Sometimes a news story falls through the cracks and, since I don’t have Lewis Black working for me, they just kind of stay there until someone points them out. In this case, the fine cinephile blogger Peter Nellhaus of the well-named Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee alerted me via Facebook that I’d missed this item on the possible casting of Anna Faris, Dan Aykroyd, and Justin Timberlake for an upcoming CGI/live-action adaptation of the really not all that classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon adventures of Yogi Bear. (Any fond childhood memories I had left were quickly erased by actually trying to watch one.)
Admittedly, this idea for a film kind of sets my teeth on edge, but at the same time, that’s how I reacted when I heard they were doing a new “Battlestar Galactica” TV show. The first was so horrible, why revive it? “To make it really good this time” turned out to be the answer. Ideas are just ideas, the execution is where it’s at, and this could be brilliant for all any of us know, though the immutable laws of the entertainment universe — and a seemingly less than inspired choice for the director — indicates that it has at least a 90% chance of stinking. I have to say that the idea of Justin Timberlake doing the voice of Boo-Boo does kind of make me smile, however.
Only time will truly tell, but I’m using this opportunity to present an ancient video for “Life Like Yogi,” the anthem of the long defunct, highly ironic Hanna-Barbara obsessed punk bank, Stukas Over Bedrock — a group whose mid-Wilshire home I used to sometimes hang out at a long, long ago — led by my esteemed fellow cinephile John P. Garry III. A real walk down Punksville’s memory lane.
Ursine bonus videos after the flip.
*****
