Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, April 1962

Gene Hazelton and his crew didn’t bring in Huck or any other denizens of the Hanna-Barbera world outside Jellystone Park in the Sunday comics for this month 50 years ago, but we do get some out-of-this world guests and the return of little Randolph Smith.

The quality of the scans from microfilm isn’t great this month, and we’re missing the top row of panels because the few I found were too dark to be seen well.



April 1 sees Yogi getting an idea watching a little skunk in the missing top row. Another cute wife and kid. Seems Yogi must be famous to tourists as the mention of the pork-pie hat clues in the tourist dad about the identity of the skunk. The pun at the end is obvious, but inevitable. I like how the boy is still in fear and grabbing onto the dad.



That fickle Cindy Bear was willing to succumb to the charms of Bruno in the 1961 cartoon “A Wooin’ Bruin.” In the April 8 comic, she’s come out of three months hibernation (so says the missing first panel) with rosy cheeks and ready to play the tease again, this time with vest-clad Waldo. It’s been so long since I’ve seen “Hey, There, It’s Yogi Bear!” I don’t recall if Waldo’s design is similar to the bears used in the movie.



Jellystone must be next to an Indian reservation of stereotypes or something. Clichéd natives appear in the Sunday comics every few months and they’re back again on April 15. Me think-um end pun heap-big corny. Ugh! (Did natives ever talk like that? Outside Hollywood, I mean?)



Great character design of the little aliens on April 22. The word (?) balloons are imaginative, too. The ending’s really forced.



Ah, here’s adorable little Randolph Smith on April 29. Yogi had better luck with children here than he did in his TV cartoons in the first two seasons, as he got mutilated throughout the pictures. Boo Boo gets the weekend off in this comic, it seems.

As usual, you can click on the comics to get a bit of a better view of them.