Main cast: Seth Green (Noble Bartell/Bubba the Bear), Alexie Gilmore (Noble’s Wife), Devin Bright (Caleb), Will Buie Jr (Ray), Jessica Miesel (Noble’s Psychologist), Cory Scott Allen (Dubbing Director), and Patricia French (Dubbing Director)
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Noble Bartell has finally made it big in Hollywood as the voice actor of the popular cartoon character Bubba the Bear. Think of that character as a more bumbling, stammering version of Wil E Coyote or Daffy Duck who keeps failing while violently inflicting harm on himself when his plots go awry. I’m not sure how such a character can be allowed to be on TV in the present day, but hey, fiction. In this episode, poor Noble soon finds himself terrorized by Bubba the Bear, whom only he could see, as the cartoon character is mad at how his voice actors always make him come off like a redneck idiot stereotype.
Bubba the Bear is the first episode in Bobcat Goldthwait’s anthology series for the truTV cable channel, and this one sure knows how to make a splash as they add an animated character into an otherwise live action episode. Think Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, only this time we have one cartoon and everyone else is human.
Given how often Seth Green operates behind a cartoon character, I’ve almost forgotten what he looks like. He carries the entire episode on his shoulders, bringing a kind of physical and vocal kind of mounting mania as he becomes increasingly desperate to stop Bubba from messing with his family.
However, I’m not sure what this episode is trying to say. Why is Bubba directed his ire at his voice actors, when he knows that these voice actors are mere “cogs”, as he puts it. Shouldn’t he be targeted the creators or the dubbing directors, as these are the ones responsible for him being the dumb redneck bear that he is? The whole thing makes little sense. Given that Bob Goldthwait wrote this episode as well as directed it, perhaps he doesn’t want to single out people like himself as the ones responsible for the offensive caricatures that those cartoon characters were back in those old days, even if that may make more sense than blaming the voice actors.
Oh, and don’t expect gore, sex, nudity, whatever in this episode. The whole thing is pretty tame. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but the story itself is a bit of a toothless mess, so there’s nothing to keep this thing from being a pleasant kind of forgettable.
