Yogi Bear (film)

Yogi Bear (2010 film)
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Eric Brevig
Written by	Brad Copeland Joshua Sternin Jeffrey Ventimilia
Based on	The Yogi Bear Show by William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	Donald De Line Karen Rosenfelt
Starring	Dan Aykroyd Justin Timberlake Anna Faris Tom Cavanagh T.J. Miller
Cinematography	Peter James
Edited by	Kent Beyda
Music by	John Debney
Production companies	De Line Pictures Sunswept Entertainment
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	December 11, 2010 (2010-12-11) (Westwood) December 17, 2010 (2010-12-17) (United States)
Running time	80 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80 million[2][1]
Box office	$203.5 million[1]

Yogi Bear is a 2010 American 3D live-action/computer-animated comedy film directed by Eric Brevig and written for the screen by Brad Copeland, Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia. Based on the 1961 animated television series The Yogi Bear Show and the character of the same name created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera,^[3] the film stars Anna Faris, Tom Cavanagh, T.J. Miller, Nate Corddry and Andrew Daly, as well as the voices of Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake. The film centers on Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo-Boo Bear as they try to stop their home, Jellystone Park, from being logged. Production on the film began in October 2008.

Produced by Donald De Line's De Line Pictures and Karen Rosenfelt's Sunswept Entertainment, Yogi Bear premiered at Westwood on December 11 and was theatrically released in the United States on December 17 by Warner Bros. Pictures, and met with largely negative reviews from critics and audiences who criticized the screenplay, humor, and lack of originality, but praised the visual effects, vocal performances, and faithfulness to the source material. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus calls the screenplay "aggressively mediocre".^[4] The film grossed $201.6 million worldwide against an $80 million budget.

Plot[]

Mayor R. Brown realizes that Franklin City is facing bankruptcy due to profligate spending on his part. Brown plots with his Chief of Staff to raise money for the town budget and his upcoming gubernatorial campaign by shutting down Jellystone Park and opening the land to logging. To save the park, park rangers Smith and Jones, with help from Smith's love interest, documentary filmmaker Rachel Johnson, hold a centennial festival and fireworks show in an attempt to sell season passes. To sabotage the effort, Brown promises Jones the position of head ranger if the funds are not raised. Two brown bears named Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear, who steal picnic baskets from visitors in Jellystone Park while the rangers attempt to hinder them, had promised Smith to stay out of sight during the festival, but Jones convinces them otherwise. The bears try to please the crowd with a waterskiing performance, but Yogi inadvertently sets his cape on fire causing fireworks to be launched into the crowd, who flee in panic.

After Jellystone is shut down, Smith is forced to stay in Evergreen Park (a small urban enclave choked with litter and pollution), but not before taking out his frustration on Yogi, saying that he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Seeing that their home is in danger of being destroyed, Yogi and Boo-Boo travel to Evergreen Park where they and Smith figure out Brown's plan. They all return to Jellystone with Rachel, where they learn that Boo-Boo's pet turtle is a rare and endangered species known as a "frog-mouthed" turtle, meaning that, according to law, the park cannot be destroyed if the turtle is living there.

The Chief of Staff learns about the turtle and sends Jones to kidnap it. On the day that Brown is planning a press conference to begin the destruction of the park, Smith, Rachel and the bears rescue the turtle and try to bring it to the media's attention. Jones, learning that he had been deceived by Mayor Brown, has a change of heart and helps the team bring the turtle to the press conference. At the press conference, Rachel reveals that she had installed a hidden camera in Boo-Boo's bow tie which had captured Brown admitting to his plan. Smith hooks up the camera to the jumbotron Brown is using for his press conference and shows the video, causing the crowds to grow hostile. Brown tries to claim there is no such thing as an endangered turtle, only for the turtle to appear on stage. After Brown and his Chief of Staff are arrested and convicted for their crimes, Jellystone Park is reopened and becomes a great success with Smith reappointed as head ranger. He and Rachel admit their feelings for each other. After they kiss, they discover Yogi and Boo-Boo are back to stealing picnic baskets once again and chase them.

Cast[]

• Dan Aykroyd as the voice of Yogi Bear, the picnic basket-stealing talking brown bear who lives in Jellystone Park.
• Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo Boo, Yogi's best friend, and sometimes the voice of reason.
• Tom Cavanagh as Ranger Smith, the head ranger of Jellystone Park.
• Anna Faris as Rachel Johnson, a nature documentary filmmaker, and Ranger Smith's love interest.
• T.J. Miller as Ranger Jones, a park ranger who is tricked by Mayor Brown into getting Jellystone shut down, making the excuse that Jones will be the head ranger of the park.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}
• Andrew Daly as Mayor R. Brown, the main antagonist of the film. He is the Mayor of Franklin City who wants to shut Jellystone Park down so that he can make money for his city and become governor.
• Nate Corddry as the Chief of Staff, Mayor Brown's assistant.
• Josh Robert Thompson as the voice of the narrator.

Production[]

In October 2008, it was confirmed that a live-action/computer-animated Yogi Bear film was in the works.^[3][11] Ash Brannon was hired to direct the film, but was replaced by Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D) when it was decided that the film would be produced as a 3D project. Filming took place on the Lake Whakamaru Reserve, Waikato, New Zealand as it was winter in the northern hemisphere and to wait for summer would put the production end time to be six months longer than if in southern hemisphere.

