Yogi's Great Escape

Yogi's Great Escape

Yogi's Great Escape

Loved Yogi Bear as a child, and still have a soft spot for it now. It is a funny and charming show with appealing, funny and smart humour and likable characters, plus the characters are well voiced. While not awful, 'Yogi's Great Escape' was less than great. To me actually it was pretty bland and doesn't have the charm of 'The Yogi Bear Show' and doesn't have enough of what makes it work so well. Of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series of TV specials, 'Yogi's Great Escape' is generally one of the lesser ones. On the most part the animation is serviceable, the backgrounds are bright and colourful with nice detail and some of the colours are vibrant though some are also garish. The character designs are a little rough though. Another strength is the voice cast, who do a typically terrific job with what they're given, giving an energy that is lacking elsewhere. Then again those involved were very talented voice actors who always gave their all no matter the quality of the material. Yogi and Boo Boo are likable characters who haven't lost their spark and have a nice chemistry together. It is agreed that the Mississippi River and boys' hideout scenes are standout scenes. However, the story is very episodic and very, very slight with a good deal of repetition going on. The fun and excitement is just not there and it does feel like more than one episode strung together. The fun and smartness is also lacking here, laughs are very scarce and what there is is barely amusing. As said, the character designs are rough and too many of the characters are both underused to the point of being wasted (their screen time is far too brief and their material is tastelessly weak) or woefully mistreated, Quick Draw is a good example of a wronged character made to look stupidly incompetent. The cubs are not that memorable and the stock music score is every bit as repetitive as the story. Overall, not awful but less than great, instead pretty bland. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I am a big fan of all the Hanna Barbera stuff, and a fan of Yogi Bear (though there are others I like way more). A friend told me about this film, and seeing as how it had some appearances from other HB characters and it looked somewhat interesting, I decided to give it a watching... I now regret watching it. Basically, this is the story; Yogi finds three baby cubs (who were dropped of by "Anonymous"), so Yogi and Boo Boo take care of them. They soon find out that the park is being closed down, so Yogi, Boo Boo, and the three cubs who appeared out of nowhere with non-existent parents try to get out of there. Mr. Ranger hires a bounty hunter (who's entrance is just... dumb, and feels like it was stolen directly from the Tasmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes show) to get them back. Most of the film is just Yogi and the others running away from Ranger Smith and the Bounty Hunter and his dog... that's basically it. They try to make it fresh during the middle by adding in some cameo's of other HB characters (Quickdraw, Wally Gator, and Snagglepuss), but their brief scenes are so tasteless, quick, and felt like they were a last minute decision to please some fans... which just made me more disappointed... and they turned Quickdraw into a bad guy (I guess friendship means nothing...). There aren't really any memorable dialog, no memorable scenes... and the three cubs seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth after this film ended (along with their parents, I guess). If you are a die-hard Hanna Barbera fan, then go ahead and give it a shot. If not, I don't think anyone else would really enjoy this film, as it does no justice to any of the characters

There's nothing particularly special here. "Yogi's Great Escape" has Yogi, Bobo, and three baby bears fleeing Yellowstone in a crazy car after the Ranger announces that the park has to close. Over the course of the movie, they have a series of wacky adventures, namely because the Ranger hires a bounty hunter to help him catch them. In the process, they meet several other characters from Hanna-Barbera cartoons (such as Wally Alligator and Quick-Draw McGraw). Like I said, there's nothing really special here. Although I will admit that that whole sequence on the Mississippi River was kinda neat, as was the scene in the boys' hideout - and what resulted.