Wednesday 2 December 2015

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, December 1965

Yogi shows more ingenuity, but no hibernation, in the comics found in newspapers 50 years ago this month. Of course, four months worth of hibernating comics would get awfully boring.


Nicely rendered bears in the opening long panel in the December 5th comic. Isn’t this kind of like Huckleberry Hound as a dog catcher where you have dogs that are dogs, and a dog that’s humanesque? The writer went into overdrive on the rhymes in the first panel, middle row. The robber shows the evolving designs at Hanna-Barbera; he looks like someone in an Atom Ant cartoon made at this time. Look at Boo Boo’s reactions. Even though he’s not the centre of attention, he’s very much involved in the story.


Not quite winter yet in the December 12th comic as there’s no ice on the water impeding Yogi’s fishing. The art store owner closes his eyes with pride (left panel, last row) over his mobile. Yes, kids, people had them in their homes and banged their heads on them. A dumb invention.



Yogi used little animals for various things in some of the newspaper cartoons and he is at it again in the December 19th comic. In the opening panel, I suspect Yogi is reading Playbear for the articles.


Remember those good old days when you could say “holiday party” and it didn’t turn into a whine-fest? That’s at the centre of the December 26th comic. I don’t know why the “general” (why does a park have a general with a command post?) is crying. Yogi’s right. He got 12 pieces of cake, didn’t he? Cake that makes a FOING! noise, I hasten to add.

Mark Kausler should have full-colour versions of these on his blog. He’s mentioned his personal collection has run out so he won’t be posting more Yogis. It was nice of him to take the time and scan them for everyone. It’s great he saved them for all these years; I had a collection of daily and Sunday Peanuts comics that I put in scrapbooks but threw out years ago once they began to be published in books. Yogi hasn’t been so fortunate.

Next month, Quick Draw and Huckleberry Hound make a guest appearance, there’s more fishing, another FOINGG! and another clumsy Yogi.

7 comments:

  1. These are funny as usual. Thanks for posting. And I'm glad that there will be more next month.

    It's too bad Mark Kausler is out of colour versions. As fun as the comics are in black and white, seeing them in colour really is an even more joyful experience, in my opinion. I understand what one poster meant here a while back about you being able to see more details in black and white, but I myself tend to see the details better in colour (maybe because I'm more captivated by colour than by black and white).

    Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted. Many thanks to Mark Kausler for sharing what he has, and many thanks to Yowp for being able to continue to post Yogi Bear comics here in the future.

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  2. These materials shown here were drawn by Iwao Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg.

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  3. Notice that the December 5th comic strip has a top-tier gag that stands all on its own. Gives an idea of what a multi-panel daily Yogi strip might have been like. (For anyone who doesn't know, Yogi's daily strips were single-panel with a caption underneath, a la "Dennis" or "Family Circus.")

    The size and age of the Ranger's son varies with each appearance, unless he has two boys who never appear together.

    I guess December 26th is too late for it to be a Christmas party and too soon to be a New Year's party, so a "Holiday Party" it is! At least none of the guests could complain about being short-changed on the cake, with the pieces all cut equally like that!

    No specific Christmas content in 1965. But the Yogi strip made up for it in other years as has been posted previously on this blog. They did some great Christmas gags over the years.

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  4. Hi Sergio,
    Thanks for you kind comments about my Yogi Bear color collection. It was my pleasure to post them while they lasted. About the first part of 1966 I was preparing to take my high school finals and go on to the first year of art school, so I had little time for comic collecting by then. Glad you enjoyed them.
    Mark

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  5. Yogi and his coat of utilities, in the Yogi Bear Sunday page from December 5, 1965 (drawn by Iwao Takamoto).

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  6. Did the YOGI panel run from 1961 through 1980, or did it come later? I grew up with the Milwaukee Journal, and at some point, the YOGI Sundays, and both the FLINTSTONES dailies and Sundays disappeared, so I was completely unaware both were still appearing until I first ran into EDITOR & PUBLISHER's Syndicate Directory in 1970, but I never saw the YOGI panel till just recently.

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  7. Mike, I wish I knew how long the Yogi dailies lasted. The L.A. Times ran them in the '60s but not for very long.

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