Ten years ago, Warner Bros. thought that putting many of their legendary characters in a community setting would make for good television. The Looney Tunes Show lasted two seasons on Cartoon Network, and it was enough to convince WB suits to duplicate the concept with some of the Hanna-Barbera crew.
Unfortunately, Jellystone, while it copies the concept, fails because of poor character designs and a dependence on adult humor that isn't meant for today's kids.
Yogi Bear (Jeff Bergman) is now a doctor, along with Cindy Bear, with Boo Boo as a nurse, although Cindy's actually the smartest of the trio, and poor Yogi's been dumbed down to an imbecile, just like Daffy Duck 10 years ago. Contrary to his GEICO commercial and earlier appearances, Yogi's not smarter than the average bear anymore. He is the average bear!!
Huckleberry Hound (Jim Conroy) is the mayor, and he, too, has been dumbed down. Other characters, such as Augie Doggie, Squiddly Diddly, and Jabberjaw (!) have been gender-flipped to female to reduce the disparity in male vs. female characters. Now a girl, Augie is an aspiring singer, and Doggie Daddy comes off as more overbearing than he used to be.
Before we continue, this sample clip was presented two weeks ago at the San Diego Comic-Con:
Realizing that not everyone has HBO Max, WB is repurposing Jellystone on Cartoon Network starting Saturday, September 4 (check listings), assuming they can find time to break the gridlock that is known as Teen Titans Go!
Rating: C--.
13 comments:
Slight correction, hobbyfan; Cindy is also a doctor on the show. Only Boo-Boo is a nurse.
Initially, C.H. Greenblatt was brought on to make new original shorts starring the Hanna-Barbera crew, in the vein of HBO Max's Looney Tunes Cartoons. While these were in development, Greenblatt, a fan of the HB "potpourri" shows such as Yogi's Gang, Laff-A-Lympics, Yogi's Treasure Hunt and Fender Bender 500, felt that the characters were more interesting when placed together in a singular setting, hence the transition to Jellystone!.
Greenblatt's art style and humor aren't for everyone, I'll admit that, but in terms of manic energy, rapid-fire gags, constant background music rather than just silence between intro music and end stingers and tons of callbacks, references and Easter eggs to HB works, the show manages to be an even loonier version of The Looney Tunes Show.
The "controversial" gender-flipping of several of the characters didn't stem from some "woke agenda" as some narrow-minded haters will claim, but rather from Greenblatt noticing that most of Hanna-Barbera's core characters, particularly from the 60's through 80's, were almost entirely male, with only Cindy Bear (usually just a one-dimensional love interest), and Maw and Floral Rugg of the Hillbilly Bears being the rare exceptions. Nobody in kids' TV wants a repeat of the Smurfette Principle, so it was decided to switch some of the mid to lower tier characters to females in order to bridge the chasm, as it were. This again is a decision that won't sit well with everyone, but IMO many of them work, such as Augie Doggy as a girl version of Greenblatt's Chowder minus the voracious appetite and Yakky Doodle and Chopper as timid little girl and her hip, liberated adoptive mom, or at least result in interesting 'new' characters such as Jabberjaw and Loopy DeLoop. This won't be an issue to the kiddos at home as they possess no prior knowledge of the characters outside of the big ones that everybody knows like Yogi, Boo-Boo, Huck, Snagglepuss and Wally Gator, whom Greenblatt has pledged to leave as-is, gender-wise anyway.
Apart from this, Looney Tunes Cartoons (which AFAIK is still airing on CN in the mornings) and the upcoming Cartoonito shows set to start rolling out in September, if nothing else it's good to see that Cartoon Network is trying to break the monotonous monolith of endless loops of Teen Titans GO!.
I guess that I liked this a little more than you did, hobbyfan. The show's humor reminded me a lot of Chowder, which isn't surprising since Jellystone! was developed by C.H. Greenblatt, the creator of Chowder. But I liked Chowder, and I prefer wacky, zany humor in general, so maybe that's why I could get into this. Yeah, some of the character designs are a little off, but they still look the characters they're based on. And unlike some folks on the internet, some of the characters being gender flipped doesn't bother me in the slightest. Hanna-Barbera (especially in the era from the 1960s to the 1980s) didn't have a large roster of female characters. Out of the 40+ characters who appeared in H-B's "Laff-A-Lympics", only 6 of them were female. This is a way of dealing with the gender disparity that's been present in the studio for years, and most of the characters who were gender flipped are B and c-list characters who haven't been seen or thought about in many years and who offered little in terms of distinctive personality. Personally, I find female Jabberjaw and Loopy DeLoop to be funny.
