Yogi Bear is a 2010 American live-action/computer-animated film adaptation of the 1961-62 animated television series
The Yogi Bear Show directed by Eric Brevig. The film stars
Dan Aykroyd as Yogi and
Justin Timberlake as Boo-Boo along with
Anna Faris,
Tom Cavanagh,
T.J. Miller, Nate Corddry, and Andrew Daly. Distributed by
Warner Bros. with
Hanna-Barbera serving as a co-producer, the film tells the story of Yogi Bear as he tries to save his park from being logged. Principal photography began in November 2009. It was preceded by the cartoon short
Rabid Rider, starring
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
Tropes
- 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?
- Armor-Piercing Question: Ranger Smith caps off his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Yogi that fully breaks him:
Ranger Smith: So tell me, Yogi. How smart are you, now?
- Artistic License – Politics: Since when do city mayors have jurisdiction over national parks?
- 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 his 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.
- Book Ends: The first and last scene is Yogi stealing food from park visitors.
- Chekhov's Gun: The camera in Boo Boo's tie, the Basket Nabber 2000 and the Frog-eyed Turtle, the last of which is a Shout-Out to Chekhov himself, as Chekhov was born on an island that, translated from Russian, means "Turtle Island".
- Crapsack City: Based on an early scene with Mayor Brown and the Chief of Staff, the city is this, due to Mayor Brown's careless exploitation of city property to make a buck. The public golf course has been sold to condo developers. The bottling rights to the lake were sold off, resulting in the lake being drained dry. The resulting sinkhole is now an old mattress dumping ground. Two out of three fire stations have become yogurt shops, and the library would have become a make-your-own-donut place had it not burned down.
- Cue the Rain:
Yogi: No more food. No more pick-a-nickers. How could this get any worse? [it starts raining] Oh.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
This
◊ poster for the film, which has a close-up of Yogi's head above Boo-Boo's with the tagline "Great things come in bears." - 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.
Mayor Brown: You think I care about what the law says? Or about some endangered "frog mouthed turtle"? Or some stupid park for families to have a picnic in?! NO! I care about POWER, you pinheads!! Nobody knows that this turtle exists and nobody ever will.
- Establishing Character Moment: Mayor Brown, after hearing that the city's bankrupt, balks at the price of a personally-tailored suit and bills it to the city.
- Heroic BSoD: Ranger Smith's "The Reason You Suck" Speech causes Yogi to suffer one of these, but Boo Boo brings him back.
- 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.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Yogi, after his water-skiing stunt winds up nearly destroying the park and getting called out by Ranger Smith.
- 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.
- Remake Cameo:
- The homeless man that gives Yogi his shopping cart in exchange for Yogi's chocolate is voiced in the Brazilian dub by the late Miguel Rosenberg, who voiced Yogi in the Brazilian dub of Yogi's Gang, Laff-A-Lympics, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound, Yogi the Easter Bear, Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights, Cartoon Network shorts and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
- In the Japanese dub, the narrator is voiced by the late Junpei Takiguchi, who voiced Yogi in the very first Japanese dub of the original animated series.
- The same goes in the Latin American Spanish dub, as the same role is voiced by Francisco Colmenero, who voiced Yogi in some of the animated specials until the 80s.
- 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.] 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, sitting in the woods, minding his own business. But no, you're different; you're
smart. And you'd rather spend your days being selfish and destructive, while everyone else pays the price. But I guess it wasn't enough screwing up my life. No, this time, you had to go and bring down
this entire park! So, tell me, Yogi:
How smart are you now? - Shout-Out: The fanfare that plays as Yogi dons his hat, collar and tie following his Heroic BSoD sounds awfully familiar...
- Shown Their Work: This is one of the few works to remember turtle shells are not removable (they are actually modified ribcages), with Yogi mentioning that he once tried to take the frog-mouthed turtle's shell off only to learn it's stuck tight.
- Smug Snake: Mayor Brown and the Chief of Staff.
- 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.
- Tranquil Fury: Ranger Smith demonstrates this perfectly after Yogi's stunt goes terribly wrong, destroying the park and nearly injuring people. It's clear he's furious with Yogi, but he gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech with a smile on his face, and while barely raising his voice.
- 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 definitely more of them around the world, and Yogi and Boo Boo simply being there isn't really enough to shock people.
