I haven’t seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and I don’t intend to see the new CGI Yogi Bear movie, but this parody of the latter in the style of the former has me intrigued:
It’s the work of one man, Edmund Earle, a 25-year-old Rhode Island School of Design grad:
Since posting the video at 11:30 ET on YouTube [yesterday] morning, the spot has gone viral. It’s been been tweeted by the likes of comedian Paul Scheer and actor Nathan Fillion — neither of whom Earle knows, though he appreciates their support. “I live in a social bubble,” he admits. “I only sent the link to a couple friends, and had them send it to their friends and various Web sites.”
Earle decided to re-fashion a new ending to “Yogi Bear” by casting the titular hero and his sidekick Boo-Boo as the leads in his take on “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” a drama written and directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. He chose “Jesse James” because he happened to be watching it at time, and thought the drama would be an excellent counterpart to a picnic basket-stealing bear. “It was an organic creation,” he says.
“I have no affiliation with the actual creators of the film ‘Yogi Bear’,” says Earle, who says he’s been working on the video since Sept. from the hours of midnight and 3 a.m. daily. “I googled the posters, watched the trailer, and that was it.” He also created the video entirely by himself, with the exception of the voice, which he employed a friend to help out with.
As for the legality of his creation, Earle admits that he’s in “squiffy” ground, but notes that he did not use any of the film’s actual footage. He’s also only advertised it as a strict parody.