It's a gamble. Not every new or different take on a franchise works, but you have to be allowed to experiment. Jellystone is like a loonier version of The Looney Tunes Show. I wish that the humor in TLTS had been zanier.
I haven't seen enough of Chowder to judge, and have not seen Harvey Beaks at all, even though it is available On Demand.
As for gender-flipping Jabberjaw, older fans accustomed to Jabber being a cross between Curly Howard and Rodney Dangerfield are going to be completely blown out. A female Augie is meant to be a riff on today's generation of female pop singers, with Daddy being the overbearing stage parent.
At least Greenblatt isn't working with CGI colorforms like he did with what I saw of Chowder, and I will get around to that.
I understand your objections about the characters, but there are bound to be alternate universes with different versions of existing characters (Secret Squirrel, Spider-Man, Transformers, My Little Pony, Mickey Mouse, DuckTales, and Teen Titans are some examples). In other words, reinvented characters are separate from original characters.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’d like to see how some other HB characters might look in the Jellystone universe (Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-long, Punkinpuss & Mushmouse, Breezly & Sneezly, to name a few). And hey, maybe they’ll throw in more super obscure HB characters/groups in future episodes.
As I wrote in the review, everyone but the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and I'll add Tom & Jerry to that list, appears to be in play.
I was looking forward to the show because we haven't gotten much with these characters in a while, I love C.H. Greenblatt's work (particularly "Chowder"), and both "Looney Tunes Cartoons" and the "Wacky Races" reboot are/were so good, I thought a Hanna-Barbera show along the lines of those would be great. Then the first clips of the show came out, and I was baffled by how bad they looked. Then the actual show came out, and despite not being as bad as I expected it to, I still found it bad.
I don't really like the character designs. The voice cast consisting mainly of celebrities with only a few professional voice actors (Paul F. Thompkins as Magilla Gorilla?) results in most of the characters sounding completely off. Gender-swapping characters like Squiddly Diddly and Jabberjaw is a poor solution for the "lack of female characters" problem. The "LOL SO RANDOM" stuff is off-putting and ill-fitting for these characters. Characters are changed so drastically that they might as well be completely new characters (Hardy Harr Harr being an old Jewish lady immediately comes to mind). Most of the jokes fall flat. It doesn't even feel like a C.H. Greenblatt show.
The show's one saving grace is that some of the characters do indeed feel, act, and sound like themselves - particularly Yogi, Huck, Mr. Jinks, Wally Gator, and Captain Caveman. Jeff Bergman does a great job as Yogi, Jinks, and Wally. Aside from that, I'm really disappointed that "Jellystone!" didn't turn out better.
I have this feeling since season 2 has already been announced, that it might be the last chance.
Guys, the thing we need to keep in mind here is this show isn't made for old-schoolers like us. It's audience is kids. Kids have never seen Jabberjaw, Squiddly Diddly, Yakky Doodle, Loopy DeLoop, Auggie Doggie, etc. before, so Jellystone will be their first exposure to the characters, so they won't know or care that some of them used to be guys. I personally enjoy the female versions of Jabber and Loopy and Cindy Bear. It's best to simply think of this show as taking place in an alternate universe. The purpose of Jellystone! is to introduce these Hanna-Barbera characters to a new generation of fans. If you prefer the old takes on the characters, that's fine, but let the kids at home judge for themselves whether they think that the show is any good or not. It doesn't matter if folks our age don't like it because it's not made for us. This show is meant for the Cartoon Network generation.
As I said before, I kind of like Jellystone. In some aspects, it's a better Looney Tunes Show than The Looney Tunes Show was.
If you prefer the original H-B shows and shorts, there still out there if you wish to seek them out. I'm old enough to know most of the characters depicted on Jellystone and I was still able to enjoy it for the most part.
It does fit with the idea that CN/HBO Max's target audience for Jellystone is somewhere in the neighborhood on 6-11. Everyone knows Yogi, Boo Boo, Cindy, & Huck. Characters introduced in the 60's and 70's, like Jabberjaw, Squiddly, and even Yippee, Yappee, & Yahooey, not as much, although Peter Potamus was reintroduced as a 1-note joke character on Harvey Birdman ("Didja get that thing I sent ya?"), and that was 20 years ago.
They can always get around the Jabberjaw issue by saying the new Jabber would be an ancestor or something......
I was not expecting the show to turn The Banana Splits into villains. Someone must have been watching The Banana Splits Movie.
Didn't see the movie when it came out last year, Steven. Had read of it.
I shudder to think of what they'd do to the Cattanooga Cats......
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