Thursday, May 8, 2014

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Yogi's Gang (1973)

Yogi Bear and his friends were still searching for "the perfect place" in the wake of the 1972 TV-movie, "Yogi's Ark Lark", which in turn was spun off into Yogi's Gang as part of ABC's 1973-4 freshman class.

The tone of the show was more educational than entertaining, as Yogi, Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound, Magilla Gorilla, and others dealt with the likes of Lotta Litter, Mr. Smog, and the Greedy Genie, learning about sharing, environmental issues, and selfishness, along with the audience. Unfortunately, the show was way ahead of its time, and cancelled after 1 season.

Here's the intro:



Episodes would later be split into two or three parts and excerpted on Fred Flintstone & Friends, a syndicated anthology series, which is where I finally caught up with the series. Unfortunately, it now sits in Cartoon Network/Boomerang's vaults, ignored.

Rating: B.

5 comments:

magicdog said...

I always hated this show for the reasons you stated - it preached to us worse than any 30 second PSA - except it was 29 and a half minutes longer!

The only good thing as that all the past HB anamorphic characters were all gathered in one place. Some of whom I didn't even know of until this show came out (like Touche Turtle and Ruff & Reddy).

hobbyfan said...

I never saw the episodes in their original format, so I became acquainted via Fred Flintstone & Friends. Preachy? Yep, but they tried to sugarcoat it so it wasn't so annoying. Unfortunately, uneven writing did the show in.

SaturdayMorningFan said...

Thank You! I remembered watching Yogi's Gang, and tried to convince myself I had seen them in their original Saturday Morning airings, but something about that didn't seem quite right. Same went for The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. Now that you've brought up Fred Flintstone & Friends in connection with both of those other HB shows, it hit me that this is how I originally saw them.

SaturdayMorningFan said...

Was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids also a part of that package? Because I distinctly remember watching it, but not on Saturday morning.

hobbyfan said...

No, Butch Cassidy was not part of Fred Flintstone & Friends. The anthology compilation was comprised of reruns of:

Yogi's Gang
Jeannie
Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm
Goober & the Ghost Chasers
Partridge Family 2200 AD.