Bear Shit – A Cigarette for the Stout of Heart

“Made from Genuine and Unadulterated Bear Shit” – So reads the side of this cigarette pack label. I sincerely hope this is not a case of truth in advertising. The other side of the label reads “The cigarette that you always wanted to smoke but were afraid to try.” Even after 5 seasons working at a nature center, and having handled quite a bit of excrement – we called it “scat” or, more politely, fertilizer – I would not want the remnants of a bear’s digestive track anywhere near my mouth.

If the idea of flaming poo near your mouth isn’t enticing, the design on the pack is cute as a button (much like the “Cookie Jar” brand, which features a teddy bear). A panda bear is sitting in a patch of bamboo shoots and smoking his favorite brand. From the smile on his face and the sparkle in his eyes, the taste must be wonderful. Then again, he could just be taking a shit.

Chapultepec Zoo Panda

This is part of a series of packs my father picked up in the late 1970s in Tijuana, Mexico. (Check out the “Bull Shit” Cigarette label!) Why, you ask, is there a panda bear on a Mexican cigarette pack? Great question! In 1975, the Chapultepec Zoo received its first pair of pandas – Pepe and Ying Ying – as a gift from the People’s Republic of China, and they proceeded to have Latino panda cubs. That’s a lot of manure for producing Bear Shit cigarettes.

(Read: April 29, 2013 – “Famous Giant Panda Dies in Mexico City Zoo”)

Image Credit – By Hmaglione10 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Like the other packs in this series, the Bear Shit label features a friendly description on the reverse. The text praises the pleasant flavor and declares, in English that would make my 4th-grade teacher Mrs. Zisow cringe, “You can’t find this kind of cigarettes in eny other part of the world. If you smock this cigarettes you are going to feel like an other man.” This is a clear example of a Mexican company catering to the American tourist crowd vacationing in Tijuana and elsewhere around the country.

Do you love the image of a cuddly bear smoking? Check out my fan-fiction story, “In Which Winnie the Pooh Picks up a Smoking Habit and his Friends Plan an Intervention.”

Bull Shit! Good Till the Last Puff

In my summer camp, one of our favorite break activities was a card game called “Bull Shit!” It was all about calling your opponents’ bluffs, and screaming “Bull Shit!” as often as possible. Hmm, I wonder why the counselors didn’t like us…

“Bull Shit!” is one of those inventions of American slang that makes our language so endearing. Allegedly, Leonid Tarassuk, former curator at the Hermitage in Leningrad and noted jokester, fell in love with this phrase when he was fighting against Soviet anti-Semitism and applying to leave the country. It became his favorite slogan, according to Soviet Jewry activist Fabian Kolker, and he stamped it on every visa request the government denied. At some point, he even wore a belt with “Bullshit” engraved on the buckle.

But this pack of cigarettes takes the cake for Bull Shit ingenuity. The label features a bull, you guessed it, fertilizing the field with a patty of his excrement. And he looks so happy, with a smile that reminds me of that look my friend’s baby makes while making a “deposit” in his diaper. This is genius advertising, because the first thing a cigarette smoker wants to be reminded of is that his tobacco was fertilized with poop.

My grandfather got a kick out of these cigarettes and used to show them off. He had a whole series of cigarette packs – including horse shit, rabbit shit, cangaroo [sic] shit, chicken shit, donky [sic] shit, and bear shit – all produced by a tobacco manufacturer in Tijuana. They were gifts from my father and a friend of the family. Yeah, they were real shitty gift-givers.

For fun, check out the text on the back of this pack in the picture below. Apparently, these were real tobacco cigarettes (as indicated by the Mexican tobacco stamp. But the manufacturer had a blast, writing “We ar[sic] happy with Our Cigarettes Shit” and “Bull Shit Cigarettes… You really taste good!…” on the side of the label. These are great gag cigarettes to show your friends, but as the pack warns, you probably wouldn’t want to give them to a young cow in love.

Cookie Jar – From R. R. Tobin to A. A. Milne

Of all the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Woods, I suspect Owl would be the most likely to develop a smoking habit, puffing on a pipe packed with sweetly flavored tobacco, probably cherry berry.

Actually, Gopher would probably smoke too, but he’s not in the book you know.

But if you cured some tobacco with a honey run smell and marketed it with the brand name “Cookie Jar,” I think Pooh Bear might be tempted…

Joan of Arc

Not many European ladies evoke grander visions of heroism than Joan of Arc. 15th-century heroine of the Hundred Years War, she encapsulates the French struggle against the British. Amid a struggle for control over continental Europe, young Joan saw visions of saints encouraging her to work on behalf of French rule. The French people have immortalized her struggle for the nation, especially her divine calling and her execution by her enemies as a cross-dresser (she wore male armor for battle and for protection).

Jeanne D’arc Silent Film (1900). By Georges Méliès ([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While she might not meet the current French ideals of lady’s fashion – Erté would exchange her armor for a flowing gown and Louis Vuitton’s modern designers would replace her sword with a handbag – Joan of Arc and her valor remain a symbol of French nationhood and morality. She has inspired numerous memorials, including several films.

Ingrid Bergman (public domain, via wikimedia commons)

Golda Meir

No less a personage than Ingrid Bergman, mid-century deacon of the film industry, fought to portray her on the silver screen. Three decades later, Bergman would portray that other great woman of valor (who some have also accused of appearing too manly), Golda Meir, in A Woman Called Golda (1982).