I was minding my own business, taking a leisurely drive down South Vermont in Los Angeles, when I encountered a sign for Perfect Paint & Body. Now, I’ve never felt a need for help in achieving a perfect body, but the sign nevertheless caught my attention. I think it was the brown-painted silhouette that (figuratively) jumped out at me:

Now, before I get to the shape of that silhouette, isn’t it a little odd that a place that calls itself “perfect paint” has a sign that looks like it was painted by a four-year-old with a bottle brush and some muddy poster paints? I mean, if there’s one thing you want to emphasize when you’re a paint business, wouldn’t it be paint?

But let’s leave that critique aside. Of greater interest is the shape of the silhouette. Am I imagining things, or is this one of the elusive “Laughing Bears” that I discussed in an earlier post? Indeed, it turns out that this was part of the Bear network back in the 1940s. According to my research, the bear was still a legit, laughing bear as recently as the late 1990s. At that time the establishment was called Modern Day Auto Center. It was sold to the four-year-old kid at Perfect Paint in 2001.

So, what do we learn from all this? That the Laughing Bears are slowly eroding away, and we should enjoy them while they’re still around! Please send me any photos, or even simply your tips as to locations. Without eternal vigilance, we may find ourselves in a world without laughing bears.