Fished Bear

Fished Bear is a Fatso the Bear short that was released on April 27, 1976. The short can be found on disc 2 of Joey Drew Productions' 80th Anniversary Collection: Celebrated Shorts: 1940s–1980s.

Synopsis
It's fishing season! Ranger Willoughby is stocking the lake, much to Fatso's delight as he tries to intercept a meal intended for the anglers. Fishing season has begun and park ranger W. Reed Willoughby has decided to go out to the lake to catch some fresh fish. Fatso the Bear is also making attempts to catch fish, but every time he finds one, he gets distracted and drops it, so instead he chooses to intercept the fish that the local anglers have caught. Willoughby sees the fish disappearing before his eyes, so he wonders what could be happening. Then, he finds Fatso with a few fishing nets and rods, and asks him what he is doing; when the bear responds in his own unintelligible "bear-speak," the ranger commands him, "Go fish like a bear!" Willoughby then fills a tub with water and inserts fish eggs into it, causing a number of little fishes to pop up out of the water like plants pop up out of soil. When the ranger gets to the lake to dump the fish, he finds Fatso in there, trying to eat one of the small fishes, which is then consumed by a much larger fish. Fatso tries to remove the small fish from the belly of the large fish (and succeeds), and the bear clutches five other large fishes that jump out of the water, but then Willoughby appears to measure the fish, while at the same time punishing Fatso by hitting him in the head with his boat and sinking him into the depths of the lake. When Fatso grabs the fish (again) and emerges from the lake, he discovers a fish larger than any of the others; this turns out to be a fish balloon with which a young child is playing. Fatso pops the balloon, and both the boy and Willoughby kick the bear in the knee. Fatso thinks of some other way to foil the anglers, discovers the same boy from before walking on the shore of the lake with a toy boat, removes the bottom from the boat, ties it onto his head like a hat, and then submerges himself into the lake so that only the top of his hat shows, tricking the anglers into thinking that there is a shark in the water and causing them to flee in terror. He then steals all of the anglers' bags of fish, but then he loads the fish in these bags into Fatso's airplane, giving him more of a full load than he was expecting. However, Fatso decides to stuff himself into the plane, which proves to be too small for him, Willoughby and the fish, and then all of the fish in the plane, along with the bear, fall down into the lake. Willoughby gets a telephone call from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which tells him to stop stocking the lake, as fishing season had ended yesterday, much to his shocking. The ranger then takes out his scissors and cuts the rods of various anglers, trying to stuff some of their fish into his bucket, but then he finds Fatso playing with various fish, and tells him "Fishing season's over!" He then paints a red X over the "Fishing Season" sign and flips it over to reveal the message "Hunting Season Open." After this, Fatso gets hunted, with guns fired at him from all directions, and running about as the cartoon irises out.

Characters

 * Fatso the Bear (voiced by Phil Monroe)
 * W. Reed Willoughby (voiced by Bob McFadden)
 * Boss on Phone (voiced by Rudy Larriva)

Trivia

 * The underwater fish picking scene is similar to the fish shopping scene from Kitten Café (starring Lucky, 1970).