I’m breaking my own rule this weekend and writing about a show that didn’t air on Saturday mornings, but it features characters that were Saturday a.m. favorites for many decades. Today I am focusing on HBO Max’s Jellystone! a series I just discovered… and found HILARIOUS!
Jellystone! was created by C. H. Greenblatt, who worked on SpongeBob SquarePants, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and who previously created Chowder. On this series, Greenblatt revives and reinterprets the classic Hanna-Barbera characters in a modern, irreverent way, with sharp writing and edgy social commentary.
Jellystone! is made up of 11 episodes, each one composed of two shorts. As you can tell by the title, the main focus of the show is Yogi Bear (voiced by Jeff Bergman), now a doctor working at a hospital in the town of Jellystone. (Did they just build this town on top of Jellystone Park from the original?) Cindy Bear (Grace Helbig) is his fellow doctor, while sadsack Boo Boo (Greenblatt) is a nurse and Yogi’s roommate, with Boo Boo paying all the bills and taking nonstop abuse throughout the series.
Greenblatt also voices Doggy Daddy, who also has a pretty major role. His child, Augie Doggy is gender-swapped to a little girl (Georgie Kidder). Several characters are gender-swapped probably because almost all of the old characters were male and that would make a weird dynamic on a modern cartoon. And some are kind of race-swapped. I mean… they’re mostly animals, but clearly, the voice cast is diverse. Jabber Jaw is not only a girl, but is clearly a black girl based on her voice, provided by Niccole Thurman. Comedian Ron Funches lends his unmistakable voice to Shagg Rugg, the youngest member of The Hillbilly Bears, and the rest of the family is also voiced by African American actors. Quick-Draw McGraw only appears in his El Kabong identity and is voiced by Bernardo De Paula, who is of Latin descent. Shazzan the genie and Hadji from Jonny Quest are actually voiced by a Middle Eastern actor, Fajer Al-Kaisi.
And if you like to accuse shows of being “woke” and promoting an “SJW” agenda… just stop reading. Seriously, back click.
Shazzan is also gay and there is an allusion that he hooked up with Mildew Wolf. Snagglepuss doesn’t appear much but he still has the same voice, and pretty much everyone has always assumed he was gay anyway. And in a larger role, Magilla Gorilla (Paul F. Tompkins) is also gay and owns a clothing store and it is shown that he used to be in a romantic relationship with Mr. Peebles, the pet shop owner from his original series. Yep, FOUR gay characters on one cartoon that is… I assume… aimed at kids, at least somewhat.
That’s also a bizarre amount of beastiality, but this show is so bonkers that it didn’t even occur to me how… icky that probably was.
Anyhoo, besides the characters mentioned, probably the other most-heavily featured cast members are the always scheming Top Cat (Thomas Lennon), who leads the same gang as he did on his original show, a pack of alley cats, and Captain Caveman (Jim Conroy).
In the first episode, Cindy surgically implants what is essentially a wormhole in Yogi’s stomach making it so he never gets hungry and he winds up eating everyone and everything in Jellystone. The second has Grape Ape passing out in town and Yogi and Boo Boo going inside him to get him to wake up. They wind up escaping through his ass.
In another episode, Shag Rugg runs afoul of the Banana Splits, who are mobsters here. Another has Cindy turning everyone into gelatin because she forgot to read her book for book club.
It’s a hilariously bizarre update of these classic cartoons. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I truly enjoyed it and recommend it for adult fans who grew up with these characters. The humor is definitely for grown-ups, but those things will probably fly over kids’ heads.
Jellystone! dropped on HBO Max in July, and can be streamed in full there. It has also aired on Cartoon Network. It became available in Canada in October on Teletoon and is also available to purchase on iTunes and Vudu.
