Bears Were Really Big in ‘50s and ‘60s
The honey bear was the first in a wave of bearmania during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
* Smokey Bear had been warning campers about the dangers of forest fires since the mid-1940s, but the U.S. Forest Service mascot reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s.
* In 1958, Hanna-Barbera’s Yogi Bear first guest-starred on “The Huckleberry Hound Show,” then starred in his own “Yogi Bear Show” from 1961-63.
* In the mid-1950s, Post introduced its Sugar Bear to sell cereal.
* In 1961, Disney bought the film rights to Winnie the Pooh, who hit the big screen in 1966.
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