Yogi Bear

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"I'm smarter than the av-a-rage bear!" —Yogi Bear

Originally a supporting character on The Huckleberry Hound Show, Yogi Bear was one of the most popular early Hanna-Barbera characters. Most episodes revolved around Yogi's attempts to do things that other Jellystone Park bears didn't do (or weren't allowed to do): make money, fly, dodge hibernation, escape—or simply relieve tourists of their pic-a-nic baskets. Yogi's sidekick, Boo-Boo, would often warn Yogi that "the ranger isn't going to like this!" Indeed, Yogi would invariably be scolded by Ranger Smith.

Basically, the premise was that Yogi and Boo-Boo would steal picnic baskets from visitors to Jellystone National Park, and hilarity would ensue.

The character was popular enough to headline his own series in 1961. Supporting segments on The Yogi Bear Show featured Snagglepuss and Yakky Doodle. In 1964, Hanna-Barbera released its first animated feature, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, through Columbia Pictures. In the 1970s and 1980s, Yogi and his contemporaries appeared in the following series:

• Yogis Gang
• Laff-a-Lympics, in which Yogi and Scooby Doo led two of the three teams
• Yogi's Space Race
• Yogis Treasure Hunt
• The New Yogi Bear Show
• Yo Yogi, where Yogi and other Hanna-Barbera characters are now teenagers that hang out in the mall going on wacky adventures.

There were also a few prime-time specials, the best-remembered of which is probably Yogi's First Christmas.

A live-action/CGI Yogi Bear feature film with Dan Aykroyd as the voice of Yogi and Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo-Boo was released in December 2010.

Check the character sheet.

Tropes used in Yogi Bear include:

• A Day in The Limelight: Ranger Smith starred in two cartoon shorts in the late 1990s, though the second one focuses more on Boo Boo.
• An Aesop: Primarily in Yogi's Gang.
• Animated Series
• Batman Gambit: Ranger Smith tried enforcing rules in Jellystone Park in order to reduce Yogi into a feral state. It backfired when Boo-Boo did this instead.
• Beary Funny: That's Yogi in a nutshell.
• Big Damn Movie: Hey There Its Yogi Bear
• Big Eater: Yogi, of course.
• Bottle Episode
• Camp Gay: Snagglepuss. Drawn Together runs with this character interpretation.
• Catch Phrase: "Smarter than the average bear!" Also Boo-Boo's oft-repeated line, "Mister Ranger isn't gonna like this, Yogi!"
  • If the other segments count, there's Snagglepuss' famous "Exit, stage right" (or whatever direction it was) and "heavens to Murgatroyd"
• Crossover
• Deadpan Snarker: Boo Boo has become this in the most recent update.
• Depending On the Artist:
  • In the original series, Ranger Smith's design changed frequently between episodes; they eventually decided upon his permanent design in Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!.
  • As if that weren't enough, though, his appearance on Yogi's Gang gave him blond hair.
  • This is parodied in a sequence from "A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith", where Smith suffers an Art Shift every time he passes by a tree, from prior Ranger Smith models to the more John Kricfalusi-esque designs (John K directed this cartoon, after all), accompanied with increasingly bizarre walk cycles in Limited Animation.
• Deranged Animation: Boo-Boo Runs Wild
• Everything's Worse With Bears: Well, they sure make Ranger Smith's job a lot harder.
• The Film of the Series: Yogi Bear (2010)
• Full House Music: Played surprisingly straight on both The Yogi Bear Show in the early-1960's and The New Yogi Bear Show from 1988, such as in Slap Happy Birthday, when Yogi and Boo Boo are in their cave talking about Ranger Smith's birthday (for a double whammy, the exact same music is re-used at the end of the episode when Yogi reveals their surprise party to the ranger).
• Hanna-Barbera
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Cindy Bear
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode of Yogi's Gang was named after the Villain of the Week.
• Live Action Adaptation
• The Movie: Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!
• Mythology Gag: The two gangsters in the 1958 episode "Big Brave Bear" were first used the season prior on The Ruff & Reddy Show as outlaws Killer and Diller.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Yogi's voice was based on Art Carney's character on The Honeymooners; further, Yogi Bear's offbeat philosophy (and name) was meant to remind people of baseball star Yogi Berra. Snagglepuss' voice was based on Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
• Phrase Catcher: In Yo Yogi!, whenever Yogi finishes kicking ass or his friends come to the rescue, his friends exclaim, "Yo Yogi!"
• Punny Name: Jellystone Park, an obvious pun on Yellowstone National Park. Yogi's own name is a play on baseball great Yogi Berra.
• Ring Around the Collar
• Sidekick: Boo-Boo.
• Spinoff Babies: Yo Yogi!
• Take That: From Animaniacs, "Calhoun Q. Capybara".
• Talking Animal
• Talking to Himself: If you're watching an old Yogi Bear cartoon and there are no female voices in it, chances are all the voices were performed by Daws Butler and Don Messick.
• You Say Tomato: Yogi's famous pronunciations of "av-a-redge" and "pic-a-nic"

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The 2010 feature film provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: The Chief of Staff isn't a perfect example of the trope, but he sure loves partaking of the cotton candy at Jellystone's festival.

