08:12). Rangers play with it (08:27). Views of the forest and the areas affected by the fire (08:31). Dennis continues his story, and the children ask questions (08:44). The sign of Smokey the Bear’s enclosure in the national Zoo in Washington D.C. (09:14). Visitors of the zoo (09:19). Smokey the Bear (09:21). Dennis continues his story, and the children ask questions (09:27). A cigarette bud is crushed into the ground (09:55) and stomped on (09:57). A campfire is put out with a bucket of water (09:58). The children and Dennis talk about safety measures to prevent forest fires (10:04). A man arrives (10:18). He throws a lit match on the ground (10:46). One of the children picks it up and tells the man to be careful (10:51). The kids leave (11:20). The man leaves with them (11:25). Dennis gives a pack of matches to one of the children (11:32). A sign reading "Smokey’s Friends Don’t Play with Matches" (11:37). The child rejects the pack of matches from Dennis and walks away (11:39). Credentials (11:47). Smokey the Bear is the U.S. Forest Service’s iconic representative for wildfire prevention. Despite the common belief that Smokey was named after a burned orphan bear cub, the opposite it actually true. During WWII, the Forest Service began a public information campaign, to try to prevent wildfires. The 1942 campaign featured Disney characters from the film Bambi, but the characters were only allowed to be used for one year. A new symbol was needed, and a bear character chosen featuring the name Smokey. This was adopted from "Smokey" Joe Martin, a famous NYFD firefighter who suffered severe burns in a heroic 1922 rescue. In 1950, a 3-month-old black bear cub with burned paws and hind legs was discovered in New Mexico in the wake of the Capitan fire. The cub initially was named Hotfoot Teddy by rescuers, but he was later renamed Smokey after the iconic bear of the advertising campaign. The Wartime Advertising Council (later the Ad Council) coined the famous Smokey slogan: "Remember ... only YOU can prevent forest fires."

