The role Dan Aykroyd waited 40 years to play: “There’s that old friend I had”
It wasn’t until well into his career that Dan Aykroyd got to play one of his childhood heroes.
Dan Aykroyd isn’t just a hilarious actor, but someone who changed the world of comedy forever. During the early days of Saturday Night Live, Aykroyd and his co-stars Bill Murray, John Belushi, and Chevy Chase pioneered the sketch format in a groundbreaking way that took the industry by storm. It wasn’t long after that that Aykroyd’s success on television translated to the big screen when he became one of the biggest stars of the 1980s.
To those who grew up when Aykroyd was at his peak, the films he starred in were more than just entertaining cinematic experiences; future classics like Ghostbusters, Trading Places, The Great Outdoors, The Blues Brothers, and Dragnet were meticulous rewatched by a generation of young comedy fans who wore out their VHS players. It’s no coincidence that Aykroyd had the same admiration for Yogi Bear, the cartoon character he had adored since childhood.
Although he has been known for always being able to cut the tension with a great joke, Aykroyd said that his early life was not easy due to bullies who would push him around and steal his books in the freezing cold. Getting through an entire day was often tormenting, but Aykroyd knew that he could watch his favourite cartoon bear whenever he got home from school.
“When I got home, with the twilight, the light fading at 4:00 in Hull, Quebec, Canada, in February, March, believe me, the only warmth was Yogi Bear,” Aykroyd said. “My brother and I would immediately turn on the TV coming home from school and sit there and watch Yogi, when my mother didn’t catch us. My mother thought that cartoons and things like The Untouchables were beneath us.”
Despite what his mother may have said, watching The Yogi Bear Show was actually quite educational for Aykroyd, who would employ the same style of slapstick humour when he began writing and acting for his career. Both Yogi and Aykroyd have managed to stick around in popular culture far more than anyone expected; Aykroyd earned a major comeback recently when he reprised his role as Ray in the Ghostbusters legacy sequels, and Yogi Bear returned to the small screen thanks to the HBO Max series Jelleystone!
Aykroyd finally got to fulfil his childhood dream when Warner Bros Pictures produced Yogi Bear, a live-action animated film that brought the beloved bear to the big screen for the first time. Director Eric Brevig said that he knew that Aykroyd was perfect to play the titular role as soon as he “nailed the nuances of Yogi” during his audition.
“Dan’s been doing Yogi Bear for 40 years,” Brevig said. “Dan’s version isn’t actually identical. You can’t hear them side by side, so you don’t recognise it. I didn’t want them to imitate the characters. I wanted them to be the characters as you remember it, especially people who know the characters from their childhood.”
Given that Yogi Bear is a timeless character who has been voiced by no small quantity of great actors, it’s admirable that Aykroyd chose to take his own spin on the role instead of replicating what someone else had done. Unquestionably, the Yogi Bear film helped to introduce the character to a new generation of young fans; four decades after Yogi helped save Aykroyd’s life, he finally got to return the favour.
