100 years ago, when I was growing up and network television was alive and well with all three channels and one PBS channel and 3 local channels. I watched cartoons (I still do, a lot of the same ones from my youth via DVD).
One of my favorites was Yogi Bear. It wasn’t until later that I found out Yogi was a back-up for Huckleberry Hound (another favorite) but became a breakout star and was given his own show.
It’s amusing to see Yogi and Boo Boo go after the picnic backets and get thwarted by Ranger Smith. Never having given it any more thought that that, I could see bears preferring our food to theirs.
Only to find out that bears prefer eating their natural foods—grasses, berries, pine seeds, and acorns. But droughts, for example, damage roots, shrivel berries on the vine, and force oaks to abort their acorns. Forcing bears to act more like Yogi than they probably prefer. They only come after our food out of pure necessity.
So obviously William Hanna and Joseph Barbera lied to me…