Not just an animated movie, an animated Christmas movie as well it has to be good doesn’t it. Released much later than I originally thought in 1980 it was not released into cinema’s so I cannot find any records of budget costs and there are no box office figures. With any animated movie I say it stars the voices of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Janet Waldo, Marilyn Schreffler & Hal Smith. There are some scores on the critic’s board with no fear of disturbing the scorer in the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge as I gave this the highest score! IMDb gave it slightly less with a 7.2/10 but the Rotten Tomatoes people gave it the lowest score of 61%. Shall I give you the plot to try and explain the reasons for the scores and then why this movie is special to me.
The plot unsurprisingly revolves around Yogi bear and Boo Boo are normally hibernating during the winter and Christmas is something they just don’t do. When Hucklebury Hound, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy come to stay at the Jellystone Lodge for a holiday he comes out to stay with them. They are joined by some humans namely Ranger Smith, hotel manager Mr Dingwell, the chef Otto, the owner Sophie and her nephew Snively. With a name like Snively he has to be a brat of a child and he is. The only other character to mention is a Hermit who hates Christmas. Inventively named Herman the Hermit he is not happy that the lodge is open during this time and definitely doesn’t want anything to do with Christmas. Snively takes an instant dislike to Yogi’s popularity and tries to embarrass him by tricking him various sporting events happening at the lodge. Through bungling Yogi turns out to be good at everything with the help of the lovely owner. Snively gets so frustrated with Yogi’s success that he runs off to team up with Herman and you can see where this is going.
The next question has to be why does the others not like this movie and then follow it by why I do. Well this is a run of the mill movie the plot is very obvious and it is designed for youngsters so whether the adults are going to enjoy is a different subject. It was also originally cut into 4 sections with an episode shown each day to cover four days usually leading up to Christmas Day, someone had just stuck them all together to make one movie. Which may explain the dislike for the movie and it is very sweet and happy and everyone does live happily ever after, there are also some songs in there as well to making this a musical as well, which may be a reason why people were turned off by it. For me this movie takes me back to Christmas Day at some point in the eighties. I must have been getting older and the Christmas magic was waning somewhat but I remember this one year in particular. Normally the whole family was awake as soon as first light as my mum was awake the whole house was as well be it banging doors or dropping things, coughing or whatever she was into Christmas when we were young. The other scenario would have been is me or my sister woke up we would wake the other. This morning I did not do that, I cannot remember the specific year and cannot remember my age exactly but I woke up and lay in bed to hearing nothing. There were no sounds, silence! I got up and checked Santa had been and the sack was there but to be honest I wasn’t that interested then. I thought what could I do to wake everyone and get this whole present ripping going. I got up and had a shower in the gloom of the early morning got out dried and returned to my room. Still nothing no movement sounds of people being up so giving up I thought what the hell and I put on some clothes on (I’d guess a T-shirt and a pair of 80’s shorts/tracksuit bottoms). I turned my little portable tv on and got back into bed. What was on? Well some movie with Yogi Bear and Boo Boo in it and there were lots of other characters that I recognise as well some pink panther looking thing that I recognised but couldn’t name as it was talking. The Dawg and his son, some other characters that I remember. It meant that Christmas Day was here and this started the day off to perfection. It wasn’t pretentious or in your face it was kids and it was perfect it was too young for me to fully enjoy but this random thing set the day up and holds special memories for me and my love of Christmas. Whenever I watch this movie, I am mentally transferred back to that morning. I was young and had my whole adult life ahead of me, my dad was still with us and he would be up cooking breakfast soon (it was the once a year job he used to have), Sandy our Jack Russell dog was still there too and probably the year he pulled the floss off the tree as he ran past with his tail in the air. This innocent little movie set up one of the perfect Christmas days from my youth. Does this make this a great movie? Well, no probably not but to me its means so much more than you could ever imagine. To the point where I can feel my emotions reaching the surface from just explaining why this is a special movie to me and probably just to me but hey anything that can remind me of happy times has to be a good thing. Doesn’t it? It also means that every Christmas I bore my teenage kids with this movie and shhh keep this a secret but there is normally one evening spent watching this movie alone remembering the Christmases of old and hoping that this coming Christmas will be good for my kids. I feel the need to say sorry but this one is all for me!!
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