| [Edit]
|
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show is the collective name for two separate American television animated series (Rocky and His Friends (1959-1964) and The Bullwinkle Show (1961-1973)) that originally aired from 1959 to 1964. Rocky & Bullwinkle enjoyed great popularity during the 1960s, and is still found in re-runs in the United States.
Much of the success of the series was due to its ability to work on two distinct levels. As an animated series with zany characters and plots, it appealed to children; its clever use of puns and topical references appealed to adults. The animation is quite limited and choppy while the scripts and audio are inventive and sometimes sophisticated. Some critics at the time described the effect as being like a well-written radio program with pictures.
|
top
History
The series, inspired by an original property called "The Frostbite Falls Revue," was created by Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, who had previously collaborated on Crusader Rabbit. Ward wanted to produce the show in Los Angeles, and Anderson, who lived in the San Francisco Bay area, did not want to move south, so Ward was joined by Bill Scott, who became head writer and co-producer at Jay Ward Productions, and wrote all of the "Rocky & Bullwinkle" segments. Another notable writer was Allan Burns who later became head writer for MTM Enterprises.
The series got its start as a pilot, Rocky the Flying Squirrel; the voice actors (June Foray, Paul Frees, and Bill Scott) recorded their dialogue in February 1958. Eight months later, General Mills signed a deal to sponsor the cartoon, to be shown in a late-afternoon time slot targeted at children.
Ward then hired the rest of the production staff, which included writers and designers but no animators. Friends of Ward's at Dancer, Fitzgerald & Sample (an advertising firm with General Mills as a client) had bought a studio in Mexico to produce the animation; this outsourcing had made the deal financially attractive to the sponsor. Scott, when interviewed by animation historian Jim Korkis in 1982, described their work:
We found out very quickly that we could not depend on the Mexico studio to produce anything of quality. They were turning out the work very quickly and there were all kinds of mistakes and flaws and boo-boos. They would never check. Mustaches popped on and off Boris, Bullwinkle's antlers would change, colors would change, costumes would disappear. By the time we finally saw it, it was on the air.
The show started in fall 1959 as Rocky and His Friends on the ABC television network. In 1961 the series moved to NBC and was renamed The Bullwinkle Show. The show moved back to ABC in 1964 and was canceled that same year, although episodes continued to be aired on ABC until 1973 when it went into syndication.
top
Rocky & Bullwinkle
The lead characters and heroes of the show are Rocket "Rocky" J. Squirrel, a flying squirrel, and his best friend Bullwinkle J. Moose, a dim-witted but good natured moose, from the fictional town of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota (inspired by International Falls, Minnesota).
Each program included two "Rocky & Bullwinkle" shorts, which featured cliffhangers in the style of early movie serials. The shorts formed a storyline which crossed episode boundaries: the first and longest such story arc was "Jet Fuel Formula", which consisted of 40 shorts spanning twenty programs.
Each arc involved the moose and squirrel in adventures that took them all over the world, ranging from trying to find a missing ingredient for a rocket fuel formula, to searching for the monstrous whale Maybe Dick, to preventing mechanical metal-munching moon mice from devouring the nation's television antennas.
In nearly every episode, the villains behind these schemes were the fiendish but inept agents of the fictitious nation of Pottsylvania, Boris Badenov (a pun on Boris Godunov) and Natasha Fatale (whose last name was a pun on the phrase "femme fatale"), along with their bosses, the sinister Mr. Big and Fearless Leader. Boris and Natasha are also the name of a young couple in love in Tolstoy's War and Peace
At the end of most episodes, the show's narrator, William Conrad, announced two possible titles for the next episode — the second title always a pun that was related to the first. For example, the narrator once intoned during an adventure taking place in a mountain range: "be with us next time for 'Avalanche Is Better Than None,' or 'Snow's Your Old Man'" And in a different episode: "be with us next time for '50 cents lost' or 'Get that halfback'". Another episode said: "Be with us next time for 'Bullwinkle buys a taco stand' or 'Chilly today, hot tamale'.
top
Correlation to the Cold War
There are distinct parallels in "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and the Cold War. The two protagonists are representative of the United States during the time of the Cold War; the two antagonists are both Eastern European villains. Many of the episodes are inspired by scientific inventions, which the antagonists are attempting to steal; a clichéd Cold War plotline used in countless pieces of fiction at the time.
top
Supporting segments
The "Rocky & Bullwinkle" shorts served as "bookends" for several other popular segments, including:
Peabody's Improbable History featured a talking dog genius named Mr. Peabody who had a pet boy named Sherman; Sherman and Peabody used Peabody's "WABAC machine" (pronounced "way-back") to go back in time to discover the real story behind historical events. The WABAC machine inspired the naming of the Wayback Machine, a web site that allows visitors to browse an archive of historically significant websites.
