In her first appearance ("Acrobatty Yogi") Cindy works in a circus. When Yogi runs off to join it, the circus owner gets him a job as a lion tamer.

Yogi was one of several Hanna-Barbera characters to have a collar. This allowed animators to keep his body static, redrawing only his head in each frame when he spoke and reducing the number of drawings needed for a seven-minute cartoon from around 14,000 to around 2,000.

In "A Wooin' Bruin", Yogi and Bruno compete for Cindy's affections by bringing her gifts, committing a rash of thefts throughout the park in the process.

In the 1963 episode "Swedish Visitors", the Flintstones take a trip to Jellyrock Park, but the vacation is a disaster with thunderstorms, workmen felling trees to build a new road through the wilderness, and Yogi stealing Fred's picnic basket. "I'm smarter than the average Fred Flintstone," Yogi quips.

Yogi's voice and personality are based on Ed Norton, as played by Art Carney on The Honeymooners. They even wore similar hats.