He climbs into bed, entirely unaware of the smoke pouring out of his bottom. He returns to bed, and whenever the coals pop inside his pants, he looks back at the fire angrily to try and hush it. He turns to set the kettle down, but a pair of coals pop and dance into his pajama bottoms. Barney finally boards the window up, and tries to go to sleep until the fireplace cracks and makes the kettle whistle.īarney pulls it from the fire, and the whine dies down, but when he looks at the kettle, it whines again and shoots him in the face with a puff of steam. Soon afterwards his window bursts open, thanks to the wind, and blows a bunch of snow all over him. Before he is able to cry about it, the leaky root he tied up also bursts, pouring water all over him. When he finally heads to bed, he ties up a leaking root but his hot water bottle starts leaking as well. But water leaks, a loose shutter, a noisy fire, a teakettle left on, and some stray embers all get in the way and keep him up until spring.Īfter Barney puts a "Do Not Disturb until Spring" sign on his front door, he locks it and sets his alarm to go off at Spring. Ising created the character Barney Bear in the late 1930s for MGM at this time, basing the sleepy-eyed character partially on himself.Īs autumn draws to a close, and the first gentle blanket of snow covers the great brown forest, Barney Bear happily prepares for his nice long winter's hibernation. Released with the feature film 6,000 Enemies by MGM on June 10, 1939, the short is notable for featuring the first appearance of Barney Bear. The Bear That Couldn't Sleep is a 1939 animated short film, directed by Rudolf Ising for MGM as part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Barney Bear series.