Game warden Elliot Barker with a badly burned bear cub he discovered clinging to a tree after a New Mexico forest fire. The cub would be named Smokey Bear & grow up to symbolize forest safety. (1950) [248×258]

Source

SierraHotel058: “Smokey Bear” is the correct way to say it, but I think most people still say “Smokey the Bear”.

ATAKAcMAPCA: Smokey, its not Vietnam, there are rules

BoinkBoinkEtAliae: TIL New Mexico isn’t just a surreal stretch of desert and little scrub brushes along I40 with “suddenly, you’re on a fucking mountain!” when you get to Albuquerque, but has actual trees and little baby bears.

44ml: The cub was most likely named after THE Smokey Bear from the forest fire prevention campaign. That “Smokey” made his first [appearance in 1944](https://www.smokeybear.com/timeline/images/smokeysays.jpg).

Source:
https://www.smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history?decade=1940