Smokey Bear

Flightless Bird

David Farrier

Comedy, Flightless Bird, Documentary, Society & Culture, David Farrier

5 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand the origins of Smokey Bear, an educational mascot who’s turned into the longest-running PSA in American history. Farrier then gets a tip that there is a real Smokey Bear, so travels to the sleepy town of Capitan, New Mexico. Farrier searches for Smokey’s alleged gravesite, meeting with park ranger “Max” to understand the secrets of Smokey, a bear that ended up with their own Zip Code. Along the way Farrier learns about another local legend, Billy the Kid - leading to the question: Who is the most famous local? Smokey Bear, or Billy the Kid?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm David Farrier, in New Zealand are accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure
0:06.0	out what makes this country tick.
0:08.8	Now a while back we did a whole episode about Bears and how the shaggy hairy creatures help shape the experience
0:15.6	of the American outdoors.
0:17.7	What we're talking about is a relationship.
0:20.3	The bear is a thing that you can get your, literally, you can get your hands on, or it can get its claws on you.
0:27.0	But we're also talking about nature as an agent in our lives.
0:31.0	In that episode, we briefly touched on the cultural icon that is Smoky Bear, an educational mascot who's turned into the longest running PSA in American history.
0:42.0	Somehow a cartoon that existed running PSA in American history.
0:43.0	Somehow, a cartoon that existed outside of Disney
0:46.6	ended up being one of the world's most recognizable
0:49.3	fictional characters.
0:51.0	Don't play with matches. Don't play with fire.
0:54.0	Only you can prevent wildfires.
0:58.0	And America takes the image of Smoky seriously.
1:02.0	His image is protected by US federal law. Pirate Smoky, Deface Smoky,
1:08.0	sell Smoky, and who knows what could happen to you. I wanted to learn more about how this bear got so big. Who made Smoky? What's Smoky doing?
1:18.0	And why do millions of Americans care about a bear that's not even real? So, grab your shovel, ripped jeans and weirdly muscular
1:26.8	torso and prepare to prevent some forest fires, because this is the Smoky Bear episode.
1:34.0	Flightless.
1:39.0	Flightless.
1:40.0	Bird Touch down in America.
	...

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