Jellystone!

Jellystone!
Come to Jellystone! It’s the best!... that they can do.
Genre: Comedy Slapstick Running Time: 11 minutes Country: United States Release Date: July 29, 2021 – present Network(s): HBO Max Created by: C. H. Greenblatt Distributed by: Warner Bros. Animation Starring: Jeff Bergman Grace Helbig C. H. Greenblatt Georgie Kidder Jim Conroy Tom Lennon Jenny Lorenzo Andrew Frankle Bernardo de Paula Niccole Thurman Seasons: 3 Episodes: 57 Previous show: Yo Yogi!

Jellystone! is an American animated streaming television comedy series developed by C. H. Greenblatt, his third series after creating Cartoon Network's Chowder and Nickelodeon's Harvey Beaks, and produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on various characters by Hanna-Barbera. It premiered on HBO Max on July 29, 2021.

Jellystone! is the first official series to feature Yogi Bear (and other characters from The Ruff and Reddy Show, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Yogi Bear Show, The Peter Potamus Show, The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show, The Wally Gator Show and The Magilla Gorilla Show) since its 1991 predecessor, Yo Yogi!, and the first production since the closure of the Hanna-Barbera studio and the deaths of both its founders, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who died in 2001 and 2006, respectively.

Premise

The series is a reimagined take on the legendary Hanna-Barbera brand, focusing on a modernized ensemble of its characters as they live, work, play and destroy the town together with their everyday lives being turned into madcap hilarity and all of them having specific roles in the community; Huckleberry Hound is mayor, Yogi Bear is a surgeon, Doggie Daddy is a lighthouse keeper who is overprotective towards Augie Doggie, Jabberjaw and Loopy De Loop works in Magilla Gorilla's haberdashery, Top Cat and the Hoagy's Alley cats continue with their scam activities, El Kabong doubles as a teacher and superhero, The Banana Splits are criminals, and the list goes on with an extended supporting cast of characters.

Why It's The Best That They Can Do

1. Unlike Teen Titans Go! and ThunderCats Roar (which both were also made by Warner Bros. Animation), it actually has a good reason why it reimagines old Hanna-Barbera properties into new comedic things.
   • While different, it’s more comparable in terms of writing and humor to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic rather than those two.
   • Even though a number of Hanna-Barbera’s old properties were classic, it’s refreshing to see their characters do something new and interesting, as opposed to doing the same old jokes over and over again to the point where they get old and unoriginal pretty fast.
2. Knowing that it was created by C. H. Greenblatt who was involved with SpongeBob SquarePants, "Harvey Beaks", "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy" (seasons 6 & 7) and Chowder, the show's humor is actually pretty funny compared to how Teen Titans Go! and ThunderCars Roar handled the Teen Titans and ThunderCats characters, respectively.
   • While not entirely faithful to the original source material, at least it feels more like cartoon shows of the 1990s and the 2000s Greenblatt worked on, as well as his prior works/creations.
   • The humor is another one of the best aspects in the show, as it’s very similar to Chowder.
3. The show's animation and art style are really nice to look at, all thanks to Snipple Animation Studios and Cheeky Little Media (only for Season 1) handling the animation services.
   • Like most of these classic cartoon reboots, the character designs for the very comedic Hanna-Barbera characters look very good for this reboot.
   • Some of the characters do look cute, like Augie Doggie and Yakky Doodle.
4. The characters are actually even more likable in this version.
   • This show also tends to focuses on other characters besides Yogi Bear.
   • El Kabong is surprisingly cool in this show.
   • For once, they actually had a purpose to make the Banana Splits antagonists in the kid-friendly way, unlike in the infamous 2019 horror movie.
   • Loopy De Loop is the best of these characters.
5. Funny references to popular culture and Hanna-Barbera's legacy.
6. Creatively funny and well-executed slapstick.
7. A wonderful Busytown vibe to it, which is fitting considering the fact that C. H. Greenblatt was influenced by Richard Scarry.
8. The music is fun to listen to, especially the theme song.
9. The series is overall the most diverse of Warner Bros. Animation's cartoon reboots.
10. There are a lot of episodes that are interestingly good/decent such as:
    • Yogi's Tummy Troubles (Which started the show off on a good note)
    • Gorilla in Our Midst
    • VIP Baby You Know Me
    • Jelly Wrestle Rumble
    • Meet the Jetsons (Which started Season 3 on a high note)
11. Great voice acting. Especially the ones who's voices still sound the same as their original counterparts with the best examples coming from Jeff Bergman (Yogi Bear, Mr. Jinks & Wally Gator) and Jim Conroy (Huckleberry Hound & Captain Caveman).
    • The voice acting is also good for the rest of the characters, even if they didn't sound like their original counterparts.
      • Bernardo de Paula's performance as Mildew Wolf is much better than his take on El Kabong, since the former's voice sounds almost a lot like Paul Lynde and John Stephenson's voice, unlike the latter.
    • The voice acting by C. H. Greenblatt is also great as he also used to voice Fred Fredburger from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
12. Lots of great cameos such as: Brak, Zorak, Space Ghost, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, etc.

