Within
the animal kingdom I have to assume bears are seen as somewhat of a
success story (at least when it comes to show business). I bet you
can’t even think of a single television program, business, or radio
show which doesn’t prominently feature a bear in some way. Go ahead and
try. I’ll wait.

OK. You back? Did you actually try it? If you
did, I’m sure you were probably able to think of about a hundred things
which don’t involve bears at all. I guess you called my bluff, and
I hope you’re satisfied. But in any case, here are my awards for Worst
Famous Bears Ever.

The Goldilocks Bears

OK you
bears, let me get this straight: Some nosy, high-maintenance girl
breaks into your house, rifles through your things, eats a bunch of
food which obviously does not belong to her, and then proceeds to sleep
in your beds. You come home, discover what’s happened, and what do you
do? You throw her out! Disgraceful.

I think you bears have
forgotten your roots. Let me refresh your memory: The bear punishment
for trespassing is mauling. Plain and simple. That girl broke into your
home, bears, YOUR HOME! If that isn’t a maulable offense, I don’t know what
is. At the very least you should’ve torn some hunks of skin from
her back, or mangled up her face a little.

And don’t get me
started on your lifestyle. Bears living in a house? Bears eating
porridge? Bears sleeping in beds?! What a bunch of phonies. You bears need to
take a good look at yourselves in the mirror (which, might I add, you
should not own because you are bears). This sort of behavior might be
excusable for pigs, but you’re supposed to be ferocious carnivores.
Smarten up.

Smokey (The) Bear

At first glance,
this bear might seem alright, but really he’s just as disgraceful as
any other bear on this list (if not more so). The same things I said
for the Goldilocks bears goes double for him. As a bear, if you want to
discourage people from starting fires, you don’t go on television and
ask politely, you get your ass out there and start butchering up
some campers.

Do you really think litterers give a crap about what
some bear in a ranger’s hat says? “Oh no, that shirtless
anthropomorphic bear on TV pointed at me and told me to pour water on
my campfire before I leave, guess I’d better do it!” Don’t make me
laugh. You might even be making things worse.

Personally, I
know every time an animal tries to tell ME not to do something I go out
of my way to do it even more just to spite them. “Who does that old owl
think he is, ordering me not to litter,” I’ll say to myself as I hoist
an old television off an overpass and into the rushing river below,
“I’ll show him who’s king of the jungle.” Then I’ll dust off my pants,
get back into the car, and drive home, making sure to toss some fast
food wrappers out the window on the way. That sort of littering gives
me a lot of satisfaction.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

The old rhyme goes like this: “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t Fuzzy, was he?”

This is a tough question. I’m not entirely
sure I’m equipped to make judgments as to the hirsuteness of this
particular bear based solely on the information which has been provided to me. But since the
author is practically forcing me to, I guess I’ll say no, he wasn’t.

I feel my reasoning behind this is sound. Here’s the evidence we have:

A. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear

B. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair

The
second part alone would be enough to get this case thrown out of court.
Obviously if a creature does not have hair it would be impossible for
it to be considered fuzzy. Unless of course the author is making a
distinction between hair and fur, in which case it is entirely possible
that this was simply a trick question (i.e. Fuzzy Wuzzy did not have
hair, but he certainly did have fur, so therefore he is indeed fuzzy).
But as there is no overt reference to this in the text, I’m going to
have to stick with my original answer of no.

Showbiz Pizza Bears

Some
bears are not bears at all. Some are machines; a layer of dusty worn
fur loosely covering a grinning silver exoskeleton. I don’t think it’s
really necessary for me to explain why these two terrifying animatronic
monstrosities were included on
this list, but lets just go right ahead and close out this article by
taking a look at these two bears and their
bandmates (who, in case you didn’t know, would often perform at Circus Pizza and Showbiz Pizza restaurants in the 90s).

Billybob Bear & Beach Bear

Wow.
I’ve never seen such a couple of idiot bears in my life. Billybob
apparently is some kind of a hillbear who simply stands on stage
grinning and fake strumming that awful bark banjo of his. None of the
songs ever have banjo, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t play on every
one. If I remember correctly, he always has a jug of moonshine (marked
XXX) sitting on the ground next to him while he performs too. What a
lush.

And don’t get me started on Beach Bear. I think he’s
supposed to be Jimmy Buffet, but he looks more like Superdave Osborne
to me. And is he wearing a wig? Forget it. I don’t wanna know. I’m not
even sure what type of bear he’s supposed to be. He looks more like a
sloth. I’m pretty sure a sloth isn’t a bear.

The Band

Uh
yeah…OK. So this is what you’re going with huh? This is the rest of
the Showbiz Pizza band? Let’s see here: In the top row we’ve got
Mournful Spacedog with Rosachea on drums (well, drum anyway),
Wild-Eyed Child Predator Wolf in Foppish Vest on…muppet I guess, and
then a bird in a drum of tar holding a notepad with a plant growing out
of it’s head. Seems perfectly normal to me!

Then in row two are
Gorilla in Satin Tuxedo and the murderous cheerleader mouse woman with
ample breasts (seen reveling after a kill in this photo). The thing I
remember most about this mouse was that kids would always run up and
lift up her skirt to try and get a cheap thrill. Obviously they didn’t
think this through. I’m not quite sure what they thought the best case
scenario was going to be. Leave it alone.

And
that’s all the Worst Bear Awards I can stand to hand out right now.
Don’t expect to hear any more about bears for along time either,
because I’m sick of them.

P.S. I hate bears.