Aesop & Son, similar to the above (complete with the same theme music), except dealing with fables instead of fairy tales. The usual framing portion consisted of Aesop attempting to teach a lesson to his son using a fable; after the story his son subverts its moral with a pun.
Mr. Know-It-All, presenting Bullwinkle trying to give practical advice on something only to have it go disastrously wrong.
Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Club, a small segment that shows the antics of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Club, whose only members are Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris, Natasha, and Captain Peter Peachfuzz.
The segments of each episode were typically broken up by short segues involving Rocky and Bullwinkle, always in the same order. The two Rocky and Bullwinkle shorts were led into by 30-second prologues. Some examples include:
Bullwinkle is hiking in the mountains in the snow and, distracted by the flying squirrel, he trips and rolls downhill in a snowball which stops neatly at a ledge as Rocky lands on Bullwinkle's hand.
Rocky is preparing to jump from the high trapeze ladder into a small bucket of water tended by Bullwinkle; when Rocky jumps, he flies around the circus tent with Bullwinkle running around under him with the bucket, for no good reason as Rocky lands perfectly safely.
The famous "Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" sequences. Rocky is all set to throw to the next supporting act when Bullwinkle interrupts him with that line, then:
First time, Rocky makes no initial response. Bullwinkle says "Nothing up my sleeve ... Presto!" before pulling a lion's head (roaring) out of the hat. Rocky: "Wrong hat!" Bullwinkle: "I take a seven-and-a-half." Rocky: "Now here's something we hope you'll really like!"
Second time, Rocky responds "Again?" Bullwinkle: "Nothing up my sleeve ..." and this time pulls a rhinoceros head. "Ooh, don't know my own strength!" Rocky: "Now here's something we hope you'll really like!"
Third time, Rocky responds "But that trick never works!" Bullwinkle: "This time for sure!" and pulls Rocky out of the hat. "Well, I'm getting close." Rocky finishes this one with "And now it's time for another special feature."
These segments are especially popular with hackers; during a protracted debugging session it is common to say "this time for sure" in a Bullwinkle Moose voice .
top
Cast
Paul Frees: Boris, Cloyd (a moon man), Captain Peachfuzz, and Inspector Fenwick
Bill Scott: Bullwinkle, Mr. Peabody, Dudley Do-Right, Fearless Leader, and Gidney (a moon man); he also co-produced the show
top
Other media
A live action made-for-TV movie, Boris and Natasha, starring the two spies, was produced in 1992; neither Rocky nor Bullwinkle appeared in this film, although two characters were identified as 'Moose' and 'Squirrel'.
Rocky and Bullwinkle were featured in several Taco Bell commercials in 1993, where they were up against arch-rivals Boris and Natasha, who hawked "McBoris" burgers.
In the Family Guy episode "The Thin White Line", after a gag Rocky is seen telling the viewer "And now, here's something we hope you'll really like."
In 2002, Jay Ward Productions established a partnership with Classic Media called Bullwinkle Studios; in 2003 and 2004 the partnership produced DVDs of the first two seasons of the series, renamed (for legal reasons) Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. The third season was released on DVD in September of 2005. According to a pamphlet accompanying the DVDs for the first season, the DVDs use the second season opening, which Ward's daughter Tiffany says was her father's favorite. The DVDs for the third season just use the opening and closing from the first season. The DVDs also replaced the original music with themes Ward produced for the first two seasons.
Bullwinkle Studios produced a series of "best of" DVD compilations of popular segments of the series in 2005.
top
Popular culture
In the 1985 movie Back to the Future, when Marty McFly travels back in time, his first encounter is with a Mr. Peabody, who raises pine trees.
In 1986, house music producer Dean Anderson, under the alias Boris Badenough, released a single "Hey Rocky!" which relied extensively on samples from Rocky & Bullwinkle shows.
In the movie True Lies, when Helen Tasker (Jamie Lee Curtis) is brought into the team, their code name is revealed to be "Boris and...", at which instant Helen asks "Natasha?," only to be disappointed to hear "Doris."
top
Trivia
The show listed the fictional Ponsonby Britt as executive producer. At the end of the credits, certain letters explode, leaving a few letters behind as the music ends with sounds of firecrackers.
Bullwinkle's name came from a friend of Jay Ward's, Clarence Bullwinkel, who was a property owner/landlord in Berkeley. He also owned a Chevrolet dealership.
Since the production budget was so small, there are a number of circumstances where the actors ad-libbed around blown lines, and their material was included in the animation. In one incident, narrator William Conrad could not finish reading the end of the script within the time limitations. In the final take, Jay Ward set fire to the script, and Conrad read the material quickly before the flames could reach his fingers.
"Rocky and Friends" aired in over 100 countries, but never in Canada. The censors there feel to this day that the "Dudley Do-Right" character would be harmful to the image of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
top
See also
|
|
