Male (Charlie and Junior) Female (Bessie and Suzy)
Family
Granny Beary (Bessie's Mother)
Significant other
Pete (Charlie's Friend)
The Beary Family (also known as The Beary's Family Album) is an American animated and cartoon animal theatrical series created by Jack Hannah for Walter Lantz Productions. Twenty eight shorts were made from 1962 to 1972, when the studio closed.[1]
History
Suzy and Junior in "Fowled-Up Birthday"
The series focused on Charlie Beary, the incompetent family man, his nagging wife Bessie, their well-meaning but half-witted teenage son Junior and their younger daughter Suzy, who later got a pet named Goose Beary, who never gets along with Charlie.
Jack Hannah initially conceived the series based on a family of five (four family members and a pet), but Hannah would later leave the studio after directing the first two shorts. When Paul J. Smith became the series primary director, the concept would be significantly redeveloped. Suzy and Goose Beary would be phased out to focus more on the dynamic between Charlie and Junior. Bessie would also received a redesign in Rah Rah Ruckus (1964) and portrayed more as a nagging housewife who chastises Charlie over his mistakes. Smith would continue the series until 1972, when the studio closed.
Critics have since called the series dry and witless under Smith's direction. Animation historian Jerry Beck would include series in a list of TV cartoons that should be forgotten on Cartoon Research, claiming it had "ugly art, corny verbal gags and even cornier visuals...The groans from audiences when these cartoons came on in front of Universal features like Airport or Play Misty for Me can still be heard."[2]
Voice actors
Paul Frees – Charlie Beary, Junior Beary, and Goose Beary
