Rock-a-Bye Bear

**Rock-a-Bye Bear** is a 1952 short directed by Tex Avery.

## Synopsis

Spike gets a job running the house for a hibernating bear. Only problem is that same bear is VERY noise-sensitive, and Spike's got a rival that wants his job.

## Plot

At the City Dog Pound, the proprietor is talking to someone on the phone. He then asks the dogs if they are up for a job. The dogs cower in the corner in silence, presumably as the jobs he offers them always end up bad, but one small dog who presumably doesn't like Butch, sticks him with a pin making him leap and howl in pain, making the proprietor think he wants the job.

Butch is taken away and the small dog watches with glee as he thinks he has put Butch through a living nightmare, until he hears the proprietor talking about what job Butch will be doing: taking care of a bear's house while he sleeps through the winter with a free room and board, a private bathroom, all the steaks you can eat as well as $200 a week.

The small dog then realizes he has made a mistake and after overhearing the address, he writes it down and then digs his way out of the pound to claim the job himself. He arrives at the address 2340 Grisly Gulch, Big Bear California. Butch arrives too.

The employer, Joe Bear, is revealed to a very ill-tempered bear who gets angry at even the slightest amount of noise. After Butch accidentally makes a noise twice by saying "Good Night" and then whistling after seeing a framed portrait of a woman on the wall, Joe grabs him while holding a bat and threatens to fire him and get a replacement if he is disturbed from his sleep again. Butch then folds the picture from the framed portrait into a paper airplane and throws it out of the window as a safety precaution.

However the small dog overhears this and begins a nasty scheme of getting rid of Butch so he can get the job himself such as hurting and tickling Butch, making him sneeze and breaking things so the sounds will be heard by Joe.

When this fails, the small dog then glues Butch's feet to the floor and plants explosives around Joe's "bear cave" and locks him in. The explosives destroy Joe's house, and only Joe's "bear cave" is left, and Joe is still sleeping. Butch then holds out his hands as if to say "Hard Luck" much to the small dog's irritation.

The paper airplane that Butch had thrown out earlier comes back. After Butch catches it, the small dog takes it and unrolls it. Seeing the woman in the picture makes him whistle in the same way as Butch, and Joe wakes up and he chases the small dog, hitting him with his bat and telling him to be quiet. It is unknown whether or not Joe noticed that his house was gone while giving the small dog his comeuppance.

## Availability

* (1993) LaserDisc - *The Compleat Tex Avery*, Side 8
* (2012) Blu-ray - *Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2*, Disc 3 (Warner Bros.)
* (2021) Blu-ray - *Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3* (restored; Warner Bros.)

## Notes

* The plot of this cartoon is fairly similar to the *Tom and Jerry* short "Quiet Please!" with Tom being threatened to be quiet by Spike or else be pulverised and Jerry overhearing and trying to get Tom in trouble.
* In the Tom and Jerry Tales episode Sasquashed, Tom encounters a bear who has a similar appearance and personality to Joe Bear.
* The running gag of the character having to rush outside to a distance away from the building to keep the noise away was also used in the Tom and Jerry short "Royal Cat Nap" and the Droopy short "Deputy Droopy".
* This is one of the few cartoons where Butch wins in the end.
* The small white dog in this short somewhat resembles that of Droopy, but except he more malicious, and antagonistic.
* MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of the cartoon on "Toon In with Me".
* Joe Bear makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 Netflix interactive film *Cat Burglar* as one of the costumes.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.whataboutthad.com/mgm-cartoon-filmography-by-production-number/
2. ↑ https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First&Search\_Arg=RE0000043690&Search\_Code=REGS
3. ↑ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/pretty-long-wait-wasnt-it-tex-averys-voice-actors-volume-3/