Where's the love for Rocky and Bullwinkle?

[Drtooth]

In The Moose That Roared, it is said that the Fan Club segments were made as a way of subliminally reminding viewers of the Rocky and Bullwinkle merchandise that was out there. Did anybody get a sense of that from the segments? I never did. The segments never featured any Bullwinkle merchandise (whether it was made up for the segment or actually available to buy). Always felt more like extra entertainment for the show, and the fan club seems more like a typical kids clubhouse than a fan club for a TV show.

It seems that way, unless had they an actual Rocky and Bullwinkle fanclub for kids to buy in membership to. I'm not sure they did or not, not one ever said there was.

Somehow it sounds like they wanted kids to form their own little, unofficial clubs and from there, kids would wind up buying as much Bullwinkle Merchandise (such as it was) to furnish these clubs or something.

 

[minor muppetz]

I don't think there was an official Rocky and Bullwinkle fan club. If there was, I wouldn't be surprised if the segments ended with them saying how to join (and wouldn't be surprised if those were cut from reruns and video releases, as the mailing address and membership probably wouldn't be relevant anymore).

Another thing I've thought of: There's a few segments where it's clear that they don't have many members (just Bullwinkle, Rocky, Boris, Natasha, and Captain Peachfuzz), but in the elections episode, when Bullwinkle gives a campaign speech, it sounds like there is a big crowd. Could membership have gone up (maybe they're all Boris' enemies who chased him on "Bring a Friend Day")? Considering the campaign is for president of the fan club, I'd assume anyone outside of the club would care who was elected (and most of the members were nominated - only Boris and Natasha, the later not even appearing in that episode, were not nominated). Of course considering that most shows treat school elections like a major election, I guess it's not that big a stretch.

 

[minor muppetz]

Lately I've been thinking about how all of Jay Ward's shows were "multiple shorts" shows, and it gets me wondering, if Jay Ward did have a series that focused on a single narrative per show, would it have had heartfelt moments as opposed to being funny and pun-filled all the time? I know that most of the shows had cliffhangers as the main feature, but even those don't seem to have many heartfelt moments (more time to develop the stories, but since they are short, there might not be a lot of room for heart).

What would be the most emotional, serious moment in Rocky and Bullwinkle, regardless of which segment it is? The movie seemed to have some of those kinds of moments, such as when Boris and Natasha realize they are failures as enemies (but that emotional moment ends when Natasha lies to Fearless Leader about killing moose and squirrell). I think Dudley Do-Right had some, and the Boris and Natasha movie also had some serious, heartwarming moments.

Of course I haven't seen much of Jay Ward's non-Bullwinkle shows so I could be wrong. Crusader Rabbit and Hoppity Hooper very well could have had a lot of heartwarming moments and I just don't know it.

Part of what got me thinking about this was something discussed in Tough Pigs' "Very Special Henson Specials" article on Hey Cinderella, pointing out that it's the first time Jim Henson did something for an hour and one of his first productions to have a lot of heart as opposed to just being jokey (cleverly mixing funny moments with emotional development, even within the same scenes). If Jay Ward did something for a full 30 minutes or more, would it have been a pun a minute (and I know, Jay Ward never actually wrote any of the scripts)? It's a shame he couldn't do that Bullwinkle Super Bowl special he was going to do. It's a shame there weren't half-hour Bullwinkle specials in general.

 

[Drtooth]

Okay... the Peabody and Sherman Netflix show is still happening.

I don't know about the talk show angle, but I like that it's 2-D animated.

 

[Mr Snrub]

Watched the first episode. The talk show segments are very bleh, but the segments modeled after the original shorts are pretty good

 

[Drtooth]

While I didn't dislike the talk show segments, the humor was very different from the adventure segments and thus the original series as well. It's closer to the movie in tone, but not entirely without potential. At least it isn't as obsessively hyper as the cough other Jay Ward cartoon revival. Though I kinda wish the show was more on the side of adventure segments rather than talk show ones.

I guess they're trying to build it up as a semi-Bullwinklish format, cutting the main cartoon into segments and all. It sort of works. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, but the adventure segments are far better than the filler bits. I could see them doing something similar to that on the original series, and ...eh... I think I liked this outing with Napoleon better than the original. But to be fair, that was one of the earlier ones that weren't really funny anyway. And I'm liking Chris Parnell as Mr. Peabody. I'd almost say he did a better job than Ty did in the film. And of course, I'm happy they credited Ted Key as the creator of the original series for both this series and the movie. Nice to see credit where it's due.

 

[D'Snowth]

Even though I know it'll never happen at this point, I kind of wish we could see what THE BULLWINKLE SHOW titles would have looked like properly restored and in DVD-quality: the titles were always iffy in syndication, earlier episodes have very faded and washed out colors, but starting from about "Rue Britannia" for the rest of the series, the colors were much better.

 

[Drtooth]

I was going to say I wish they had some of the Bullwinkle episodes on Netflix, but they're also on hulu for free, so...

I do like the new Peabody and Sherman series, though I have to admit, the Amadeus episode was disappointing. I'm getting to like the talk show elements a bit more, but wish the whole series was just the insert cartoons. And I wish they'd put the darn Bullwinkle short that's only on the 3-D Blu-Ray super special edition on Netflix as well. They really chose a poor distribution point for that short. It's pretty good.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I just discovered this show called Roger Ramjet,I actually really like it .Reminds me a lot of a sketch from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

 

[Drtooth]

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.