Our Nation needs its Teddy...

 Did you have one?  Not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't have one, even if not a bear, a stuffed animal that was a part of you as a small child.

It is National Teddy Bear Day, each September 9th is set aside for this legendary piece of our history.

Arguably the most iconic toy in the history of civilized man, even if it only officially came about in the early 1900's and named after President Theodore Roosevelt, who got the nickname, Teddy (which he hated) after a hunting trip in Mississippi around 1902.  "Invented" in the US and Germany at pretty much the same time.  In the US Morris Michtom and Richard Steiff in Germany under his mother, Margarete Steiff's company.

The image of the Teddy Bear has been represented in stories, songs and films.  The toy is still seen by many children as the ultimate security blanket, many times, over the blanket.

There are Teddy Bear runs that have leather clad bikers running bears to toy drive destinations during the holidays.  Community events to raise the toys for local children, our local Zoo does one every year.

I remember my bear clearly but unfortunately did not keep it from my childhood, wish I would have, sentiment means a lot to some. 

Just look at all the ways that the bear has been promoted and used to promote projects and stories.  Winnie the Pooh, Fozzie Bear, the Hair Bear Bunch, Yogi Bear, Smokey the Bear,  Baloo, the Care Bears, and Corduroy.

Throwback Thursday : The Cartoon Booth

 In a small town, the local Wal-Mart provided little entertainment but it was the only store in town large enough for coin operated games before arcades came around.  When you got to big to ride the merry-go-round you went for the cartoon booth, usually featuring Terry Tunes (which I'll do a history on at some point) but there were others to enjoy too.  For the price of a quarter, you could sit and enjoy an entire cartoon... if it was working right 😆

They had an all-star list of cartoons... from 20 years before but they were still entertaining and fun, the company would change out the reels every three months or so.

Heckle & Jeckle were one of the mainstays of the booths.  A pair of trouble making magpies who were always looking for a new deal to get in on.

In the hero department, the resident top guy was one of the smallest of all time, Mighty Mouse.  Looking back, almost all the stories were pretty much the same but the nostalgia of that classic theme song still bring back great memories for so many of us who still have a little kid inside.

Some of the characters, like James Hound, were very forgettable.  A really back knockoff of the spy genre, James Hound had more trouble with his own equipment then he did with the bad guys he was after, luckily there was only one or two lemons like this on a reel of 12.

The Mighty Heroes, this bunch was both hysterical and fun, but there weren't that many episodes.  The team featured, Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man, Cuckoo Man & Diaper Man... yes, those last two are correct.  When trouble broke out in the fictional city of, Good Haven, this team of accident-prone bunglers would burst into action and often into each other.

Betty Boop & Popeye the Sailor would also have episodes on the reels.  Not a lot of people know that Popeye first appeared in a Betty Boop cartoon.  They were classics but Betty ended up being taken out of the machine in my town, she was still to risque for good old Bolivar MO 😆

Another of the great, or not-so-great, from this crew was, Deputy Dawg, a country law man who would have all kinds of trouble from towns folk and two bear cups who liked to play hooky from school.

Like several others, Deputy Dawg ended up getting a reboot on the new Mighty Mouse show on Saturday Mornings, but only lasted one season.

He didn't make it to every reel but every so often, the man of steel, in his Max Fliescher form, would surprise you with a classic episode.  Superman was such a treat because those episodes were far longer than most of the cartoon shorts for the other characters. 

One of the biggest mainstays of the groups though, was Woody Woodpecker, he had at least two episodes on each reel, as he was still seen as the biggest cartoon star in the world that wasn't under the ownership of Disney or Warner Brothers.  And, his episodes were all over the board from the original to what the modern was at the time.

These classics are still such today, still fun and entertaining, if you can stomach the stereotypes from the ages, they are some of the purest cartoons of their era.