Ultimate Yogi Bear
Jake Rossen Jul 15, 2010
John Kricfalusi, the animator who created the deranged “Ren &
Stimpy” for Nickelodeon in the early 1990s, explains in this
blog
post that he had plans for an MMA-themed “Yogi Bear” sequence
in 1997. Unfortunately, 1997 did not have many plans for MMA.
“When I first turned in this scene to Cartoon Network, they wanted me to cut it because they thought Yogi and Ranger Smith were having ‘relations,’” he wrote. “I explained that, no, this was an MMA style of fighting.”
You can check out the animation here, and it’s pretty shrewd for its day: Ranger Smith (Yogi’s longtime adversary, for those who don’t know) gets guard on Yogi and tries to tie up his head so he can’t create distance; Yogi works his ground-and-pound; the Ranger gets in some heel kicks to the kidney.
Considering 98 percent of the cartoon’s audience at the time would have little understanding that Kricfalusi is actually paying homage to Mark Coleman with the headbutts from inside guard, it’s not that much of a mystery why it didn’t fly. Still worth checking out.
“When I first turned in this scene to Cartoon Network, they wanted me to cut it because they thought Yogi and Ranger Smith were having ‘relations,’” he wrote. “I explained that, no, this was an MMA style of fighting.”
You can check out the animation here, and it’s pretty shrewd for its day: Ranger Smith (Yogi’s longtime adversary, for those who don’t know) gets guard on Yogi and tries to tie up his head so he can’t create distance; Yogi works his ground-and-pound; the Ranger gets in some heel kicks to the kidney.
Considering 98 percent of the cartoon’s audience at the time would have little understanding that Kricfalusi is actually paying homage to Mark Coleman with the headbutts from inside guard, it’s not that much of a mystery why it didn’t fly. Still worth checking out.
