Wednesday 7 February 2018

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, February 1968

Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw dropped into Jellystone Park 50 years ago this month in the Sunday comics. Ah, Jellystone! The only national park with a mad scientist’s castle in it. Well, maybe we can safely assume he’s not in Jellystone in that particular comic.

What sound do you make when you fall? Apparently, it’s “FAM!” and “THONK!” Yogi proves he is smarter than the average bear in the final panel of the February 4th comic. But “scholar” and “hauler”? Yipe. (The log hawler, by the way, is from the Acme company whose devices worked).



The layout of the February 11th comic is just great. Huck, Quick Draw, a brown Snagglepuss and Baba Looey all make a guest appearance. Look in the first two panels how they’re in the foreground and an angry mob is in shadow (one blue, one white) behind them. In the second row, Quick Draw and the rest are in silhouette in the background while the mob is in a different colour even further back. Excellent design in the final panel. One thing we don’t have to worry about today is a TV antenna picking up interference.



The laughing fish and the steaming Yogi in the final panel on February 18th are good. Cindy makes a cameo appearance. There’s a bird sitting on the snowy title in the opening panel, probably sticking around from last month’s comics.



“Stop that pigeon! Stop that pigeon!” Okay, the pilot isn’t exactly Dick Dastardly in the February 25th comic (he hadn’t been invented yet anyway) but he looks like a distant relative. Yogi stops the plane instead of a pigeon in the ironic final panel.



Richard Holliss supplied the colour comics; click on each to make it bigger. We’ll have all colour next month.

2 comments:

  1. Mad scientists seem to have abounded in and near Jellystone Park. Witness the cartoon "Brainy Bear" and the HBR album "Yogi Bear and the Three Stooges Meet the Mad, Mad, Mad Dr. No-No."

    This comic strip is actually a pretty spot-on tribute to Universal's Frankenstein movies--the villagers with torches attempting to storm the castle, the bolts of lightning, the claps of thunder--and then the priceless gag line, which ties it in with the television culture of the 60's.

    Great stuff! Thanks again to Richard Holliss--and to Yowp, of course!

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  2. All these materials were drawn by Iwao Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg.

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