The Bear that never was

Cartoon Brew recently had a post about a cut song from "The Rescuers".

Here is the link:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/lost-louis-prima-disney-song.html

I want to add a few visuals to that.

The song was sung by Louis Prima and the character was a bear, performing tricks at a zoo. Penny befriended the bear in this early version of the film.

Disney artist Fred Lucky started out with a few design sketches, Ollie did some

and then Milt Kahl took a crack at the bear.

As far as I know no animation was done on this character, but even these sketches by Milt are great to look at.  Wouldn't it be fun to do a test scene from Louis Prima's track with this design?

Milt DID animate a few scenes with spectators at the zoo, though.

In one an overweight guy is sitting down on a bench, pushing people next to him

sideways away from him. A girl at one end takes a fall.

Another scene shows a man throwing a coin to a coke salesman. The coke bottle is handed to the nearest person to be passed on, but the bottle never reaches the buyer.

Here are a few key drawings from that section. I'll try and put a pose test together in an upcoming post.

By the way I am a huge Louis Prima fan, and discovering this "new" song is a real find. There is such an enthusiasm in everything Prima sang, he is one of a kind.