Though you know all of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons set to appear in HBO Max’s upcoming Jellystone, the series reimagines them as happy-go-lucky (if a bit unhinged) citizens of a bustling metropolis where Huckleberry Hound’s the mayor. During the Jellystone panel at San Diego Comic-Con @ Home 2021, executive producer C.H. Greenblatt, supervising director Ian Wasseluk, Jeff Bergman (Yogi Bear), Grace Helbig (Cindy Bear), and Niccole Thurman (Jabberjaw) sat down to talk about the show’s approach to reinventing its classic characters for a modern audience.
Greenblatt explained that while the show pulls from the entire Hanna-Barbera canon, much of the humour’s show was shaped by his fondness of shows like Laugh Olympics where the characters would often appear together in different situations. “The original idea was that we were going to create a bunch of shorts similar to what they were doing with the Looney Tunes shorts,” Greenblatt explained. “And so I spent some time working on the characters, and the more I played with them, the more we started to realise that the best part about the Hanna-Barbera characters was the whole world of them, and the breadth of them.”
In addition to a number of new images from Jellystone, the creative team also shared the first peek at a scene from the series, which we’ve got exclusively for your viewing pleasure.
io9 is continuing our coverage of virtual SDCC 2021 all weekend long. Be sure to check out our posts on other animated projects like Rick and Morty, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Tuca & Bertie, The Simpsons, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and Evangelion. Lots more to come so stay tuned!
Jellystone hits HBO Max on July 29, 2021. (Stay tuned for an Australian platform and release date).
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