Sex talk with JoJo Bear: Interview with Jeremy Morse (aka The Dancing Bear)

Hey kids, so I recently had the opportunity to interview the adorable Jeremy Morse, otherwise known as the Dancing Bear. Jeremy gives us a run-down how he has become a internet sensation and bear icon! Here is your opportunity to learn more about this speedo wearing J-Mo!  

JB: Hey Jeremy, tell us where you were born?

JM:I was born in Phoenix, Arizona.  As a kid I lived in Raleigh, NC, Atlanta, GA, Topeka, KS and grew up in Minneapolis, MN.  I came back to Arizona with my family in 1986, and other than a 4 year stint living in L.A. from 1996-2000, I have been in Phoenix ever since (nearly 30 years). 

JB: So Jeremy you have literally become internet famous with your “Dancing Bear” video have you been contacted by any celebs about your vid?

JM: The day that I posted the video was the same day that Justin Timberlake released the song “Can’t Stop The Feeling”.  Later on in that day, someone must have shown it to him, because he made a FaceBook post that said “This guy #CantStopTheFeeling” and linked to my video on YouTube.  Naturally this caused the number of views to explode like crazy and that’s when things really started to take off.

A few days later I signed a licensing contract with a company in L.A. called Jukin Media, they provide video content for various websites and TV shows, and they were responsible for getting the footage aired as the final segment of the May 25th 2016 episode of Inside Edition.  Longtime broadcast journalist Deborah Norville introduced the video by saying “THIS is what confidence looks like!”  I actually emailed her via the show to say thank you to her, and she wrote me back!  We had a fun conversation and she was kind enough to send me signed copies of her two bestselling books.

The video taking off the way it did has allowed me to do a lot of really fun and exciting things, but the best part about all of it has been the feedback I’ve gotten from people (either online or in person) who have watched it and picked up on the sheer joy that dancing brings, and said that it made them happy to see me being happy and carefree.  Spreading joy is so much more rewarding than any number of likes or followers, and I do my best to keep that in mind.

JB: Tell us something about your life that people may not know about?

JM: I am actually a licensed and certified Pharmacy Technician (CPhT) with the Arizona Board of Pharmacy, and I have worked for CVS Health for the last 16 years.  I am also certified as a Master Medicare D technician, so if you ever have questions about prescription drug coverage after age 65, I can help!

JB: Have you always been a dancer?

JM: I have always loved to move and dance, even when I was a very little kid.  The first time I remember performing was in pre-school as part of a holiday recital.  In the early ’80s I became a big fan of breakdancing, and was part of a little suburban crew (we called ourselves “The J-Breakers” because all of our names began with the letter J… so original!).  I was also involved in show choir in middle school and high school.

When my family moved back to Arizona in 1986 I discovered that I could actually take Dance as a P.E. credit at the school I was enrolling in (Glendale High School) and therefore not have to be in regular P.E. (which was constant torture) so I signed up.  I was the only boy in the class, and the “teacher” really didn’t know anything about dance at all, she just told us to “make stuff up”.  That’s where I learned how to choreograph, and create stage formations.  I was also crazy for Paula Abdul’s choreography, especially the stuff she was doing for Janet Jackson, so I started ruining my VCR’s pause button as I broke down videos to be able to learn those moves.

In junior college I auditioned for and joined the Phoenix College Dance Company, and I spent 7 years there actually learning real dance technique, as well as other styles of dance (such as hip-hop, jazz, lyrical, modern and even some ballet).  It exposed me to a lot of creative and interesting people, and broadened my experience.  I had never been part of a company, nor had I ever attended competitions or master classes, but P.C. Dance changed all of that.

It was at that time that I met a friend who happened to be a female impersonator (drag queen) and one summer he asked me if I would re-vamp one of the jazz-funk productions I had choreographed for P.C. Dance that he could use as a Talent Production for a local drag pageant.  I worked closely with him so that he was able to lip-synch with the music and dance in formation with myself and two other male dancers from P.C. Dance… and he wound up winning the crown, the crowd went nuts!  I spent much of the next 20 years working with various drag performers, both as a choreographer and as a backup dancer, performing in bars and clubs and at numerous Gay Pride celebrations in various cities, as well as helping queens compete in some national pageant systems, such as Entertainer Of The Year and Miss Gay USofA At Large.  It’s made me a huge fan of drag and the art of female impersonation.

Now, I mostly do go-go dancing at various Bear events, most frequently at MegaWoof in Los Angeles.  If someone had told me when I was younger that I would be dancing for dollars on a box in a speedo at the age of 47, I would have thought they were insane, but it’s part of my reality now.

JB: What is the craziest thing a fan has ever done to you?

