Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete First Season (1959)
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVDs
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Now here's something you don't see everyday, Chauncey. It's the
complete first season of one of television's smartest, savviest, and
most subversively funny animated series, ranked by TV Guide
as one of the top 50 series of all time. Like the animators at
Warner Bros.' Termite Terrace (birthplace of Porky, Daffy, and
Bugs), producer Jay Ward, his partner Bill Scott (the voice of
Bullwinkle), and the cracked writing staff did not write down to
children. The dialogue is witty and sharply satiric. Characters
break the "fourth wall" between the screen and the audience. They
make sly references to the show's creators and the television
network. They hurl barbs of mass destruction at Washington, D.C.
politicians. And then there are the godawful puns. This four-disc
set contains the series' first two serial adventures. "Jet Fuel
Formula" is a cold war-era blast, as Rocky (voiced by June Foray,
the Queen of Cartoons) and Bullwinkle frantically race to re-create
a rocket fuel recipe (actually Grandma Bullwinkle's recipe for
mooseberry fudge cake), while being menaced by those no-goodniks
Boris Badenov and femme fatale Natasha. "Box Top Robbery" reveals
that the basis for the world's economy is not gold and silver, but
cereal box tops.
Linking these cliffhanging episodes are such hilarious segments
as "Fractured Fairy Tales," which upend familiar storybook favorites
(Red Riding Hood, for example, is a predatory fur merchant after the
unwitting wolf), "Mr. Peabody," the canine genius who travels
through time in the company of his boy, Sherman, and forthright
Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, who must contend with his own horse
for the affections of sweet Nell. Bullwinkle gets extra credits as
Mr. Know-It-All and as the host of Poetry Corner. And watch him pull
a rabbit out of his hat! These cartoons are as fresh and funny as
when they first aired more than four decades ago. Boomer-era adults
will be amazed at the jokes that no doubt soared over their heads as
children. --Donald Liebenson
