"You Must Fight the Bear"

One of my favorite sketches from SNL was one that aired not long after Columbia Pictures (and therefore CBS?) was purchased by a Japanese company. The new head of the compnay was pitching ideas that might have been just the thing for Japan, but pretty odd for the United States.

[The two children come down the stairs] Hey! Here are the children of the wacky family! "Thank you for so many hamburgers," they say! "Ohhhh," says the father, "you cannot have hamburgers or candy canes until you do your homework!" "But we have no homework," say the children. "No homework?" Says the wacky father, "Then you will have to fight the bear!" [Father opens the door for the Bear, who now fights with all four family members.]

I laughed at the bit, not knowing that bears were such good fighters:

(Voytek) was found wandering in the hills of Iran by Polish soldiers in 1943. They adopted him and as he grew he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds. When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to "enlist" him. So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign.