Thursday, March 14, 2019

What was playing at the Tivoli in March 1969?

Now that’s an off-model Fred Flintstone
At the same time that Alaskan Safari was drawing them in at the Palace in Lorain, the Tivoli was advertising a special matinee for Hanna-Barbera fans on March 15 and 16th: a double feature of Hey There, it’s Yogi Bear (1964) and The Man Called Flintstone (1966).

I wrote about the original Lorain theater runs of Hey There, it’s Yogi Bear back here, and The Man Called Flintstone here. (I’ve actually written about Yogi Bear a lot on this blog, including this post about the Jellystone Park resorts, as well as this post when I told about my first material possession: a Yogi Bear/Huck Hound walker.)

Like I’ve mentioned before, these two full-length animated features of Hanna-Barbera’s most popular characters were pleasant, with slightly better animation than the original TV episodes. But kids were undoubtedly bored with the unnecessary songs and lack of violence. The movies eventually made it to TV, which is where my siblings and I first saw them – probably on one of those special Day-after-Thanksgiving cartoon marathons.

A typical scene from the TV series like this (below) – Ranger Smith chasing Yogi and repeatedly bashing him on the head with a baseball bat – would not have fit in with the family-friendly Hey There, it’s Yogi Bear. And more’s the pity.

The final chase in A Bear Pair (1961)

1 comment:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

As I recall, the Quaker Oats Company had coupons for free admission to HEY THERE, IT'S YOGI BEAR!