Hey There

'Hey There, It's Yogi Bear'
Is Cartoon Character's 1st Movie
Yogi Bear, that brashly unconventional cartoon character who is the delight of vistors to Jellystone National Park—when, that is, he isn't stealing baskets—makes his motion picture debut on Thursday at the Malco Theatre in the Hanna-Barbera production, "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!" A Columbia Pictures release in color, the full-length cartoon feature also stars Yogi's Jellystone Park friends— Cindy, the demure little lady bear; Boo Boo and Ranger Smith.
Supplementing the comic romantic antics of television's favorite cartoon hero in his first full-length picture are six sparkling new songs written by Ray Gilbert and Doug Goodwin. They are the title song, "Ven-e, Ven-o Ven-a,""Like I Like You,""Wet Your Whistle,""St. Louie" and "Ash Can Parade." The music score is by Marty Paich.
Yogi's troubles begin with the advent of spring, when he decides to challenge Ranger Smith's "No Feeding the Bears" signs. Either the signs must go, or Yogi will go. Ranger Smith arranges to send him to the San Diego Zoo.
At the final hour, Yogi changes places with another bear and determines to remain incognito in Jellystone National Park. He will be "The Brown Phantom," raiding picnic areas forever, to the continuing consternation of Ranger Smith. Unfortunately, Cindy Bear doesn't know about Yogi's plans; she arranges to follow him out of the park. Lovesick, Yogi must now find Cindy; his sidekick Boo Boo helps. Ultimately, they do catch up to the lady bear, now with the Chizzling Brothers circus. Yogi's efforts to rescue her lead to his own capture.
"Hey There, It's Yogi Bear" reportedly gives Yogi the kind of role he likes. As he puts it, "It's a great part, with lots of heart. I play myself—brave, darling and smart!"
Joseph Barbera, Warren Foster and William Hanna penned screenplay for "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!" Hanna and Barbera directed and produced the cartoon comedy. Daws Butler is the voice of Yogi Bear and Don Messick co-stars as the voices of Boo Boo and Ranger Smith.

Naturally, there were all kinds of tie-ins. Perhaps the nicest one was a 45 that Kellogg’s sent fans. Want to hear it? You can thank our friend Mark Christiansen, a fine artist and a fan of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.





In case you havent read it, Greg Ehrbar went into great detail about the Hey There soundtrack in this post on Cartoon Research some time ago.

Now you just knew that we’d have other old Yogi merchandise to show you. None of this is related to the movie, but comes from around the time Yogi got his own series.

Whitman made a punch-out book of the Huckleberry Hound show characters (Yowp included, I hasten to add). They did one for the Yogi Bear show, too. Hokey Wolf got included because, well, they had to put him somewhere. You can see the pre-“Hey There” design of Cindy was used.



During the ‘60s Transogram had a number of Yogi Bear toys and games it licensed from Hanna-Barbera. There was a ball toss, a ring toss, a Go Fly a Kite board game, and this Pencil-by-Number set.



There was a Yogi bubble pipe from Transogram in 1963.



Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear wasn’t a huge success when it came out in 1964 or in its re-release in 1986. But it seems to have attracted more than kids, according to this story in Variety, September 2, 1964:

Color Them Adult
Californians are different.
This became apparent to members of Columbia's home-office publicity people when they recently reviewed the entries submitted in a nation-wide cartoon coloring contest held in connection with "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear."
Approximately 5,000 entries were received and most, understandably, were from tots. However, among those sent in from California were more than a handful from people who, one might assume, should have other things on their minds. The winning entry was submitted by a gent of 77. Other contestants included a housewife, age 44; a man of 29, and another guy, age 19.
Latter included a statement on the back of his entry attesting to the fact that "I drew this picture myself."