JM: I was invited to dance at a huge ’90s bear party put on by Martin Cortes and QBO BearWear in Guadalajara, Mexico.  I was extremely excited by this because the ‘80s and ‘90s are my favorite era when it comes to retro dance music, and I had never been to a Mexican Bear event (or even Mexico).  Well, at midnight when I made my way down to the roped-off staging area that was set aside for me to dance in, I started to groove and when I turned and looked out at all these incredibly sexy guys in the packed club I was shocked to see that most of them were not dancing at all!  Instead they were staring and taking videos and pictures with their phones, and I have to be honest, that was a little unnerving for me!  Normally when I dance I like to feed off the energy of other people dancing in the crowd, make eye-contact, smile, wave and hopefully get that back… this just felt like I was behind a wall of glass and not connecting very well with them.  I knew I had to change that and break through, so when fellas started turning around to take selfies with me in the background, I pushed up close behind and put my arms around them to get fully in the picture with them and wave.  It made for better pictures, and gave me a chance to hug them and speak some of my awkward Spanish with them, and after a few minutes I felt the energy starting to rise as everyone started to get more and more into the music, dancing and singing along with the songs of our youth.  That feeling of dancing behind a wall went away, and that’s exactly how it needed to be.  The party was amazing.

JB: What kind of man are you attracted to? (personality, looks, attitude)

JM: have been in a relationship for 17 years with Tom Tucker (a.k.a. T-mobear on Tumblr) and he truly embodies the best of just about everything I love in a man.  I am generally attracted to heavy-set gentlemen who are built big all over, big thighs, big calves, big chest, big belly… and while I tend to be known for having a rather round butt, I think Tom’s meaty bubble butt is incredibly sexy in it’s own right!  Moving beyond the physical, I am also attracted to intelligent men who are compassionate, caring and kind.  Stable and down-to-earth, but willing to do out-of-the-ordinary things on a moment’s notice are other qualities I admire.  Most of all I like a man who is confident in himself without edging over into cockiness or arrogance.  None of us are perfect, but I appreciate a guy who is trying to be his best self without having to put anyone else down to get there.

JB: What was it like to be in the Benjamin Koll video? 

JM: I have actually been in TWO of his videos now!  The first one was for his single “I’ll Be Good” and was filmed in Chicago by his co-producer Martin Cortes during Bear Pride over Memorial Day weekend in 2016.  I had not even met Benjamin at that point, we had only talked via text, and he asked me if I would be a part of the project.  He wanted me to just dance and groove like I would on a regular dance floor at a club, but the setting would be out on the city streets of Chicago.  I started out being shirtless in a pair of shorts, but eventually moved on to being only in a speedo.  We didn’t have filming permits or anything we were just driving all over Chicago looking for interesting locations, I would jump out of the car, one of the Production Assistants (Dennis) would play the music on his phone and I would boogie for a bit.  

At one point we were on a freeway overpass over I-94, they wanted to get some footage with the clogged southbound freeway traffic in the background.  The overpass had been deserted for at least 10 minutes, but the SECOND I jumped out of the car and started dancing all these cars showed up and were slowing down to take video footage of the fat guy in the tiny swimsuit.  Then the trucks and cars on the freeway below started honking their horns!  I was thinking maybe they were honking in support, but it’s possible they could have been super-annoyed because I wasn’t exactly helping the traffic move any faster!  It was a lot of fun, but it was also extremely tiring, and by the end of the day I was completely exhausted.  However, in the final shots from the video in the hotel hallway you can see that not ALL of me was tired out…

The second video I got to be a part of was “Tell Me Why” and it was filmed this past August on location in the resort town of Ajijic, Jalisco on the north shore of Lake Chupala in Mexico.  It was my first time meeting Benjamin in person, and we clicked right away, which was important considering what we were about to try to pull off.  Martin and Ben had rented this gorgeous villa called The Venetian, it was a luxurious setting, an art-filled mansion with several bedrooms and an amazing negative-edge pool that overlooked the lake.  We didn’t have a lot of time to admire the view, though, because we had to jump right into filming.  Ben wanted me to play a real-estate agent trying to sell him on leasing this amazing property, showing off all the awesome amenities of the house while he flirted with me.  Eventually we wound up in the bedroom where I did a strip-tease for him (reminiscent of the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in “True Lies”) and then things get steamy.

We had a lot of fun during the shoot, but I never realized how much goes into making a four-minute video clip.  For example, the scene where I strip for Ben had to be repeated about a dozen times from all different angles, which meant taking off and then putting all my clothes back on again (and again, and again, and again).  Of course, the scenes where we are in bed kissing and naked with each other were much more fun (and believe me when I say we were BOTH very excited to be filming with each other, the chemistry that comes through in the clip is very real, we were both feeling it).  And who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of hours making out with a hot daddybear like Ben?  That doesn’t even cover the bathtub shots, the shower footage, or the next morning’s naked swim time we shared.  It was actually a lot of hard work, but it didn’t feel like it.  Ben did the video editing himself, and when I saw it the first time I was just blown away by how professional it looked.