Mayor Brown: What does that taste like? Unemployment?!

• Beware the Cute Ones/Beware the Nice Ones: Boo Boo is the sweetest, nicest character in the film, not to mention a fifth of Yogi's size (if that), and he manhandled Yogi in a wrestling match when he needed to get Yogi's attention. When Yogi tried to get up, Boo Boo pinned him right back down.
  • Rachel is straight crazy when the Chief of Staff crosses her.
• Big Eater: Yogi, of course.
• Chekhov's Gun: The camera tie Boo Boo wears.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: This poster for the film.
• Engineered Public Confession: Mayor Brown's diatribe about how he doesn't care about the park or the frog-mouthed turtle is recorded by a hidden camera on Boo Boo's person, and played in place of his last campaign video segment at his press conference.
• Heroic BSOD: Ranger Smith's "The Reason You Suck" Speech causes Yogi to suffer one of these, but Boo Boo brings him back.
• Hey It's That Voice: Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake provide the voices of Yogi and Boo Boo, respectively, in the movie. And, incredibly, don't sound anything like what the actors usually do.
• Idiot Ball: Yogi throws the turtle (in the style of a football game) to the Chief of Staff, and in so doing picks up the idiot ball without even realizing it.

Ranger Smith: Yogi! Yogi: Sorry! He was open!

• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You: Yogi does this when he accidentally reveals the turtle's location to the bad guys.
• Inevitable Waterfall: Yogi, Boo Boo, the turtle, Ranger Smith and Rachel encounter one of these in a raft. All five of them scream as they come upon it (including the turtle), but they're stopped a quarter of the way down by a conveniently placed tree branch. Yogi doesn't stop screaming, though, until Boo Boo points it out.
• Oh Crap: Ranger Smith's reaction when he sees Yogi's flaming cape about to flutter down onto the fireworks, only a moment after he managed to stop the flaming baton.
• Right Behind Me:

Mayor Brown: Take it from me, people, there is no frog-mouthed turtle! [The turtle's tongue latches onto Brown's cheek.] Mayor Brown: He's standing right next to me, isn't he?

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Yogi's stunt goes disastrously wrong and nearly destroys the park (coming dangerously close to injuring people, as well), Ranger Smith has an especially pointed one of these for Yogi while barely raising his voice.

Ranger Smith: Yogi, that's the problem, all the thinking. Hey, you know what would be great? If you didn't think. If you could just be a regular bear. You know-- sit in the woods minding his own business. But nope, you're different, you're smart, and you have to spend your days being selfish and destructive while everyone else pays the price. I'm sure it's been enough screwing up my life. This time, you had to go down and destroy this whole park. So tell me, Yogi. How smart are you now?

• Stock Scream: Yogi does the Wilhelm Scream when a large acorn falls from a tree onto his open eye.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Intentionally invoked by the Chief of Staff.

Rachel: You need to let us in this park. That turtle needs protection. Chief of Staff: Don't worry about the turtle. We're handling it. We’ll make sure he's put in a nice zoo. Rachel: No. A turtle that's endangered can't be removed from its natural habitat. It's against federal law. Chief of Staff: It is? Wow, I've never heard of that law... in chapter 4, subsection 6 of the Wildlife Protection Mandate.

• Weirdness Censor: The frog-mouthed turtle eventually brings people back to the park. You'd think they'd be impressed enough by having two talking bears.
  • The guy with the shopping cart, which Yogi asks to borrow, doesn't seem to find it strange that a bear has just talked to him. He just asks, "Is that chocolate?"
  • It kind of makes sense due to this movie supposedly taking place in the same universe as the cartoon, where Yogi would run into humans all the time and appear perfectly anthropormorphic and speak, and it would rarely register with them.
  • Rachel does point out that Yogi's species is rare, which implies there are definetly more of them around the world, and Yogi and Boo Boo simply being there isn't really enough to shock people.