Favorite Fictional Character --- Yogi Bear

"Look at the bears! Look at the bears! Look at the bears!"  I feel like the annoying kids driving through Jellystone Park right about now.  Until this month I never knew I loved this many bears or how popular bear characters are in our culture.  Well our next guest is none other than the self described "smarter than the average bear," Yogi Bear.

I really can't recall a time in my life when I didn't know who Yogi Bear was.  I'm sure when my only concerns where eating, pooping, sleeping, and burping, I wasn't paying that much attention.  Once I was old enough to watch TV though, I fell in love with the pic-a-nic basket stealing bear.  How can you not love a character who has only two concerns in life?  That was a rhetorical question so don't feel the need to answer it.

When Yogi wasn't trying to discover the goodies humans brought into the park, he was trying to get out of it. I've never seen someone try to do something so hard and fail so many times at it.  Well, maybe Wile E. Coyote, but that was another post entirely.  What is so great about Yogi though is he doesn't get mad or give up.  He is bound and determined to get out of the park and stay out.  You have to admire someone with that much dedication and drive.  Just imagine what he could have accomplished if he would have set that mind to science.  Maybe he could have been the first bear to walk on the moon.  He may even have been able to cure cancer.  Alas, we will never know since the last time I checked, Yogi was still trying to get out of the park.

Yogi has even become a part of our Christmas traditions.  Every year on Christmas Eve, Boomerang airs "Yogi's First Christmas."  We hunker down on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and watch it.  Poor Yogi is trying to get some rest but he is dragged into Christmas merrymaking and mystery anyway.  One of these days I will find it on DVD so I won't have to rely on Boomerang.  It's really one of the last Christmas specials that I want but don't own.