Evidently, the new Yogi Bear movie, starring Dan Aykroyd as the titular voice of everyone’s favorite cartoon bear is in trouble at the box office. As with the 1970 conservative classic Easy Rider, and the now obvious happy ending we’ve come to know and love that makes everything that preceded tolerable in that film, the studio has grafted a new feel good ending onto this movie, perhaps just hoping that the film will break even.
As James Lileks warns, “Just dropped today on the internet, ready to end up on everyone’s Facebook page by 5 PM today. Okay. It’s . . . err – well. DO NOT WATCH THIS WITH KIDS AROUND:”
[youtube m6w0r-ScEG4]
OK, now that I’ve watched it, I’m speechless.
Why is why I’m typing instead.
That was the first cartoon bear ever murdered for viral video gain. You knew there’d be a protest from the Cartoon Network and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you’d be — bringing fans of Hanna-Barbera together with fans of Looney Tunes.
(Let me be the first to say that I’ve abused Diet Coke and it kept me up all night on April 27, 2001. I want to be the first to say it so that when Boo-Boo Bear’s Army of Arrogant Bearholes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second.)
I watch cartoons, there are Yogi Bear Christmas ornaments on my tree, Boo-Boo Bear is deranged and Hanna-Barbera should be ashamed of itself.
Update: Here’s the clip of the scene from The Assassination of Jesse James that Yogi and Boo-Boo are parodying. As opposed to that homage of the hanging scene in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge that Bugs and Daffy did a while back…
Update: Real backstory of parody video at the Wall Street Journal.
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