Bad Qualities

1. First of all, the infamous genderswap to most of the characters is a rather decision ranging from confusing to disrespectful to H-B fans.
   • It also gets to the point where most of the designs of the characters were to changed to look "hot" and "attractive" just so those characters can have more fans, such as Loopy de Loop and Brain. And, it somewhat executes quite well since their designs look attractively good enough.
   • And the worst part about that one is, some people like the female versions of the characters so much, it starts to make the male versions even more obsolete.
     • Though, there might be a few reasons why C.H. Greenblatt did this. One of them being that it might be because Hanna-Barbera didn't have very much anthropomorphic female characters compared to the human ones. This idea could've been avoided if he were to just make his own female characters that would be exclusive to the show instead. The other could be that most of the characters like Jabberjaw or Augie aren't as memorable as others like Yogi or Huck or have never been heard of before, so he turned most of them into ladies just so people and H-B fans could like them more, but it didn't feel like a good idea because that just probably made their original male counterparts more forgotten.
     • Executive Meddling: It's possible that it might be this probably to appeal to female H-B fans.
2. While the art style is really nice to look at, it can come off as disturbing and uncanny.
3. Some jokes and moments aren't very funny, hit-and-miss, mean-spirited, annoying (sometimes) and/or innappropriate such as:
   • Huckleberry Hound and Yakky Doodle farting.
   • Shag being baby-shamed by the Cattanooga Cats and the crowd laughing at him, thanks to Yogi, who used him as his own son just so he could eat pizza, rather than helping him earn enough tickets to get the pizza wheels.
   • El Kabong crying over his broken guitar, Susan in front of his students for a whole minute.
   • Top Cat and Spooky twerking, with Fancy-Fancy tapping on the latter's butt.
   • Mildew Wolf flirting with Shazzan.
4. While it is understandable that the show is supposed to be set in a completely different canon, there are some aspects of the show that aren't very faithful to the source material, especially with Jonny Quest and Hadji, who are somehow now a gay couple in this show despite Hadji being the adoptive brother of Jonny, which shows a mild implication of incest (this wouldn't be considered if they confirmed that Hadji was the son of Shazzan).
   • For this series, Ruff and Reddy became plain robots.
5. The show doesn't feature any appearances to other well-known Hanna-Barbera characters such as Tom and Jerry (Although justified since they're still ongoing properties), Secret Squirrel (despite having a cameo on a movie poster in "It’s a Mad Mad Mad Rat Race"), Dick Dastardly and Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, The Ant Hill Mob (Same goes for them, too since they already had made a comeback in their 2017 reboot), The Hooded Claw, Precious Pupp, Breezly and Sneezly, Big Dog and Little Dog, Captain Planet, Hong Kong Phooey, Motormouse and Autocat, The Really Rottens (Except for Dread Baron, who appeared as a non-speaking cameo in "Jailcation"), Zilly, Mr. Peebles, Officer Dibble, etc. at least yet. Hopefully, they'll appear in the next season.
   • Although, it was confirmed by Andy Merill that he will be reprising his role as Brak in an upcoming episode, very soon.
