Yogi Bear, Weekend Comics, May 1962

Yogi Bear ends up annoying people other than Ranger Smith in two of the Sunday comics (Saturday in Canada) 50 years ago this fault. The first one isn’t even his fault.

Unfortunately, all these are missing the top row of panels. The copies I’ve found with all three rows just aren’t very readable. These are all scans of microfilmed photocopies (in black and white) of the colour section of newspapers. The exposure is lousy and dark colours tend to make a panel pitch black. Ah, ancient techology! So I’m forced to describe the top rows for you, except in the last one because not a lot happens.



The doctor makes a misdiagnosis, but people blame a poor bear? Tsk. This is from May 6th . Doesn’t Boo Boo have a stiff neck from looking up all the time? First panel of the first row (not seen here) is unusual in that it’s like a title card in an animated cartoon. Normally, the title of the strip would be incorporated into the strip’s action.



Kind of a goofy ending for the May 13th cartoon. A nice change of pace from the TV cartoons, kind of like how Bugs Bunny goes back and tells stories of his family’s past to his nephew Clyde in those ‘50s cartoons. Pretty elaborate fireplace in the Yogi/Boo Boo abode. The missing first row is a little cartoon unto itself. Boo Boo has the Shakespeare book and says to sandwich-munching Yogi that he always wanted to be an actor, then adds “I guess there’s a little ham in all of us.” Yogi proves the point by going to the fridge and pulling out a ham.



If Yogi can carve his visage with a helicopter (“Buzzin’ Bruin”), why not with an axe? The May 20th comic also borrows from the cartoon “Be My Guest, Pest,” where camera-hog bears pose for pictures. In the missing first panel, Yogi poses with an American flag on top of a rock. No one objects to taking that picture; don’t want to look like a Commie, you know. Yogi doesn’t have rhyming dialogue in this one.



Yogi is enthusiastic but not crazed in the May 27th comic. Don’t ask questions like “Why are they practising a torch run two years before the Olympics?” By the way, in TV public service announcements, did Smokey the Bear actually put out any fires, or did he just badger people? I like the layout in the weenie roast panel. No rhyming dialogue again.

As usual, click on each comic to enlarge it. I’ll see if I can find top rows for next month’s Yogi comic posting, which will also feature H-B not even knowing the names of their own characters.