The new Yogi Bear movie is not getting great reviews, a fact that appears to delight many on animation-related forums. I haven't seen it and probably won't, at least in a theater. There are two reasons for this, one being that it's in 3-D and some part of my brain looks at a 3-D movie and declares, "It's nap time!" I oughta get a full set-up here in my home, not for pleasure but for any night when I have insomnia. The only trouble is that it puts me into the kind of snooze that usually comes accompanied by a headache — the kind that feels like instead of attending their own temples, Jews are inside yours and are pounding to get out.
So right there is reason enough not to buy a ticket. Another is that I love Yogi Bear…and while some would think that's a reason to race to the theater, it's really not because I don't love that Yogi Bear. I love the one that was animated for pocket change, debuted just when I was the perfect age and spoke with the masterful tones of Daws Butler. That this one isn't that one doesn't mean that this one is necessarily bad; just that the affection doesn't automatically transfer. I mean, a lot of us love Batman but that doesn't mean we like every interpretation, every incarnation, every time someone draws their version or dons a facsimile of the costume. In some ways, it's the opposite: We come to every Batman comic or adaptation with certain expectations, expecting those in charge to clear a high bar. We also, of course, have opinions of what's right and wrong for the character. That's the price the creators of the new comic or movie or whatever-it-is pay for not baking from scratch. We can't blank out the past ones and just judge some new one wholly on its own merits.
I've received a few e-mails from Yogi-loving constituents who are waiting for me to eviscerate this movie I'm not going to see. Unlike some of them, I don't think it's a crime that Time-Warner wanted to resurrect the character. Yogi was a commodity when Hanna-Barbera made the original cartoons and he's a commodity now. Certainly, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were never reticent to alter him, exploit him, retool him, misuse him or do whatever it took to wring more bucks out of the franchise. They might have grumbled over choices in this or any other reboot but does anyone think they would have stopped it? The Bill and Joe I worked for never said no to anything like that…and if they wouldn't, I don't see why I should leap to protect my childhood fave.
Is it a bad movie? Unworthy of the name of Yogi Bear? I dunno. If it is, I suppose my attitude is that of the fellow who was told that a terrible film had been made of his favorite book. "They destroyed it," a friend told him. "No," he replied pointing to a bookcase. "My favorite book is right over there on the shelf, exactly the same as it ever was." I have a DVD set of the original Yogi Bear cartoons — the ones that gave me so many hours of pleasure and inspiration — and they ain't changed.