Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, March 1970

Frank, Sammy, Dean—at Jellystone Park?

National parks must be raking in the coin if they can afford those acts. (Please don’t tell me I have to explain who the Rat Pack is).

They showed up in name only in the Yogi Bear weekend comics this month 49 years ago. Someone who didn’t show up was Boo Boo. He isn’t in any of the five comics published in March 1970.


Ranger Smith is being particularly jerkish in the March 1st comic. Who’s he to order people around and be verbally abusive? We get a talking squirrel in the unrelated gag in the first row, along with a silhouette panel in the second row.


Perhaps Mr. Ranger felt pangs of guilt. In the next comic on March 8th, he’s desperate to help Yogi. Out of the five, I like this story best. I marvel about how rain can be drawn without obscuring the characters and settings on the panel. Ranger Smith is named Bill this time.



Bear? More like wolf. In the March 15th comic, Yogi reveals he’s not faithful to Cindy, no doubt to anger people obsessed with continuity. Richard Holliss provided this comic from his collection, which has some colour troubles on one row. The reverse silhouette panel is nice. We get the same “Yogi Bear” sign in the opening panel for three weeks in a row and it’s hanging the same way in this comic as in the one published on the 8th.

I knew it couldn’t last. Yogi didn’t rhyme for two comics but he’s back at it in the March 22nd edition. Broken lines are used for the balloon when the ranger reads to himself. Is that common? The final drawing with the jeep engine in pieces is very admirable.


Back to the native stereotypes in the March 29th cartoon. At least they’re speaking English correctly (okay, the girl is speaking groovy English because it’s 1970). The smoke signal typewriter is ingenious, though, me think-um.



Click on any of the panels to enlarge them.