Complete catalog record

Transcription

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh that's a quiet truck you got there i didn't hear you drive up sorry if i started you anything i can do for you oh i was just looking for a faucet one to get a bucket of water before we started the fire just in case don't want to get in trouble smokey the bear you know no we couldn't have that yeah see this trail right here yeah well you go down that for about a hundred yards and you'll come to a faucet thanks uh excuse me mister anybody ever tell you you look a lot like dennis weaver well now you mentioned it my wife does say there's quite a resemblance thanks again you bet this is the stuff that does it phosphorus if you don't have it a matchstick won't get hard enough to catch fire that thousands catches fire real easy just one little rub gets it hot enough come on jimmy we better get that water for your dad and get back one little scratch and the matchstick catches on he better be careful you might set a fire you'll really be in trouble if your dad sees you or the ranger are smoky ah come on that sounds like pretty good advice to me your folks let you have those matches no sir and if his dad finds out boy is he gonna be in trouble oh knock it off kathy well maybe you better let me have him tiger you know smokey's friends don't play with matches do they gang no oh come on mister maybe we can pull them but you can't kid me kid you about what how dangerous matches can be no about smokey the bear everybody knows that's just a gimmick there is no smoking there's no smokey well of course there is i'll tell you what you let me have those matches and i'll tell you the story of smokey the bear the true story nothing doing we don't want to hear it doing well maybe you don't but i do so do i me too come on jimmy give him the matches yeah we want to hear the story look i'll make your deal you let me keep those matches while i'm telling this story and then if you want them after i'm finished you can have them fair enough well i guess so hey mister haven't i seen you on tv before oh i don't know maybe you're on uncle ben's kitty cartoon carnival on saturday mornings right well no i you must have got me mixed up with some other guy now is everybody ready yes i suppose first i think we should know each other's names mine's dennis i'm jimmy i'm kathy turgeon i'm bobby that's mike okay now when our story first began smokey was just a cub just a little bitty baby as a matter of fact he was younger than any of you now does anybody know where he was living was this mommy and daddy that's true mike but where were they living in the forest right bobby in the lincoln national forest in new mexico now what do you think that smokey did all day look for some honey i bet she played lots of course he wasn't the only one that lived in the forest you know who else lived there jim sure that's easy people and what did they do there lots of things like camping for instance logging and fishing and stuff [Applause] and even though the rangers and most of the other people tried to be very careful a fire started now at first do just a small fire how did it start i bet some bad men did on purpose probably somebody got killed with the campfire or maybe somebody's playing with matches come on tell us how did it start well it could have started in any one of those ways nobody ever really found out for certain anyway the fire didn't stay small for very long what about the rangers could they put it out first they've got to get there you know and forest fires move pretty fast maybe 100 miles per hour don't they miss well let's just say that they all move faster than you think anyway this fire had already burned a lot of territory before the rangers got to it the rangers finally put the fire out but it cost over 35 000 50 men were injured and 17 000 acres of forest were burned but that was only part of what the fire cost there were no more trees for lumber to build houses with no more places to camp and picnic no hiking trails no fishing no place for children to play and no animals left alive but what about smoking did i say there were no animals left alive you sure did well what i should have said is there are no animals left alive except one because even though smokey was just a a little cub he was able to climb to the very tip top of a tall tall tree where he was pretty safe from the fire poor little smokey he sure must have been scared did he cry oh i should say you bet he did see he was afraid that the fire would come back and his paws had been very very badly burned they really hurt what did he do well at first he called for his mother and his father but they'd both been killed by the fire and there was nobody else around to help him so for a long time he just just hung onto the top of that tree just as hard as he could he must have been pretty tired and hungry oh he sure was after a while he didn't think he could hold on any longer and all around the tree were these great big huge rocks and he was afraid that he would fall down and hurt himself again and he was just about to let go when he heard voices the ranger that's right the rangers found smokey and they helped him down from the tree and then they took smoking and put him in their plane and took him back to the ranger station the chief ranger and his wife and his little daughter took good care of smokey they put medicine and bandages on his burn paws and they gave him plenty of milk to drink and pretty soon smokey was feeling a lot better good enough to run and play he had a lot of fun with the chief ranger and his family but well after a while he began to get home sick for the forest where he'd lived before but smokey's old home in the forest was all burned up and there wasn't anybody there to play with or to take care of it now the ranger would have liked to have kept smoking but he was growing bigger and bigger every day and pretty soon he would just be too big to live there anymore now the rangers knew that they would have to find a new home for smokey where was that well where would you kids have taken him if you'd been the rangers how about the zoo yeah that's what they know about taking care of bears and stuff and that's just what the rangers did they took him to the national zoo in washington dc and they made a special home for him and that's where the real smokey is today and ever since that he's been there he's been doing a real big job and i'll bet you know where that is mike he helps prevent forest fires he sure does but he he can't do all the work alone he needs some help and not just from grown-ups you know i'll bet you kids can think of a lot of ways that you can help smokey and the rangers prevent forest fires well if you're all camping and you build a campfire you should build it where you're supposed to not work and burn down trees and stuff crush all cigarettes get out drown campfires with lots of water those are all very important are there any others yeah don't play with matches you know that still seems like pretty good advice to me how about it jimmy you still think smokey the bear is a gimmick well still here jimmy see what's taking you kids so long to get a bucket of water oh i'm afraid that's my fault i was telling them about smokey the bear oh i see that was a good story yeah good listen it's lunchtime and your folks all want you back you know it's amazing what's that you could be dennis weaver's brother no no i couldn't be that i'll guarantee you well now that you mention it maybe not hey dad you're supposed to hold the matches till they get cold then break them into tell them what smokey says gang remember smokey abc matches don't start forest fires people do forest fires kill a lot more than trees be careful in the forest animals wouldn't burn down your homes don't burn down theirs okay it's okay it looks like i needed that lesson huh and i won't forget it either i promise you that you kids better run along i'll see you later jimmy hurry up with that water your mom's waiting jim i think that these are yours well maybe you better keep them after all smokey's friends will play with matches do they they sure don't jim they sure don't [Music] you

Sources

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Original permalink · Record added 2025-01-23 16:47:45