Bullwinkle Show, The
Entry updated 12 May 2024. Tagged: TV.
US animated tv series (1959-1964) for the ABC network (1959-1961) and NBC network (1961-1964); during its first season it was titled Rocky and His Friends; it was later syndicated using other titles, including The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Jay Ward Productions. Produced by Bill Scott and Jay Ward. Created by Alex Anderson, Scott and Ward. Directors: Gerald Baldwin, Frank Braxton, Pete Burness, Sal Faillace, Paul Harvey, Jim Hiltz, William T Hurtz, Lew Keller, Ted Parmalee, Gerald Ray, Dan Roman, Bob Schleh, George Singer, Ernest Terrazas, John Walker and Rudy Zamora. Writers: George Atkins, Allan Burns, Jim Critchfield, Chris Hayward, Chris Jenkyns, Ted Key, Scott, Lloyd Turner and Ward. Voice cast includes Daws Butler, William Conrad, Hans Conreid, June Foray, Paul Frees, Edward Everett Horton, Charlie Ruggles, Scott, Hal Smith and Walter Tetley. 163 30-minute episodes. Colour.
Rocky (Foray), an intelligent flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle (Scott), a not-so-intelligent moose, live in the perpetually frigid town of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota (based on an actual city near Minnesota's northern border, International Falls). Their absurd exploits usually lead to a conflict with two spies from the fictional country of Pottsylvania (though they have Russian accents), Boris Badenov (Frees) and Natasha Fatale (Foray), who work under the direction of their Fearless Leader (Scott); he is in turn subordinate to the never-seen Mr. Big (Scott). One occasionally featured character is their ally, sea captain Peter "Wrongway" Peachfuzz (Frees). Our heroes invariably triumph due to some combination of Rocky's brains, Bullwinkle's dumb luck, and Boris's and Natasha's ineptitude. Also, unlike actual flying squirrels that only glide, Rocky can really fly like Superman, which is regularly helpful in saving the day. The stories, typically consisting of a sometimes seemingly endless series of brief segments that only minimally advance the plot, are often science-fictional, such a trip to the Moon powered by a jet fuel Bullwinkle accidentally invented that leads to a meeting with the Moon Men (who later reappeared); Bullwinkle's inheritance of a mine containing an Antigravity metal, upsidaisium (see Elements); an invasion from the Moon by metal-eating Robot Mice; and an encounter with Maybe Dick, the Wailing Whale, which is actually an enormous robot.
Each episode began and ended with two Bullwinkle segments; in between there were two or three segments of four rotating features. Two of them were Fantasies – "Fractured Fairy Tales", humorously adapting famous fairy tales, and "Aesop and Son", retelling Aesop's Fables – and one was more or less realistic – "Dudley Do-Right" (Scott), about a bumbling Canadian Mountie; but the other one, "Peabody's Improbable History", definitely qualifies as sf. A talking Dog, Mr. Peabody (Scott), educates his human pet, young Sherman (Tetley), by using his Time Machine, called the Wayback Machine, to travel into various past eras to meet famous historical figures and help them make their contributions to history (see History in SF). One featured sf writer Jules Verne, who goes with Mr. Peabody and Sherman on an actual trip around the world to research his novel; another involved Edgar Allan Poe being prodded by the time travellers to write horror stories. The show also included brief animated vignettes of Bullwinkle reading poetry or delivering a lecture. There were some live-action vignettes featuring a Bullwinkle puppet addressing the audience, but these were discontinued when Bullwinkle notoriously once advised his young viewers to remove their television dials so the channel could never be changed and they could always watch The Bullwinkle Show – and many children did exactly that, understandably upsetting their parents.
Even by the standards of the time, the series' animation was crude, but episodes displayed a sophisticated sense of Humour that attracted adults as well as children. The series had extended runs in syndication, has been issued several times as VCR tapes and DVDs, and inspired a long-running Comic; there were also some planned revivals, but only two briefly materialized as streaming series: The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show (2016-2017) and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2018). Other signs that the series has been remembered are the fact that the Internet Archive feature devoted to retrieving vanished websites was named the Wayback Machine, and there is a wiki devoted to providing exhaustive information about the series. Finally, segments of the series have been adapted as four films: the live-action television movie Boris and Natasha: The Movie (1982), which featured only the titular spies; the live-action Dudley Do-Right (1999); The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), featuring animated versions of Bullwinkle and Rocky interacting with live-action characters; and the animated Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014). Only the last film was deemed a success. [GW]
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