Smokey and the Ducks

[Dan Shane]

CHRIS WRITES:

> Rather than creating the spokescritter Smokey Bear, as the U.S. Forest
> Service did about that time, the USFS should have seriously considered
> distributing THIS story to campers and park visitors as an illustration of
> how (and how NOT) to camp.

AND I RESPOND:

Hey, don't be dissin' on my bro' Smokey!

I agree that VACATION TIME would have made an excellent handout then (and
still would now), but Smokey has proved an excellent spokesbear for the
Forestry Service.  I could wish that the USFS had approached the publishers
for Barks' help in developing a crossover story with Donald and Smokey -- I
think such an idea would be fun.

I haven't read VACATION TIME for many years, so I don't recall if Barks uses
a discarded cigarette as a firestarter, but Smokey has always warned us of
the dangers of smoking in the woods along with carefully neutralizing our
campfires.  It's a fact that most of the preventable forest fires are
started by careless smokers, and I suppose Disney wouldn't even allow
someone to be shown smoking in a comic these days.  After all, Pecos Bill is
known to have given it up in the DVD release of MELODY TIME.

Dan