6. Some voices of the H-B characters may sound nothing like themselves at all and don't even match the original performances of Daws Butler, Don Messick, John Stephenson, Allan Melvin, Mel Blanc, Paul Frees, Bob Holt, Doug Young, Paul Winchell, Janet Waldo, Jean Vander Pyl, Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan, Lennie Weinrib, Howard Morris and Jimmy Weldon (except for Bergman and Conroy, as said in Why It's The Best That They Can Do #11). Most especially from C.H. Greenblatt, Paul F. Tompkins, Thomas Lennon, Ron Funches, Bernado de Paula (except for his take on Mildew Wolf), all of the show's actresses and Dana Snyder to lesser extents. The examples/offenders include Shag Rugg, Top Cat, Magilla Gorilla, So-So, El Kabong, all the female H-B characters, all the characters who became a female and the worst one of all being Boo-Boo. Even if the actors did a good job voicing them, they sound so unalike, that you could just replace most of them (Yes, even the ones who became female characters) with original characters and nothing would change. Like for example, you can replace Boo-Boo and/or Magilla Gorilla with another anthropomorphic bear and another anthropomorphic gorilla (or a human) respectively.
   • Depending on how you're viewing them, having most of the cast sound nothing like their original counterparts can also be disrespectful to not just to those who are fans of those characters, but to also the voice work of the (original) actors/actresses who voiced them when you think about it.
   • In addition, some voices of the Hanna-Barbera characters don't have the same charm as their original actors would. For example:
     • Dana Snyder's Snagglepuss sounds way too high pitched to sound like Daws Butler and Greg Burson. Though, this is intentional since this show is created by Greenblatt, and he's done voice acting on his filmography before, such as Gazpacho on "Chowder".
     • Greenblatt's Doggie Daddy sounds way too silly and goofy to match the performences of his original actors, Doug Young and John Stephenson. Not to mention that it can get on your nerves sometimes.
     • Bernardo's impression of El Kabong and The King sound NOTHING like the voices of Daws Butler, Greg Burson and Lennie Weinrib's respectively. Though thankfully, his impression of Mildew is the most decent of his characters since he still matches Paul Lynde and John Stephenson's voices.
   • And speaking of voices, not only is it one of those shows where almost every character are voiced by the same actors and actresses over and over again, but aside from Jeff Bergman and Dana Snyder, most of the characters are either played by Greenblatt or a celebrity voice actor and actress. Even though like we repeated, everyone did a good job voicing everyone.
7. Some characters were flanderized in this show. Even the ones who got genderswapped. For example:
   • Peter Potamus became a creepy anime loving butt-monkey.
     • Other characters like Wally Gator and Mildew Wolf also became butt-monkeys as well.
   • Doggie Daddy became an overprotective father who can't even go for one day being without his son/daughter.
   • Augie Doggie became a cheerful, ditsy little girl who has a personality of a girl character you would find in a modern preschool show.
   • Shag Rugg's personality became a combined clone/rip-off of Cricket Green and Lincoln Loud (especially, the former). Heck, even his Ma's voice sounds almost a lot like Alice.
     • Both Augie and Shag's portrayals in this show, along with Yakky Doodle's together in general feel like a rip-off of Cricket Green and Remy, Lincoln Loud, Clyde McBride, Liam, Rusty, Zach, and Stella and Ronnie Ann, Sid Chang, Casey, Sameer, and Nikki.
   • Jabberjaw became a boy seeking, sassy black woman stereotype.
     • Both her and Loopy de Loop together in general feel like a rip-off of Lincoln Loud's sisters (Particularly, Lori, Leni and maybe Luna), Anne Boonchuy, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu and Luz Noceda and Amity Blight.
   • The Banana Splits are still evil. While their character has improved very much from the awful 2019 horror movie, it still doesn't redeem them back to their old selves.
   • The Cattanooga Cats went from a groovy, rocking hipster band to a mean-spirited animatronic kids restaurant mascot who teased Shag in front of everyone in a form of a song just because he was mad at Yogi for not helping him win enough tickets to get the pizza wheels he wanted and have zero tolerance against adults who come here without any kids with them.