By the way, the YouTube version of “Tell Me Why” is the most tame and toned-down when it comes to the eroticism.  I believe there is a much more explicit version that Ben has created (I have not seen it, only heard about it) and I’m thinking that he may release it in the weeks to come, so I hope people will follow him and tune in to see it.

JB: Name 3 perfomers you would totally back up dance for right now?

Number 3… Madonna… because she started as a dancer, and she appreciates so much about dancing.

Number 2… Paula Abdul… because she was the source of so much of what I loved about dancing, her use of the body.

Number 1… Janet Jackson… I will always love Janet the most out of all my musical artists, her music, her message, her moves… she has woven her way through my entire life, she just makes me happy.

JB: Celebrity Crush?

JM: I know a lot of people are annoyed by him, but I still find James Corden to be cute and sexy.  Tied with him is Mr. David Harbour, I just can’t get enough of Sheriff Hopper (you know how I love men in slightly-too-tight uniforms, LOL)!

JB: I have seen you rockin the Dancing Bear T shirt? Where do we get one?  

JM: The “Dancing Bear” graphic was created by the artist Noel Ibay, and you can get the t-shirt in a wide variety of sizes and colors at TeePublic.com under his storefront “Bearmusement”   Noel is an extremely talented artist, and he has several other awesome t-shirts in his store, I would encourage everyone to check them out.  All proceeds go to supporting Noel’s future artistic projects.

JB: 12k followers on Instagram and 62,000 followers on Facebook? How does that feel?

JM: The best word I can use to describe that is “unreal”.  I am continually amazed and astonished that people have followed me at all, it seems weird to me sometimes that anyone would WANT to see any of the stuff I post on social media besides dance videos and speedo pictures (like my cats Chunky and Chica, or the wacky day-trips that Tom and I take to explore Arizona).  I am very grateful that I have the ability to share causes I believe in with a large number of people (such as my favorite charity organization, No Kid Hungry) and at the same time I try very hard to post things that will bring a positive reaction (something that Chunky and Chica are pretty good at).  This is not to say that I am apolitical or have no opinions about serious issues, I have just chosen to stay quiet about certain topics (I don’t need to share everything that goes on in my head).  In all honesty, the number of followers I’ve amassed on FaceBook, or Instagram, or Tumblr are just that… numbers.  Those numbers don’t really mean much in real life, they don’t make someone a better person, or more worthy of attention.  The people that you meet and connect with in your real life are much more important, and those are the relationships that need to be nurtured and carefully cultivated.  And that’s all I have to say about that!

JB: What is the one thing you want your fans to know?

JM: Can I share two things?  First… I want people to know that I am VERY aware of how lucky I have been these past couple of years, I am grateful every day for every single opportunity that has come my way.  Every chance I have had to dance, greet, chat, hug, and take pictures with people… it has made me so happy and thankful, I truly have landed in a sweet spot, and I honestly appreciate being in those moments.  I know that this ride won’t go on forever, I’m just enjoying it while it lasts.  

Second… it took me until the age of 44 when my dad died to truly understand how short time on this planet is for ALL of us.  Alzheimer’s Disease erased me from my dad’s memory long before his body died, and I can’t even express how painful that was… but when he was finally freed from the prison of his mind, I was forced to take a closer look and confront how fast my own 44 years had gone by.  It was a huge revelation to me that I had been holding myself back from doing the things that I really wanted to do out of fear of what other people might say or think.  My dad would have been SO tickled by the things that have happened to me since he’s been gone, he would have supported anything and everything I have done or wanted to do, he just loved me like that.  Now I feel like that’s a big part of how I want to approach the rest of my life, trying to be a positive force while letting go of negativity, whether it’s internal or external.

JB: So whats next for the Dancing Bear?

JM: I am going to be dancing again for MegaWoof this upcoming weekend in Los Angeles, and I’m really hoping I can somehow find my way to get hired on for the next MegaWoof gig in San Francisco (there are a lot of great guys up there I’d like to meet in person).  I have also been discussing future collaborations with Benjamin Koll, he is making new music all the time.

I am also in the process of putting together some commercial footage for an inflatable pool toy company I’ve entered into partnership with (called BiggerKids.com), and I hope to have something fun to show before next summer’s pool season.  I am also planning on doing some more dance-related videos, although these will be much bigger scale than the quick-and-dirty throwaways I’ve done in the past, and much more choreographed than the freestyle jams I’ve created up to now.  I don’t expect any of them to go viral, but I do want to put some more content out there that shows other facets of my love of dance…

JB: So there you go kids, the dancing bear Jeremy Morse.. check out his Instagram , Facebook and Youtube pages. 

Photo Credit: Devin Lee (aka Devorama)

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