Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose (TV Movie 1987) Poster

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8/10
What an adventure!
mincha370723 April 2005
I absolutely loved this movie when I watched it as a child! The magical ride on the Spruce Goose will send you to a place where only the imagination can go. The characters include some of the best and most familiar, including Yogi Bear, Boo Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Droopy, Pink Panther, and more! A little tomboyish girl called Bernice is also in on the ride, although reluctantly at first (she was a stowaway on the plane before it accidentally lifted off). The places they visit and the people (er, animals) that they meet are such wonderful and growing experiences. You'll feel as if you're riding along with them! Definitely a must see, very highly recommended.
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7/10
Howard Hughes would be proud.
lee_eisenberg25 November 2005
There have been many combinations of cartoon characters, but "Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose" puts a neat spin on it. In this case, Yogi, Boo Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Finn, and some others take Howard Hughes' famous airplane on a trip around the world and have to fight off the dastardly Dread Baron.

In some ways, maybe this is just a cartoon, but it's pretty interesting. And I think that we can all agree: this is a cartoon, so we need to accept it for what it is. Maybe it's just fantasy, but they've got some impressive stuff here. You're sure to like it. I guarantee it.
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7/10
Not quite magical, still a fun ride with Yogi and his friends
TheLittleSongbird22 June 2017
Loved Yogi Bear as a child, and still have a soft spot for it now. It is a funny and charming show with appealing, funny and smart humour and likable characters, plus the characters are well voiced.

Very like 'Yogi Bear's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper', 'Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose' has a lot of what is appealing about Yogi in the first place and is enjoyable fun in its own right. It is not quite as good as that special, but as far as the Yogi specials go it's one of the better ones and much better than 'Yogi's Great Escape'. It also fares well in ranking the "Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10" series of TV specials made in the 80s.

It does go on for a little too long, occasionally momentum is lost in scenes that are less eventful. It could easily have been half an hour shorter and things would have felt consistently tighter. The story is a very neat idea, mostly done well, but it is pretty standard for Yogi, meaning some scenes having somewhat of a formulaic nature, and at times episodic.

While it was a delight to see Yogi's friends, some of them could have had more to do with some of them not being in it quite long enough. At least they were true to character.

Best thing about 'Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose' is the titular aircraft itself, it looks great, gives the special a little magic that wasn't quite there in some of the storytelling and like a character of its own. The brief black and white clip of the plane being flown by Howard Hughes himself was a lovely touch.

Much of the animation is well done, especially in the meticulously detailed backgrounds. Lots of vibrant colour too. The music is luckily not cheap-sounding and isn't heavy in repetition.

'Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose' has some amusing writing that is true in spirit to the Yogi Bear show and what made it so appealing in the first place. There is a real sense of fun and nostalgia, though perhaps 'Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose' just lacks the heart of 'Yogi Bear's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper', which had a sincere and heartfelt representation of Christmas.

Characters mostly are great, with Yogi and Boo Boo likable characters and Dread Baron and Mumbley suitably dastardly villains. Who cannot help love seeing Quick Draw in his old El Kabong costume? The voice acting is very good, with Daws Butler giving a bravura performance in multiple roles.