   • The Great Gazoo's character became even worse than his original counterpart where he tricks Augie and Yakky into playing Buddy Blasters which outside the game, destroys the entire town.
   • Blue Falcon became a lazy and mean popular boy who convinced everyone in town to become superheroes, leaving El Kabong obsolete and refused to fight the giant goop monster because he told everyone that he's wealthy and is too rich to fight it.
   • The King (from Heyyy, It's the King!) went from a Fonzie inspired high schooler to a downright jerkass villain who he and his gang kicked Top Cat and his gang out of their alley, claiming it's their own. His voice also sounds completely incomparable to Lennie Weinrib's peformance.
   • Fancy-Fancy, while a little likable, went from a suave ladies man to a dramatic whiny manchild. For example, in "Cats Do Dance", he whined that he wanted to look cool when T.C. denied him about giving him a cowboy hat since he already gave it to Benny, with Brain asking that he should give him a kiddie bike and a sailor outfit instead. And at the beginning of "A Fish Sticky Situation", he acted overdramatic over how boring croquet is, even though Brain told him that he just started playing.
   • And while Yogi is still likable, there are times where he can be unlikable, depending on the episode he's starring in, such as "Cattanooga Cheese Explosion" and "A Town Video: Welcome to Jellystone".
8. Most of the H-B characters can be stupid at times, like in "My Doggie Dave" where Yogi, Boo-Boo, Captain Caveman and the others fell for Augie Doggie's "persona", Dave, which is literally just her wearing nothing but a mustache. Even at the end, where she took her mustache off, instead of realizing that she was Dave the whole time, they just asked where he was.
9. There are some H-B characters who became demoted to minor roles, background characters or non-speaking cameos such as So-So (despite having a more attentioned role in "Balloon Kids"), Atom Ant, Hokey Wolf, The Hair Bear Bunch, The King's crew, Kwicky Koala, The CB Bears, The Teen Angels, The Neptunes, Speed Buggy, Bristle Hound, Dynomutt, Ranger Smith and some others.
10. Some bad episodes here and there, such as:
    • My Doggie Dave
    • Must Be Jelly
    • Catanooga Cheese Explosion (A Shag Rugg torture episode)
    • A Town Video: Welcome to Jellystone
    • The Big Stink
11. And because of what BQ#8 says, the Augie Doggie, Doggie Daddy, Shag Rugg and Yakky Doodle episodes feel like as if they were made to appeal to younger viewers.
    • Although not much, the Jabberjaw and Loopy de Loop episodes feel like they were made to compete with the modern female protagonist centered like cartoons and appeal to female viewers. Mostly teens.
12. The show has a huge lack of memorable catchphrases and verbal tics that Hanna-Barbera was known for such as Yogi's "I'm smarter than the average bear!", Mr. Jinks' "I hate those meecees, to pieces!", Captain Caveman's titular "Captain....CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVEEEEEEMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!", Jabberjaw's "I don't get no respect!" and Touché Turtle's "Touché, away!". Though, at least Snagglepuss and El Kabong still say theirs.

Reception

Jellystone! currently holds a 6.3/10 on IMDb.

Trivia

• In the Halloween special of this show, Peter and So-So are seen dressed up as Natsu and Happy from Fairy Tail.
• Basically, Season 2 is just the second half of Season 1.
• The crew for this show is currently working on a direct to video Looney Tunes film called “King Tweety” which releases in June 2022.
• Space Ghost makes a brief appearance in the episode "Bleep".
• C. H. Greenblatt first starred in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy as Fred Fredburger who first appeared in Season 6 episode "Keeper of the Reaper"

External Links

Jellystone! at the Internet Movie Database

Comments

Loading comments...