Matt over at animatronicbear.com has one of those businesses you only find in puppetry - he supplies animatronic animal impersonators for films and television. Want a bear to do something in your TV commercial that a real animal can't? Matt's probably the guy to call.
Of course the problem with these bears - like most realistic puppets - is that they're only effective when the director understands their limitations and knows how to shoot them properly. It's much harder to double animals on film than it is to create a monster or an alien because people instinctively know how animals should move and act.
For example, I love this Canadian ad the bears appear in for Goldseal Salmon...that is until the second last shot when one of the bear starts talking in a close-up. The bear's mouth has limited articulation and it really shows. By contrast, this "Danger Bears" ad is also funny and more effective because it uses one of the same bear suits much more selectively. The key is really to design and edit shots to conceal the flaws in an animatronic (no animatronic suit is ever 100% perfect) rather than highlight them.
Matt's "Burt the Bear" seen in these ads was fabricated by the talented folks at Animal Firm.
