The Beary Family

The Beary Family
"The Unbearable Family" is a better title than that.
Genre: Animation Comedy Running Time: 5 minutes Country: United States Release Date: April 1, 1962- December 5, 1972 Created by: Walter Lantz Distributed by: Universal Pictures Starring: Paul Frees Grace Stafford Nancy Wible Daws Butler Episodes: 28 Shorts

The Beary Family (also known as The Beary's Family Album) is an American animated series and funny animal theatrical cartoon series made by Walter Lantz Studios. Twenty eight shorts were made from 1962 to 1972, when the studio closed.

Plot

The series was about Charlie Beary, the incompetent family man, his nagging wife Bessie, their well-meaning but half-witted teenage son Junior and their younger daughter Suzy, who later got a pet goose who never gets along with Charlie.

List of shorts

• "Fowled-Up Birthday" (1962-04-01)
• "Mother's Little Helper" (1962-06-01)
• "Charlie's Mother-In-Law" (1963-04-01)
• "Goose in the Rough" (1963-08-01)
• "Goose is Wild" (1963-10-01)
• "Rah Rah Ruckus" (1964-06-01)
• "Roof Top Razzle-Dazzle" (1964-10-01)
• "Guest Who?" (1965-03-01)
• "Davey Cricket" (1965-05-01)
• "Foot Brawl" (1966-01)
• "Window Pains" (1967)
• "Mouse in the House" (1967)
• "Jerky Turkey" (1968)
• "Paste Makes Waste" (1968)
• "Bugged in a Rug" (1968)
• "Gopher Broke" (1969)
• "Charlie's Campout" (1969)
• "Cool it Charlie" (1969)
• "Charlie in Hot Water" (1970)
• "Charlie's Golf Classic" (1970)
• "The Unhandy Man" (1970)
• "Charlie the Rain Maker" (1971)
• "The Bungling Builder" (1971)
• "Moochin Pooch" (1971)
• "Let Charlie Do It" (1972)
• "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (1972)
• "Unlucky Potluck" (1972)
• "A Fish Story" (1972-12-5)

Why It's Unbearable

1. Most of the shorts consisted of just one plot, with little to no variation in its subject, to the point of being very predictable and formulaic: Charlie Beary tries to do something all by himself in order to save money, but never succeeds, ending up destroying his own house and/or causing lots of damage in the process, angering his wife Bessie, who clobbers him, and he cries to the camera.
   • Even the shorts that don't use that plot, end up being dull.
2. Suzy and Goose disappeared from the series with no explanation.
3. As the series went on, the characters suffered flanderization very badly to the point of becoming shadows of their former selves and gradually got worse.
   • Charlie Beary, while likable, is a huge Butt-Monkey character who rarely, if ever, gets a happy ending, is constantly abused by his own wife Bessie (which feels unintentionally misandrist) and is not able to do something right because of his bad luck.
   • Unintentional Misogyny: Bessie was redesigned from a typical attractive sitcom mother to a stereotypical nagging housewife. She also became more unlikable as well, treating her own husband like crap, frequently hitting him with a frying pan, and kicking him like an American football at one point.
   • Junior Beary went from just being a lazy teenager who enjoyed reading comic books, to just a generic dimwitted character who only makes things worse to his dad, despite his good intentions.
   • Goosy Beary is also an unlikable character, since he's always attacking Charlie Beary.
   • Suzy Beary went from a sweet kind girl that truly cared about her family as well as her pet to just an annoying whiny brat that gets upset for the littlest of things.
4. Awful animation done by Les Kline, which around this period was filled with laughable errors. It is limited, feeling more like a TV series than theatrical shorts, due to budget constraints. It got worse during the last few shorts from this series.
5. The cartoons directed by Paul Smith have quite poor gags and very predictable moments.
6. "Jerky Turkey" feels like a rehash of "Fowled-Up Birthday" (Charlie's son/daughter befriends a bird who's aggressive to Charlie) and "Guest Who?" (In both, Junior brings an animal he won from a contest without his parents knowing).
7. A lot of the writing with most of the shorts, especially the ones done by Cal Howard, being very repetitive.
8. Very unmemorable music throughout a lot of the series.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Good voice acting from Paul Frees and Grace Stafford.
2. The intro music is quite nice to hear.
3. The first two cartoons directed by Jack Hannah and the first three cartoons directed by Paul J. Smith (depending in your vision), have a better timing of gags and interaction than the latter cartoons.
4. Charlie Beary is the only likable character.
   • Also, Charlie does get a happy ending in some shorts such as "Charlie's Mother-In-Law" and "Jerky Turkey".
5. Goose's interaction with Suzy Beary is cute.
6. Some of the shorts can be decent, at least. For examploe: "Fowled-Up Birthday", "Mother's Little Helper", "Goose is Wild", "Roof Top Razzle-Dazzle" and "Jerky Turkey".
7. Al Coe provides some pretty quality animation as the series went on. Virgil Ross also occasionally provided some decent animation in "The Bungling Builder" and "Moochin Pooch" (both 1971).

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