Like many Hanna-Barbera characters, in the original cartoon Yogi's personality and mannerisms were based on a popular celebrity of the time. Art Carney's Ed Norton character on The Honeymooners was said to be Yogi's inspiration;^[12][13] his voice mannerisms broadly mimic Carney as Norton.^[14] Carney, in turn, received influence from Borscht Belt and comedians of vaudeville.^[13]

Dan Aykroyd, the voice actor of Yogi Bear, explained that he is trying to evoke the influences that shaped the original Yogi Bear's voice. Aykroyd said: "It's about hitting certain notes, going back to those old Lower East Side rhythms, the Catskills, Jersey, Upstate New York. It's the Yiddish language, essentially, being spoken in English. It's the 'setup, delivery, punch' that sitcoms live on today. That's where the origin of American humor is."^[13] Aykroyd has also explained that he grew up watching Yogi Bear on the long, cold and dark afternoons in his native Ottawa: "As a kid growing up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where the sky turns dark in the winter at about 3:30, Yogi Bear was my fire, my hearth, when I would come home. I would immediately turn on the TV while I thawed out."^[15] in November 2009

Justin Timberlake came in with a prepared Boo-Boo voice; when he was learning to sing when he was younger, he imitated various cartoon characters. Brevig then announced that he intended to make a film that did never want parents who remembered watching Yogi Bear cartoons to feel marginalized and displaced by the contemporary rendition of Yogi Bear.^[13] Rhythm and Hues Studios provided CGI character animation for Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear and the turtle in the film; the company had also previously worked on past theatrical films based on Hanna-Barbera productions: The Flintstones (1994) and its prequel Viva Rock Vegas (2000); Scooby-Doo (2002) and its sequel Monsters Unleashed (2004).

Release[]

The film was originally slated for release on June 25, 2010, but was pushed back to December 17, 2010 in order to avoid competition with Grown Ups.^[3] The film was preceded by the Looney Tunes short Rabid Rider, starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.^[16]

On December 13th, 2010, shortly before the film was released in the United States, a video titled "Yogi Bear Parody: "Booboo Kills Yogi" ending" was uploaded on YouTube, which serves as an alternate, darker ending to the movie, as well as a spoof of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which Yogi finds Boo Boo sitting on a chair carrying a double-barreled shotgun, as he finds his own picture on a "wanted" sign in which a $5000 reward is given to whoever kills Yogi Bear. The video ends with a fake end credits with the song We'll Be Alright by Travie McCoy, showing Yogi turned into a rug.^[17][18] The parody was done by Edmmund Earle, a 25 year-old Rhode Island School of Design graduate, who made the video in three months using only the trailers and promotional material as references.^[19] The video went viral, trending on Twitter, which led to many people concerned about whether or not the younger viewers would click on the video, believing it to be the actual ending of the movie. However, Warner Bros. did not demand Earle to take down his video, but instead add a disclaimer telling that the parody was done with no one affiliated with the studio or the movie's production.^[20][21]

Marketing[]

The film's first trailer was released online on July 28, 2010. It was also attached with Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Alpha and Omega.^{[citation needed]} A second trailer premiered with Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and a third trailer premiered with Megamind, Tangled and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. One of the trailers was also attached with showings of Tron: Legacy in the United Kingdom.

Home media[]

Warner Home Video released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on March 22, 2011 in four versions:

• DVD (single disc edition)
• Blu-ray (single disc edition)
• Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy combo pack
• Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy combo pack

Reception[]

Box office[]

Yogi Bear debuted at the American and Canadian box office at #2 behind Tron: Legacy, with an under-performing $16,411,322^[1] compared to Tron Legacy's $44,026,211. The opening weekend was lower than Warner Bros. expected, but executives believed that the film would hold well throughout the holiday season.^[22] The film grossed $103.3 million in the United States and Canada and a worldwide total of $203.5 million against an $80 million budget.^[1]

Critical response[]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 12% based on 105 reviews and an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Yogi Bear's 3D effects and all-star voice cast are cold comfort for its aggressively mediocre screenplay."^[4] On Metacritic the film has a score of 35 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".^[23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.^[24] The dark ending also received significant controversy, especially from childrens entertainment review aggregators.

Common Sense Media gave the film one star, saying "Dumber-than-average family comedy won't even impress kids." IGN gave the film 4.0/10, and summed up their review by saying "Of course, Yogi Bear is meant as a kids movie. And one supposes that it works on that level (the little ones at the press screening I attended seemed mildly amused). But we learned long ago that kids movies can operate on more than one level, and that's not something that director Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D) or his screenwriters are interested in. The result is a movie that's dumber than the average bear. Though at least it has a pee joke in it."^[25][26]

Spill.com appreciated the film for staying true to its original source material and not trying to "hip it up", comparing it to Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), another live-action/CGI hybrid film that was also poorly received.^{[citation needed]}

Awards[]

Video game[]

A video game titled Yogi Bear: The Video Game was released for the Wii and Nintendo DS.

Cancelled sequel[]

In 2012, it was reported that a sequel is in the works, with Jay Chandrasekhar chosen to direct.^[27][28] As of August 2021, there has been no updates given on the sequel and has been considered cancelled.

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Yogi Bear (film)

• Yogi Bear at the TCM Movie Database
• Yogi Bear at IMDb
• Yogi Bear at Rotten Tomatoes