Plot

Mayor R. Brown realizes that Franklin City is facing bankruptcy due to profligate spending on his part. Brown plots with his Chief of Staff to raise money for the town budget and his upcoming governmental campaign by shutting down Jellystone Park and opening the land to logging. To save the park, park rangers Smith and Jones, with help from Smith's love interest Rachel Johnson, hold a centennial festival and fireworks show in an attempt to sell season passes. To sabotage the effort, Brown promises Jones the position of head ranger if the funds are not raised. Two brown bears named Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear, who steal picnic baskets from visitors in Jellystone Park while the rangers attempt to hinder them, had promised Smith to stay out of sight during the festival, but Jones convinces them otherwise. The bears try to please the crowd with a waterskiing performance, but Yogi inadvertently sets his cape on fire causing fireworks to be launched into the crowd, who flee in panic.

After Jellystone is shut down, Smith is forced to stay in Evergreen Park (a small urban enclave choked with litter and pollution), but not before hurting Yogi's feelings by saying that he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Seeing that their home is in danger of being destroyed, Yogi and Boo-Boo travel to Evergreen Park where they and Smith figure out Brown's plan. They all return to Jellystone with Rachel, where they learn that Boo-Boo's pet turtle is a rare and endangered species known as a "frog-mouthed" turtle, meaning that, according to law, the park cannot be destroyed if the turtle is living there.

The Chief of Staff learns about the turtle and sends Jones to kidnap it. On the day that Brown is planning a press conference to begin the destruction of the park, Smith, Rachel and the bears rescue the turtle and try to bring it to the media's attention. Jones, learning that he had been deceived by Mayor Brown, has a change of heart and helps the team bring the turtle to the press conference. At the press conference, Rachel reveals that she had installed a hidden camera in Boo-Boo's bow tie which had captured Brown admitting to his plan. Smith hooks up the camera to the big screen Brown is using for his press conference and shows the video. When the turtle is revealed to the citizens as an endangered species, the police arrest Brown. Jellystone Park is then reopened and becomes a great success while Smith is reappointed head ranger and he and Rachel admit their feelings for each other. After they kiss, they discover Yogi and Boo-Boo are back to stealing picnic baskets once again and chase them.

Cast

Tom Cavanagh as Ranger Smith, the head ranger of Jellystone Park.

Anna Faris as Rachel Johnson, a nature documentary filmmaker, and Ranger Smith's love interest.

T.J. Miller as Ranger Jones, a park ranger who is tricked by Mayor Brown into getting Jellystone shut down, making the excuse that Jones will be the head ranger of the park.

Andrew Daly as Mayor R. Brown, the main antagonist of the film. He is the Mayor of Franklin City who wants to shut Jellystone Park down so that he can make money for his city and become governor.

Nate Corddry as the Chief of Staff, Mayor Brown's assistant.

Dan Aykroyd as the voice of Yogi Bear, the picnic basket-stealing talking brown bear who lives in Jellystone Park.

Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo Boo, Yogi's roommate, and sometimes the voice of reason.

Josh Robert Thompson as the voice of the narrator.

Production

In October 2008, it was confirmed that a live-action/computer-animated Yogi Bear film was in the works. Ash Brannon was hired to direct the film, but was replaced by Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D) when it was decided that the film would be produced as a 3D project. Filming took place on the Lake Whakamaru Reserve, Waikato, New Zealand as it was winter in the northern hemisphere and to wait for summer would put the production end time to be six months longer than if in southern hemisphere.

Like many Hanna-Barbera characters, in the original cartoon Yogi's personality and mannerisms were based on a popular celebrity of the time. Art Carney's Ed Norton character on The Honeymooners was said to be Yogi's inspiration; his voice mannerisms broadly mimic Carney as Norton. Carney, in turn, received influence from Borscht Belt and comedians of vaudeville.

Dan Aykroyd, the voice actor of Yogi Bear, stated that he is trying to evoke the influences that shaped the original Yogi Bear's voice. Aykroyd stated: "It's about hitting certain notes, going back to those old Lower East Side rhythms, the Catskills, Jersey, Upstate New York. It's the Yiddish language, essentially, being spoken in English. It's the 'setup, delivery, punch' that sitcoms live on today. That's where the origin of American humor is." Aykroyd has also stated that he grew up watching Yogi Bear on the long, cold and dark afternoons in his native Ottawa: "As a kid growing up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where the sky turns dark in the winter at about 3:30, Yogi Bear was my fire, my hearth, when I would come home. I would immediately turn on the TV while I thawed out." in November 2009

Justin Timberlake came in with a prepared Boo-Boo voice; when he was learning to sing when he was younger, he imitated various cartoon characters. Brevig then announced that he intended to make a film that didn't want parents who remembered watching Yogi Bear cartoons to feel marginalized and displaced by the contemporary rendition of Yogi Bear. Rhythm and Hues Studios provided CGI character animation for Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear and the turtle in the film; the company had also previously worked on past theatrical films based on Hanna-Barbera productions: The Flintstones (1994) and its prequel Viva Rock Vegas (2000); Scooby-Doo (2002) and its sequel Monsters Unleashed (2004).