In summary, not quite magical but fun. Die-hard fans will like it and so would those not demanding too much. 7/10 Bethany Cox
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Good movie for kids of all ages
kathsthe127 May 2003
Yogi Bear & his Holiday Jolliday Tours, takes himself, Boo Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Augie Dogie & his dad Doggie, Snagglepuss, & Huckleberry Hound to Long Beach, CA to see the Spruce Goose - the largest plane ever built, of wood, by Howard Hughes. Yogi's always getting lost & takes them to an, "Off Limits," part of the plane & it closes & they can't get out. Yogi presses all the buttons on the control panel. The plane starts up & leaves the hanger & Yogi thinks it's all part if the show, until he has to fly it - it's a magical plane. Meanwhile, two aliens, Firkin & Merkin come to invade Earth & are scared when they see the Spruce Goose & leave to another part of our planet. Animals in the South Pole are trapped & can't get to food so Yogi takes the gang & the Goose there to help. They discover Bernice - she was trapped in the cargo area - she's a mean tomboy. They save the animals. Then, an ocean liner's adrift with animals aboard and their poachers abandoned them. They go to save them too just as the aliens also come & once more are scared away by the Goose. Quick Draw changes into his alter hero; El Cabong - to help. Yogi takes the animals to an island but someone's on it... Dread Baron & his sidekick Mumbly. They've been marooned there since Dread crashed his plane. They want off the island but Yogi & gang don't trust him. He promises to reform - hah! They take him onto the Goose but Dread traps them to go to the island of Moolah Moolah. On Moolah there's a statue that resembles Dread & the natives now worship him. He has them load lots & lots of gold onto the Goose. A volcano erupts & they must leave. Once up in the air they must throw the gold out because the plane's too heavy - Dread & Mumbley follow the gold - & now the natives worship Mumbley. Yogi somehow ends up back in Long Beach (remember the Goose is magical). Bernice is reunited with her mother & Yogi takes the gang back to Jellystone Park. Cute movie for kids of any age.
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2/10
Magical acid-trip with Yogi Bear
DonBattery3 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
As a child I found Hanna-Barbera cartoons dumb, poorly drawn, and too simple. So I never was a fan of Yogi Bear and his friends.

Yesterday one of my friends show us this movie (he found his old VHS cassettes, and this was one of his favorites). And I must say: it was disturbing and awful.

The story is about Yogi and his friends. They are visiting Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. (And I'm pretty sure, the museum ordered this film, as a commercial.) On the beginning we can see the exterior around the museum (simple photographs, and paints from them), then they sow us the interior of the building, and an interesting blanc&white documentary film about the test flight of Howard Hughes gigantic airplane, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (the Spruce Goose). This is the only good part of the film (+One star for this!).

Then Yogi and his crew accidentally stuck on the plane, and the magic flight begins. The characters are dumber then the usual (or its maybe just me...), some of them are constantly denying the truth, calling it hallucination (why???), and lot of them didn't do anything during the whole time, except telling some unfunny comments. The storyline is full of holes, stuffed with "magic", like the authors cannot come up with better ideas.

I know this is a cartoon for kids, and not for middle-aged men. But for god's sake! I'm not a super intelligent man, I never was. I always liked movies with an understandable, and somehow intelligent story. I'm not against magic, I like fantasy films. But when the writers use magic as filler material, I could brake the TV.

All in all, this film is a soulless commercial for a the Evergreen Aviation Museum and they big attraction, the Spruce Goose. (Anyway I'm sure I could enjoy the museum itself as a child, cos I was a technical-type boy, unfortunately the film don't show any interesting mechanical part of the goose. It could have been +1 star).
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Really lame movie about a great plane
backseat-218 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I happen love unusual and iconic old aircraft, and this included the Howard Hughes "Hercules", a.k.a. "Spruce Goose", arguably the largest plane ever built (at least by wingspan). I have on video every film and documentary I know of that features it, so I had to get this movie, even though I know that Yogi and the 'gang' pretty much guaranteed that it would be lame beyond comprehension. What did anyone see on most of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons anyway, with the possible exception of the Flintstones (and that was entirely outclassed by ANYTHING the Warner studio churned out).

Well, Yogi and his unfunny, un-entertaining, boring, stupid friends go to Long Beach, California (NOT the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon as one other reviewer states), so see the Spruce Goose. The plane was there at the time this film was made, but has since then been obtained by Evergreen...so they cannot be blamed for causing this abomination to be created. Through nothing except random and boring bumbling around, they start her up and fly away. Somehow the plane is magical what that 'explains away' holes in the 'plot', but then suddenly un-magical when the writers decide they want to put it in danger of a crash or something. This is sloppy and uninspired screen writing at its lamest.

The plane itself is not all that badly drawn, and the film opens with a brief black and while clip of the actual plane being flown by Hughes; that is the only good part of the film and much better examples of actual plane footage can be seen in many other places that don't bore us and insult us. Granted, I am middle aged, but I still see the entertainment value in well-done kid's cartoons, and this turkey bores the young one in the house as badly as it does me.

Really, there is no justification to buy or watch this video unless, like me, you have an obsessive streak that makes you NEED to add it to a video collection for the sake of completeness (in my case, to have all Spruce Goose films).
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