An Assortment of Yogi

Guys in Yogi Bear costumes were still putting on shows around the U.S.A. in 1973. You see to the right an ad from the Naples Daily News of June 17th that year. In addition to the bike, the management at the Wickes Ft. Myers Center signed a deal Scollon Productions to hire its Yogi Bear Show. People dressed as Yogi, Boo Boo and Ranger Smith did three “fun-filled” shows in each of a four-day span.

This post is a hodge-podge of Yogi stuff sitting in a file for four to eight years. Since we’re winding things down here, I’m going to post it. Some of it may be in older posts; I really don’t have time to check.

As you know, Yogi was grabbed by the folks at Kellogg’s to push its version of Cherrios. The fact I’m not saying that Cherrios was General Mills’ version of OKs tells you which cereal was the more popular. Simultaneously, he was on the box of Kellogg’s biggest seller to push his birthday party episode on TV in 1961 (and the Dell Comic version of it) Yogi also found himself in an ad for Kellogg’s All-Stars cereal, featuring the voice of Cyril Ritchard as the Wizard of Oatz. Unlike the Oz version, this wizard wasn’t a wonderful wiz if ever a wiz there was. The cereal wasn’t around all that long. Perhaps he should have teamed with Snagglepuss as a cowardly lion. The ad is from the comic section of a number of newspapers of July 24, 1960.

Incidentally, Sponsor magazine of December 17, 1962 reported on rumours that Kellogg’s was about to create a Yogi cereal (along with a Jethro cereal). Either the rumours were false, or the idea was quashed (would the Jethro cereal be in the shape of double-nought spies?).

Yogi Bear had experience with selling honey (“Bears and Bees”) and eating fried chicken (“Spy Guy”), so why not combine them into a chain of restaurants? The ad to the right is from the Waterloo Courier of July 18, 1971. (The same page has a story about the death of the voice of Touché Turtle, Bill Thompson). There’s an interesting article about the demise of the chain in this web post. How do you fry something in honey anyway?

We’ve had pictures over the years of all kinds of Hanna-Barbera toys, dolls, games, comics, and more from the studio’s best period, namely the first few years when it was at the Kling/Chaplin studio on La Brea and the little cinder-block windowless bunker on Cahuenga (before they moved to the building most fans know about). The pictures we’re put up have been almost always of American productions, but here’s one from England. You can make and paint little sculptures of the main characters in the Huckleberry Hound Show, even though Yogi gets top billing. I realise I’m biased but I think toys were more fun back then. Today, it seems like all kids do is bang their thumbs playing games on their hand-held.

I won’t transcribe the newspaper story on the right; you can click on it and make it bigger. There was a reference to it in a post a few weeks ago. It’s from 1964 and is about a group of guys who got together in 1959 to form a “Yogi Bear Club” and help needy kids at Christmas time. You’ll notice the officers of the club are all named after characters on the Huckleberry Hound Show. Ranger Smith was brand-new in fall of 1959, so the club had a generic “Ranger.” The only down-side to this fine charitable effort is that they didn’t pick Yowp as the name of one of the officers; they chose “Indian” instead (whose name is Li’l Tom Tom, though I don’t think it was mentioned in the cartoon itself). I imagine like many clubs, this businessman’s association is long gone. Carl W. Green mentioned in the story was born about 1914 so I suspect he has passed away, too.

Finally, here’s an endless run cycle from the end of “Droop-a-long Yogi,” a pretty good 1961 cartoon from the Yogi Bear show animated by Ralph Somerville with story direction by Artie Davis. The cycle has six drawings on twos. The animation doesn’t match up with the repeat in the background but it won’t be too noticeable here. This is a little slower than in the actual cartoon.