Greg Eagles to Reprise Role As Grim In Upcoming 'Jellystone!' Special
Yes the Jamaican-accented personification is back to say Mamakusa for Yogi Bear and friends
Hey mon! Are you ready for this? The Grim Reaper from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy will be making an appearance in an upcoming episode of the maybe-Max, maybe-Cartoon Network series Jellystone! His original voice actor, Greg Eagles will be back in the role.
Rumblings began when on Thursday, Eagles posted to his socials a picture of himself in the recording booth. On Instagram it was captioned “Back at my old hang. CN recording studios about to do some "Grim" stuff! 😊”. It led to all sorts of speculation. Anything from Multiversus and smaller, not-necessarily-episodic things to a full The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy revival. Admittedly not too out of the question the way Cartoon Network Studios is rumored to be running right now (solely IP churnings), though it would still probably be a lot on top of revivals for The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends. Answers were not quite expected.
However, an answer still did come, from an unexpected source: A booking announcement from his talent agency, MJB Talent Agency, in mid-April. It stated that he was attached to a 2-part special for Jellystone! For some reason, the announcement included the special’s logline, which hadn’t been shared by Warner Bros. Discovery at any level, whether that, HBO Max, Warner Bros. Animation, or Cartoon Network. It reads: “A rift in time and space sends unwanted characters from classic Cartoon Network shows into Jellystone.” A description like that means Eagles is very likely not alone in reprising his role, even if we don’t know what the other roles are. Grim of course is the Grim Reaper, eternally the best friend of cynical Mandy and idiot Billy, having been defeated in a game of limbo.
But what is Jellystone!? It’s a modern take on the character roster of Hanna-Barbera from Chowder and Harvey Beaks creator C.H. Greenblatt, with the Yogi Bear ensemble of course front and center. The cast excludes the heaviest hitters like Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons, Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones. Those franchises are relegated largely to Easter eggs, bar The Great Gazoo. Most of these characters hadn’t starred in a series in decades, let alone how many of them had only appeared in their debut series. Jabberjaw, Auggie Doggie, Top Cat, Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, but they gleefully indulge in the obscure too. It premiered on HBO Max in July 2021, releasing 20 episodes then and another 20 in March 2022, with this particular episode being one of 40 further ordered. However, it’s not quite clear where these episodes are headed. With HBO Max pulling out of kids’ and family originals, it was indicated that the remaining animated originals for that crowd would be making Cartoon Network their home.
Being a former crewmember of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, as well as being the voice of Fred Fredburger, he wasn’t going to pass up such inclusion. Maybe we should similarly expect John DiMaggio as Chowder’s Schnitzel. No matter who else is in it, this episode may shape up to fill in a missing aspect of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes’s 2018 episode “Crossover Nexus”, in that Hanna-Barbera characters pre-Dexter’s Laboratory were missing entirely (and Raven was the only Warner Bros. representation), and is looking to be the biggest on-television crossover for the network since maybe Teen Titans Go’s “Space House”.
