Where's the love for Rocky and Bullwinkle?

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I see this a lot.

Roger Ramjet is not related to Bullwinkle at all. However, it's been said that Bullwinkle's Bill Scott was a fan of this series.

But hold on to your hat. This show may not have any Bullwinkle connections, but it does have some concerning something we all should know. Sesame Street!

Hubba Whah you may ask?

The cartoon was really produced by Pantomime Pictures. I'm 90% sure either they or the animation staff would go on to produce early Sesame Street cartoons. But one credit on the show stands out. Jim Thurman. A name to know on Sesame Street. He was both a writer and voice actor for the series. The Sesame Workshop connection doesn't end there. An expy of Roger from the creators of that old series was made for Square One Television. In fact, it's basically Roger Ramjet with math thrown in...

Same exact humor and voice actors too. Gary Owens plays the hero, and Joan Gerber appears as additional voices.

Interesting,the humor and the pacing does remind me of an early Sesame Street animation.

 

[minor muppetz]

I first heard of Roger Ramjet when I looked in a 1995 Video Movie Guide which had an entry on video releases of the series. Usually when I think of the title Roger Ramjet, I think Roger Rabbit. Interestingly, in that video guide, it said that Ken Snyder was involved in it before being involved with Sesame Street. How interesting that his SST involvement was pointed out, as I don't think casual audiences are aware of the various SST animators, and don't think Ken Snyder was ever a big name. For years I wondered who he was and what he did for the show.

 

[Drtooth]

I somehow found out about it in a small local chain VHS rentals place that had an extensive selection of eccentric and rare VHS. I didn't really get a chance to see it until I found a RealVideo file of the thing on Toontracker. Thankfully years later, youtube gave me a better look at the series and I grabbed the incomplete Sony Wonder DVD set a couple years back as it was cheap at Best Buy. Like five bucks.

Unfortunately, the glider that came with the DVD set broke. I knew I shouldn't have put it together.

 

[D'Snowth]

Boris's disguises have always been paper-thin, but it's just now occured to me that they were so much so throughout the Jet Fuel Formula arc that even his aliases were paper-thin: Ace Rickenboris? Sir Thomas Lippenboris?

 

[Drtooth]

I just finished what I'm hoping is the first 13 episodes of the Netflix Peabody and Sherman episodes. I've grown to like the hosting segment wraparounds, they get better after a few episodes. Like when Mr. Peabody's Parents (turns out, he was also adopted by dogs, just not talking ones) come over for a visit, ruins his show and drives Peabody into a nervous breakdown with some of the wackiest animation I've seen in a while (outside of Uncle Grandpa, of course).

During episode 12's time travel adventure (John Foster Sutter- the Gold Rush guy), they even have...

Spoiler

A silent cameo by another Bullwinkle character, well two... Dudley Do-Right and Horse the horse. In fact, all the Canadians are drawn to be Dudley.

I really hope to see more of these.

 

[D'Snowth]

Something has intrigued me: the Rocky and Bullwinkle segments had a regular narrator - Bill Conrad, Fractured Fairy Tales had a regular narrator - Edward Everett Horton, and Charlie Ruggles was always on hand for Aesop's fables . . . but the Dudley Do-Right cartoons alternated narrators between Paul Frees and Bill Conrad, and I kind of wonder why? I'm sure it couldn't be availability issues, because Bill was always on hand to narrate R&B, and Paul was certainly on hand for a bulk of the voice work, including Inspector Fenwick.

 

[Drtooth]

but the Dudley Do-Right cartoons alternated narrators between Paul Frees and Bill Conrad, and I kind of wonder why? I'm sure it couldn't be availability issues, because Bill was always on hand to narrate R&B, and Paul was certainly on hand for a bulk of the voice work, including Inspector Fenwick.

There was a break in the production of Dudley Do-Right episodes. The first half were Bill Conrad, the second half was Frees. Sort of like how Bill Conrad was pegged to be a narrator for Super Chicken, but only did the pilot, and Paul Frees became the narrator of all 3 George cartoons. originally, Hans Conreid was to be the George of the Jungle Narrator, by the way.

Actually, now I'm not sure if I got the order correct... but I know there was a break in production of the Dudley cartoons, and at one point Conrad was unavailable.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

There's no way in heck this character wasn't inspired by Bullwinkle:

I mean look at him, he's practically a blue replica of Bullwinkle!

 

[D'Snowth]

The visual style may be updated, but at least they've got a nice handle on the traditional Rocky and Bullwinkle humor, with the false enthusiam from the guests, and with them being such a product of the late 50s/early 60s, the wedding song selection was a nice, period-appropriate choice, lol.

And who knew that Fearless Leader's true intentions for killing and Rocky and Bullwinkle were nothing more than trophies.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

The visual style may be updated, but at least they've got a nice handle on the traditional Rocky and Bullwinkle humor, with the false enthusiam from the guests, and with them being such a product of the late 50s/early 60s, the wedding song selection was a nice, period-appropriate choice, lol.

And who knew that Fearless Leader's true intentions for killing and Rocky and Bullwinkle were nothing more than trophies.

Well, I don't exactly love the way the characters look in this, the CGI is at least much better than the movie though.
And, the voice cast is great. Tom Kenny does a good Bullwinkle, whoever they got for Boris is a great too. June Foray is still very talented and still a fitting voice for Natasha, although, Rocky's voice is a bit distracting. He sounds, well, he sounds like an old lady. She doesn't really seem to be able to get her voice to that high pitch anymore, which is understandable. But she seems to be having a hard time emoting with his voice, due to the pitch. She's still a good voice actor, but if they ever do something more major like a movie or a show, they should probably replace her as Rocky.