Wednesday 7 November 2018

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, November 1970

A native American, a Chinese guy, a kid, Ranger Smith, a wise talking owl and the return of Boo Boo are amongst the highlights of the Yogi Bear newspaper comics from 48 years ago this month.

Gene Hazelton and his people have lots of scenic stuff in the backgrounds of these five Yogi comics, far more than what they were doing on the simultaneously-seen Flintstones comics.

You’ll notice for three comics in a row, the “Yogi” sign is nailed to a post made from a tree. In another comic, it’s hanging from a branch and in the other, it’s nailed to a tree.


November 1, 1970: Here’s one where the top row omitted by many newspapers has nothing to do with the other two rows. Yogi is a little rhyme crazy here.


November 8, 1970: Sardonic Smith in the last panel. The first row is only tenuously related to the rest of the comic.


November 15, 1970: Injun no talk-um like this in 1970. But that’s what the people expect-um to hear after years of B Westerns, so that’s what we get in one sentence. The last sentence could easily be read in a Yiddish accent.



November 22, 1970: Jellystone has its own Protestant church. I like the overhead view in the last panel.



November 29, 1970: I like the rendering of the Chinese restaurant in the final panel. Is there anything Jellystone doesn’t have? This comic has the only silhouette panel of the month.

The colour comics are again courtesy of Richard Holliss. Click on any of them to enlarge them.

6 comments:

  1. The Bow-Ling gag was used almost verbatim in a Flintstones daily comic strip posted on this site a handful of years back. I'm guessing the Flintstones strip pre-dated this one.

    Is that a giant sausage or a giant pickle floating over the mountain in the first panel of the 11-29 strip?

    Thanks again, Yowp and Richard Holliss!

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    1. As to the floating “giant pickle” in the first panel: I wonder if Yogi is saying, or yelling, “Bowling” to the other bear, and someone marked it out with a magic marker. (It definitely looks like there are letters under the thick black stroke.) Otherwise, why would Boo Boo be thinking “Bowling, huh? So that’s where Yogi is spending his time.”?

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  2. Maybe an offbeat comic (i. e. Off The Mark, Rhymes with Orange, etc.) could show what Yogi Bear would really think about raiding bird feeders (which bears do in the real world).

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  3. At the risk of repeating myself from previous Yogi strips you've shown - brilliant. These would still make readers laugh today. They did me!

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  4. Materials 100% Gene Hazelton.
    Inked by Ed Nofziger (who was the Hank Ketcham's assistant in the Dennis The Menace strip).

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  5. The November 29, 1970 Yogi strip reminds me of a very similar Flintstones strip from May 3, 1965.

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