Sitting in the Bob Hope Airport, I came across this.
Shot in Australia. Animated I don't know where. Screaming "Hand-me-down!" at you.
I was amused when I read the first You Tube comment:
childhood = ruined
And as Gawker.com says:
Thanks to The Chipmunks and their moneymaking Squeakuel, Hollywood is going to make every two-bit old cartoon animal into a live-action movie. Somehow this one fooled Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake, and Anna Faris into thinking it was a good idea ...
(On the other hand, what kind of "cartoon classic" are we really talking about? Fifty years later I still remember the limited animation and the bad color matches between the moving part of Yogi's body and the frozen part. (They didn't bother to compensate with a different paint blend. No time or budget for that, I suppose.)
And I still remember my background-artist father sneering: "You watch it a couple of minutes, you get real tired of watching that bear talk out of the side of his face."
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18 comments:
I agree with you, Steve - Yogi Bear the cartoon was low-grade crud. I hated it even as a kid. (I was ruined for Hanna-Barbera forever after seeing a re-release of Disney's Pinocchio). It's amazing what some people get nostalgic about. I feel a similar puzzlement over the absurd adoration the Muppets get from some quarters. They were fine back in the latter 20th century - pre-computer, pre-CG - but they had their time and they're done. Plus the genius behind them is dead, and thus the lead character Kermit hasn't sounded right since. Why Disney wants to put them in a movie is mind-boggling. But then why make a movie about Yogi? Who's the audience for all this stuff? Really, these reboots are getting very tiresome. I'll bet movie audiences will feel the same way, and after the inevitable crashing and burning, maybe Hollywood will try making movies out of original ideas, or at least of books and properties that haven't previously been given the big-screen treatment.
Great blog, by the way. Thanks for all of the instruction.
Regarding "I agree with you, Steve - Yogi Bear the cartoon was low-grade crud..."
Warner Bros. is trying duplicate the success they have with another HB character, Scooby Doo, which led to two movies, hit series, new DVD's, Etc. It's business.
At least this is a big step up from those cheap, awful johnk "cartoons" made a few years back. WHOOOfa, those were bad on every level.
I believe it was animated at R&H...
It's being animated at Rhythm & Hues right here in LA. It's total crap but animators need to work.
Best one yet:
http://www.thesubstream.com/article-one-more-reason-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-gun.html
To be fair, the Yogi era of H-B had its share of genius:
Limited animation, but Warren Foster and Michael Maltese, fresh from the their Warner jobs, indulging their taste for silly-snarky Jack Benny humor, and a free-wheeling "what the hell, nobody's watching anyway" feel to the gags that often made them seem ad-libbed.
The movie, though? That would be the current Warner drooling over Fox's Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas-opening money so bad they can taste it...
But then, considering that Warner's live-actions usually think they have to play up what worked for "Scooby-Doo: the Movie", and pelt campy deconstructionist rocks at their properties, a nice soulless, by-the-numbers kiddie weekend cash-in is...the distinct lesser of two evils. Given some of the guff that Yogi had to take back in CN's day, Warner's movie could've been a lot worse.
They're actually making a Yogi-Bear film?!?!
The film looks like its going to bomb, and its one of those corny remakes of Alvin & the Chipmunks, Garfield, etc.
Doesn't look good to be, always prefer the original Yogi Bear.
The early H-B cartoons were cheap, but had a charm, humor, and appeal that made up for the obvious flaws. It wasn't too long before they lost that spark, but they were hardly 'crud'.
From what I've seen, I'm more offended by the human characters than Yogi and Boo-Boo, in the new movie. That's not Ranger Smith.it seems like every kids movie is made with the same cookie cutter people.
The humans in Yogi Bear had a kind of 'dead-pan' reaction to Yogi and his antics.
I liked the early Yogis, but recognized their curdities and limitations.
They had top-flight artists from MGM, Warners and Disney working on them. Everyone was constrained by the budgets.
"The film looks like its going to bomb, and its one of those corny remakes of Alvin & the Chipmunks, Garfield, etc."
I hate all of these, but the ones you mentioned made a BUTTLOAD of money
From this trailer, my impression is; the voice is wrong, the animation is bad, the character is wrong-the wise guy schemer is now a buffoon, and the live action characters act as if they know they are in a comedy, which always kills the humor.
Scooby-Doo had the advantage of longer stories, more complex plot lines, changes of locations, and human main characters.
They're hoping for another "Scooby-Doo," but what they actually have is another "Rocky and Bullwinkle."
Hasn't anyone noticed that Yogi's foil, Mr Park Ranger Sir, is the spitting image of that hot young actor Jimmie Dean? No, I don't mean Rebel Without a Cause; I mean Pure Pork Sausage.
Yeah, the only reason why those awful remakes like (Garfield, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Scooby Doo, etc.), probably the only reason why is because the kids dragged their parents into watching it, and its pretty much going to be a bomb with the film critics.
"Christmas Day" has now literally become a genre to studios rather than a date--
It seems to be reserved for Alvin-style CGI properties that can be advertised on name value starting with the May rush, and if there doesn't happen to be anything around to fill that date, MAKE something.
It's no longer about which properties you CGI, it's about having something 'Boomer-recognizable to parents who won't bother to read reviews before taking the kids to, and ten days of after-Christmas vacation when the malls are empty again and they'll take their kids to anything sight unseen...Disney didn't last year, and look who won.
Even dead-in-the-water summer CGI's like Marmaduke or Cats & Dogs 2 could open on the 25th, and make said buttload for showing up and promising no complexity.
(It's become so much of its own insular rule-established genre by now that even the pre-marketing lobby posters have now become identical to Fox's model--
Just a shot of one of the finished CGI characters with an identifying pop-culture tag and a date: "The Ranger Isn't Going To Like This - Opens Christmas 2010".)
I find that january 1st is a perfect day to go to the movies. And it's ok to be not too picky about which one. Just my 2 cents.
R&H aren't EXACTLY known for their "groundbreaking" character animation. It's the closest thing to HB in the world of CG. They do a workmanlike job--nothing to sniff at--but not much more. Looks like a lot of this was done at their India studio.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/05/yogi-bear-given-unintenti_n_672547.html
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