Yogi's Ark Lark is a one hour tv special by Hanna-Barbera in 1972 as a feature of ABC's Saturday Superstar Movie. It served as the pilot for the 1973 series Yogi's Gang.
Yogi Bear calls a meeting at Jellystone Park about how bad things are getting with pollution and they put together a plan to build a flying ark and go search for "the perfect place".
We're on our way to the perfect tropes:
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: When the Ark goes straight off the planet, everyone manages to breathe in space just fine. Although Paw Rugg nearly floats away.
- Cheesy Moon: Huck sees Pixie and Dixie running away with cheese in space. He wonders and realizes they got it from the moon.
- Green Aesop: The overall message of the special, that there is no place to escape the pollution but instead you should work to clean up your own home.
- Funny Animal: Most of the cast are this.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: A whole lot of the cast.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: While not Hanna-Barbera's first crossover, this was the first production that brought together many characters into one story.
- This also features an appearance from Hanna-Barbera's Moby Dick, who was not from a Funny Animal series but from the action-based superhero ones.
- Meaningful Name: Smitty, the park employee who goes along with the gang, reveals that his first name is Noah.
- Remember the New Guy?: While gathering a cast of so many past characters for this crossover, Yogi meets a random dinosaur who attends the meeting. No one seems to recall it from any other cartoon ever.
- Rule of Cool: The ark flies somehow by a treadmill powering a rotating blade with Magilla Gorilla (and occasionally other characters) supplying the power.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: A green dinosaur is present during the meeting and even helps build the ark, but disappears after that.
