When I was a kid, I had a yellow teddy bear named Boo-Boo. I’m not sure why I named it that, as I don’t remember ever watching Yogi Bear, where Boo-Boo was the sidekick to the titular character. Still, I was curious when Warner Archive released a disc of 1964 movie Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear. I thought watching it might jog some memories.
Look, can I go ahead and mention something that bothers me about this feature? It’s that title. It’s just so strangely bland. It’s why Triumph of the Will isn’t titled Hey There, It’s Hitler!
I wondered how a movie could be made with Yogi as the main character for 90 minutes. In 2010, he became fully-realized via CGI in Yogi Bear. I don’t know what circumstances could force me to see that movie, but I can likely imagine some of what that would entail.
Instead, this 1964 film is likely the best that could be done with his character and his few shticks. The humor is of the kind I think most people familiar with Hanna Barbera cartoons will expect. I don’t recall even chuckling once, but I did smile quite a bit. Anybody who watches this now will be doing so for the nostalgia factor and not because they think it’s going to be gut-bustingly hilarious.
The three act structure of this is tellingly like three half-hour episodes strung together. There’s the typical shenanigans in Jellystone National Park, then there’s being captured by a low-rent circus, followed by a big finale in the city.
In that first act, spring has arrived and the bears are coming out of hibernation. This has definitely awakened something in Cindy Bear, who decides she is going to get her freak on, and Yogi will the bear for the job. Yogi, on the other hand, demonstrates that fear of commitment all males of that era seemed to have in movies on and TV. Boo-Boo is nothing more that the straight man to Yogi’s antics.
Those antics, as always, are centered around food. Yogi’s attempts to acquire this include shooting an arrow through a restaurant, accumulating items on it along the way, until it lodges into a tree on the opposite side. “Shish-ka-Boo, Bob-Bob! I mean, shish-ka-bob, Boo-Boo!” That line is a fair example of the humor here.
The impetus for the characters leaving the park is a ruse Yogi pulls when he suddenly finds himself slated to go to the San Diego Zoo, and instead deceives another bear to put the tag around his neck. The tag reads, “one bear destination San Diego Zoo”, and I spent a weird amount of time pondering that. If somebody sees the tag, wouldn’t it be obvious the wearer is a bear or not? And why “one bear”? If they have two bears, do they put one of these tags on each, or somehow put a necklace around the necks of both, with a single tag reading, “two bears”?
I likely found myself musing upon such petty things because there isn’t much that happens here. Technically, there is continual action, but it isn’t for much of a purpose.
Consider the second act, where Cindy, thinking Yogi was sent to the zoo, tries to go there as well, only to be sent to the St. Louis Zoo. She escapes the train, but is captured by a traveling circus and forced to become their main (only?) attraction. Yogi tries, and fails, to rescue her. In the end, Boo-Boo saves them both.
Somehow, the circus seems an appropriate setting for any Hanna Barbera cartoon. The outfit here, Chizzling Brothers, is on its last legs, not unlike any circus I can think of. Yeah, there’s Cirque de Soleil nowadays, but I’m thinking of the old-school kind that always felt slightly dangerous because you could tell how shady these things were.
Anyway, that second act felt like the most pointless element in the movie because it is only a set up for the inevitable rescue to happen. Unlike the plotless antics of the first act, how this is going to end is such as foregone conclusion that one might as well advance a few chapters to after they’ve successfully escaped. What, did you really think they were going to become bear-skin rugs or something?
The trio is pursued by a sheriff through the rural countryside and there are some amusing moments in that. I especially liked the tricks Yogi pulls to evade hound dogs. Still, I could have done without the scene where they float down a river on a barn door (don’t ask) and imagine they’re on a gondola in Venice.
That bizarre setup is merely the ruse to shoehorn in another song. This time, it’s the deeply terrible “Ven-E, Ven-O, Ven-A”. James Darren sings this and, although I don’t know who that is, Boo-Boo tells the singing Yogi, “Hey, you sound just like James Darren!” I wonder if Mr. Darren was ever a big cheese, but I’m too lazy to find out.
The other songs in the film are better than that, but nothing threatens to become an earworm. The title song was written by David Gates, presumably the same guy who went on to front 70s soft-rock behemoth Bread.
Most viewers are probably curious first and foremost about the quality of the animation. It is definitely better than what one would expect from the studio’s television fare, but it doesn’t exactly have the visual splendor of Disney in its best years, either. Backgrounds are especially detailed in some scenes, though I wouldn’t say masterfully. Myself, I would have been happier with backgrounds that were more along the lines of the abstractions of mid-century animation. One images what UPA would have done if they had produced the film.
The only extra on the disc is an episode of the TV show. In it, it’s Yogi’s birthday and preparations are being made for a surprise event for him to be broadcast live on television. It’s all just an excuse to have related characters from other Hanna Barbara cartoons appears as guests, and only to promote their own shows. I didn’t find much of merit in this, though it was interesting to see in contrast to the film. Also, I was surprised one of the guests wasn’t Muttley, as a similar dog with a wheezy laugh is in the circus bit in the movie.
Hey There, It’s Mahatma Gandhi…I mean, Yogi Bear, is a slight entertainment. I honestly can’t imagine any children today warming to it. It exists purely for nostalgia, and I am so grateful to Warner Archive for making such films available on disc. I doubt such features would ever appear on blu-ray otherwise and, typical of their work, they do the usual fantastic job of remastering the video and audio.
Dir: Joseph Barbara and William Hanna
Starring Daws Butler, Don Messick, Julie Bennett
Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray