Jellystone National Park

From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.

Jellystone National Park, covering approximately 20,000 acres of virgin California forest, is one of America's most treasured national parks. It was declared a national park in 1902 by President Theodore Roosevelt, who proclaimed it "a fine place for upstanding Americans to bring their pic-a-nic baskets and bask in the splendor that God has made."

However, as the widespread availability of the automobile in the 1950s brought increasing numbers of tourists to the parks, Jellystone's native bears began to grow dependent on handouts from visitors. By the 1960s, the bears had grown so resourceful and accustomed to the presence of humans that tourists began to report that the shaggy beasts were stealing their delicious picnic lunches, along with porkpie hats, assorted neckties, and other random articles of clothing.

Under Head Ranger John Q. Smith, the park launched a "zero tolerance" policy for ursine theft, but lunches continued to go missing. The problem persisted until the 1990s, when the National Park Service enlisted comedian and feared perpetrator of mayhem Don Knotts to tackle the bears mano-a-mano. Knotts' annual bear hunts became a widely publicized event; at the time of Knotts' death in 2006, from injuries sustained in mortal combat with one of the last of the park's surviving grizzlies, millions of Americans were tuning in to live pay-per-view broadcasts.

Animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's frequent visits to Jellystone in the 1960s ultimately inspired one of their most famous cartoon creations. Huckleberry Hound got his name and demeanor from a dapper, homosexual stray dog who would hang around their campsite year after year, begging for Clementine oranges.

During the 1970s, the documentary series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was filmed in Jellystone.