Far be it from me to “well, actually” Wikipedia, especially given I can’t be bothered to fix it myself. However, I’ve been a fan of Humphrey the Bear since childhood, and Wikipedia, this bear is not Humphrey. Yes, Disney characters change over the years, developing their look and personality. However, while it’s true that Humphrey and this bear are also non-talking bears in the semi-sentient range who interact with major Disney characters, that doesn’t mean they’re both the same bear. Certainly three years is not long enough to make these two the same bear.

Goofy is burned out, and the narrator suggests a hobby. Why not photography? And why not start with wildlife photography? Taking pictures of animals “in their native habitat” sends Goofy to the zoo, where he takes pictures of a bear. Multiple ones. The bear’s ultimate frustration at Goofy’s incompetence comes when Goofy interrupts the bear and his family at dinner. Then follows a chase across town full of sight gags.

My goodness but photography has changed since this cartoon was made. Goofy builds himself a whole darkroom in order to do such simple things as properly load his camera. Even by the time I was a kid—and I am not a young woman—it was trivially easy to just buy film and plop it in your camera. My dad was quite the amateur photographer in his day, and his camera took a spool of film you could, say, buy at a kiosk at Disneyland. He knew how to develop pictures, and indeed taught one of my cousins how, but it would not take very long for certain aspects of this to be out of date.

Take flash powder. It was already an anachronism in 1950. Flash bulbs date back to 1929. Oh, their development would take time, and the flash as we know it wouldn’t really become a thing for about another decade, but it’s curious that people my age, and even younger, know about flash powder for photography because we’ve watched as many cartoons as we have. Certain things just linger in the popular awareness because we as children saw Goofy or someone using them. Hell, explaining film to my kids is challenging enough.

Would Disney animators be amused enough by this bear that they’d develop Humphrey in the next three years? Maybe. It’s possible. It’s honestly not hard to work out the influences that brought about the character. But this bear has considerably less personality than Humphrey. His sentience is less developed. This kind of cartoon, though, is part of the standard Disney gag-heavy, plot-light short that Goofy would go through pretty regularly, and that’s honestly not the kind of cartoon they ever really put Humphrey into. He got plot.

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