Behind The Awkwardness: Born To Be Wild
March 8th, 2011
“My grandmother thought it would be cute for me to get my picture made while on the back of a motorcycle being driven by a bear.”
(submitted by Loren)
Behind The Awkwardness: Born To Be Wild
I so wish we had bears in Australia. We have to make do with 80 species of venomous snakes, and useless lard-ball wombats.
Bears on bikes? I wish.
oh, man, this is priceless. like something out of Sam & Max or such.
“bear.. ride.. er.. don’t drive too fast..”
Good for the bear! How many other bears get to drive motorcycles! They all just have to walk everywhere all the time.
He’s rebel, and was ‘Born to Be Wild’! Yeah!
Whose to say the bear wasn’t treated kindly. He looks healthy and is probably used to the muzzle like a horse is used to a bit on a bridle. Obviously well trained and raised in captivity. Some animals that are raised in captivity cannot be released in the wild for many reasons and that doesn’t mean they are mistreated.
hey, ive seen that dude befor’…wee rode’ to’gether down to the mardi gras back in ’73…..
he had an ol’ harley shovelhead’ and he shor’ was quite a hit wit the ol’ ladies…..what a time…..good ol’ smokie d. bear……
“Bear left!” I know, that was bad. In fact, it was “unbearable!”
Awwww, do you need a bear hug?
Good news is the bear is probably dead now.
“Who is driving? Oh my God, bear is driving! How can that be!?!?”
This isn’t awkward, this is shameful
First thing I thought when i saw this picture: Hotel New Hampshire!!!!
I laughed hysterically (and may/may not have shot snot out of my nose) when I saw the absurdity of this photo. It’s truly sad for the bear, but thank goodness Loren wasn’t the passenger that pushed poor Bruno over the edge!
Are we sure this is not a dead bear? Is that a dumb question?
I immediately thought of the movie “The Hotel New Hampshire”, I seem to recall that “Susie the bear” rode a motorcycle in the film…but turned out to be an actress (Nastassia Kinski) in a bear suit. Odd/sad/quirky movie….featuring lots of awkward family moments.
You are absolutely right. This is the bear from “Hotel New Hampshire”. Her real name is Robin and her trainer was Wally Naghtin.
The bear in the movie was shot by a hunter and Natashya replaced the bear and wore a bear suit.
Clearly is one of those zany, low budge 1970s Disney movies starring Eddie Albert, a couple adorable kids and a circus bear on the run.
BOOOO! Poor bear!!!
The Country Bear Jamboree has a new tambourine player!
I prefer Ralph and the Motorcycle myself
Hmmmmm. Did Grandma rub bacon grease in your hair before this picture was taken? Did she give you matches for Christmas? Or let you watch TV when you took a bath? I’m sure she love you though.
LOL Good one……..but in all fairness I’m sure all our grammas let us ride on the hood of the car…..or maybe that really was just Loren….
“We’re headin’ to Sturgis — BORN TO BE WILD!” ….. credit to JerseyPam for the inspiration!!
That’s actually pretty freaking cool. I mean, probably not for the bear. He looks a little sad.
Steppenbear?
That’s a pretty crappy story.
Grandma was right. Great picture. I wish I had a bear to drive me around on a motorcycle. All you animal lovers can cool off. It is one bear out of how many in the world? I am sure that bears do this with humans once in a while. Nobody gets upset about that. And why does this picture make me think of SuperTroopers?
That just breaks my heart. Poor, poor, poor mistreated abused bear!!!
Really a crying shame people think it’s a good idea to use animals like this.
Shame on you grandma!
All in all: genuinely awkward….
It’s an old picture.
so?
“Gramma! When I said ‘bare with me for a moment’ this is NOT what I meant!”
awkward family photo or awful family photo…. poor bear.
Earl!
TOTALLY Earl!!
The one reason I bothered looking at comments for this photo was to see if someone made a John Irving reference. Bravo! MMD
I was looking for the Hotel New Hampshire reference as well! Glad someone else knows!
That is SO dangerous…… both should have helmets.
LOL
that’s what I thought : Safety first!
Grandma thought you said you wanted to go to the maul.
Oh my gosh, all PETA issues aside, this is a funny statement.
best!
Best in sometime!!! Kudos!!
I don’t think this site has ever made me feel sad before .. just awful…
Ditto.
Me too…
that bear makes my heart hurt. what a sick way to treat an animal.
Ditto. Poor bear!
TGFG! (Thank God for Grandmas) “Get a little closer, Dear! I want to fit you both in!”
And thank the heaven’s PETA wasn’t around to stop this beautiful piece of Awkward Art from going down in history!
Sad for the bear….but what just happened to the picture of the belly dancing mom?
I was thinking the same thing.
Sweet Grandma Ringling always knew what would comfort and entertain the younguns.
Fantastic caption! Well done!
Welcome to my weekend at the bars in Chelsea.
Biker Bears… With a muzzle too… LOL
Awkward, in a “that makes me want to cry my eyes out” kind of way.
Are you sure she wasn’t just trying to get rid of you?
Wish she would have.
She was right!
I don’t know who to feel more sorry for, the poor, sad, exploited bear, or the girl !
That’s horrible, that poor muzzled bear.
that’s the first thing that came to my mind, too. not only is it muzzled, it’s probably had its claws yanked out. let’s hope this is an old photo and things like this don’t happen anymore.
i think its stuffed……
I thought so at first too, but why then does the bear have a muzzle on?
Umm… you can see the claws of the bear in the picture. And if it is indeed “stuffed” it was probably killed by a large caliber rifle… and if it’s alive I would hope there’s someone standing off camera with a large caliber rifle being that there is in fact a CHILD in the picture. I was more worried about the fact that there is a CHILD in close proximity to a POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS WILD ANIMAL.
I was more worried that the bear may have just eaten the bean enchilada platter.
Just sayin’…
Hah! I would be worried about that too — does a bear poop in the woods? Heck yeah…..but I think in an emergency he could do it on a motorcycle as well!
ok, except that (unless its a particularly vain bear) the animal was FORCED to be in that photo, whereas the kid CHOSE to be in the photo.
Are you sure the child chose to be there? The caption does say “my grandmother thought it would be cute”. You know how grandmas can be!
My first thought was of animal abuse, as well. Hopefully, this type of abuse is done with now.
unfortunatly animal abuse isn’t done… too many countries and awfull people still use animals for the “joy” of human.. how pathetic and heartless…