Yogi's First Christmas: Wondering Where Past Cartoon Icons Go When the Love's Gone

So where do beloved cartoon characters go, when they're no longer needed or wanted by a new generation?  I was thinking about that today, while Christmas shopping for my granddaughter.  Apparently, she's all about Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and thanks to the evil merchandising overlords at the House of Mouse, every single store I stopped at had more than enough M & M items to choose from--at a premium price, too, I might add.

 

What I didn't see, were so many of the beloved animated characters I grew up with as a kid.  Where was Popeye or Fred Flintstone or even Bugs Bunny--I thought for sure I'd see him in some form of holiday commodity.  Of course I'm aware of why these once-familiar icons go dormant.  Simply put:  if there's no promotion, there's no product.  

If Fred Flintstone isn't featured in a new TV or movie project, you're less likely to see him on the Walmart shelves.  And anyone can find old timey toon characters grafted onto virtually anything, from coffee mugs to Tshirts to fridge magnets, if they search online.  But try and find a Yogi Bear board game at Target and you're S.O.L..

 

Due to money spent on promotion; due to the level of sustained popularity in various media over the decades; and due to the timelessness of the characters themselves, a pop culture winner like Mickey Mouse will probably chug along for decades to come, while a funny goof like Yogi Bear continues to disappear into relative obscurity.  As most of us real-life characters do, as well. 

Luckily, the actual physical reality of these character-based products allow them the chance to be handed down from generation to generation, or be rediscovered by the uninitiated.  If my kid remembers playing with one of my childhood Yogi Bear Avon soap bottles, while watching Boomerang reruns of The Yogi Bear Show, well...there's at least a chance that kid might pass on the good memories and have his kid watch a Yogi Bear episode.  Or maybe a Christmas special. 

 

A good-enough Hanna-Barbera late entry for the smarter-than-the-average-type bear, Yogi's First Christmas, starring Yogi, Boo Boo, and Ranger Smith, with some special guest stars including Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss (even), Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, and Cindy Bear (and let's not forget the fat man himself, Santy Claus), premiered in sydication back on November 21st, 1980. 

Almost critic-proof, Yogi's First Christmas isn't rocket science: it puts some H-B superstars together in a Yuletide-themed story filled with a lot of gags, and the Christmas-minded small fry―even if they've never heard of these characters―will respond favorably (we hope). 

Christmas-time in Yellystone Park (they, um...actually misspell the iconic "Jellystone Park" here). Pic-a-nic-stealin' bear Yogi (voice talent of Daws Butler), and his little buddy, Boo Boo (voice talent of Don Messick) have never had a Christmas celebration before, because they always hibernate right through the holiday time. This year, however, their slumber is disturbed by friends Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie (voice talents of Daws Butler), and Doggie Daddy (voice talent of John Stephenson), when Ranger Smith (voice talent of Don Messick) drives the gang over to Jellystone's Winter Lodge, where the beginnings of a music-filled, loud Winter Carnival stir the sleepy Yogi and Boo Boo from their den. 

The scarcely-frequented Lodge, owned by Mrs. Throckmorton (voice talent of Janet Waldo), is about to be closed due to the tourist-scaring, Christmas-hating antics of Herman the Hermit (voice talent of Don Messick), who lives in the mountains above the Lodge. Yogi, desperate to have his first Christmas, decides to help entertain Mrs. Throckmorton, falling *ss-backwards into clover, as usual, as he unwittingly battles Herman and Mrs. Throckmorton's snotty little nephew, Snively (voice talent of Marilyn Schreffler).

If I saw Yogi's First Christmas when it premiered in first-run syndication back in 1980, I don't remember doing so (I was 15-years-old...so I may have watched it on the sly).  I've watched it several times since then (something about that VHS cover always grabbed my older kids), but even if I hadn't, there's an air of familiarity to it that's not hard to place.  Yogi's First Christmas has elements of at least a half-a-dozen other Christmas movies and specials incorporated into its storyline, from Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas to Disney's The Snowball Express, to Der Bingle's White Christmas. 

And quite frankly, who cares?  I'm not looking for originality in something called Yogi's First Christmas.  Fans of H-B who grew up on holiday-dial offerings like this aren't going to find too much to complain about here because they already have a nostalgic soft spot for vintage TV specials like Yogi's First Christmas. 

In those pre-cable, pre-VCR days, being home for Christmas break (yaaaassss...Christmas break―my Hanukah-celebrating best friend next door called it the same thing) meant watching a lot of TV.  And usually, in addition to your regular series that featured Christmas-themed episodes (winner hands-down was The Odd Couple's Christmas Carol take-off), a whole slew of one-offs would hit the networks and local stations (through syndication), as Yogi's First Christmas certainly did, year after year. 

 

As for the little kids today who might watch Yogi's First Christmas, they're not going to care one bit that it was made in 1980, nor that it's derivative as hell. All they care about is whether or not it will make them laugh and keep their interest for 90 minutes. Which Yogi's First Christmas does.

Surprisingly, some heavyweight talents are behind the scenes here, including veteran animator/director Ray Patterson (Dumbo, Fantasia, Tom and Jerry, Spider-Man), and Tony Award-winning (for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) scripter Willie Gilbert. That kind of professionalism doesn't save Yogi's First Christmas from the usual (and at least in this particular effort, frankly embarrassing) continuity flubs that dogged the quickly and cheaply-made H-B product from this time period.

 

But it does ensure that the product moves surely through its admittedly thin story, with a modicum of gags that work well within the story's framework. Even though some of the songs are recycled from other H-B efforts, they're innocuous and sometimes even a little fun (Boo Boo's recycled Hope is a sweet effort, and Cindy Bear's tune about kissing Yogi under the mistletoe was an up-tempo charmer), while the accompany montages are frequently quite clever (I liked the one where Yogi turns into a star constellation and then a snowflake). 

Animation isn't all Fantasias and Pixar® "triumphs," you know. It's also the meat-and-potatoes sked-fillers like Yogi's First Christmas, a cheaply-produced romp that may look skimpy to some, but which made a whole bunch of kids back in 1980 very happy to be sitting in front of their Curtis-Mathis and Sony Trinitron sets. And it plays just fine, 45 years later, on a disc in front of your 75-inch Vizio.  I wonder if this Warner Archive disc is available at Walmart....