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''The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show'' is the collective name for two separate American Television Animated Series ('''''Rocky and His Friends''''' and '''''The Bullwinkle Show''''') 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 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 illustrations. 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 Actor s ( 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:
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. 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 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 . 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 Is Better Than None,' or 'Snow's Your Old Man'"). SUPPORTING SEGMENTS The "Rocky & Bullwinkle" shorts served as "bookends" for several other popular segments, including:
Some segments were introduced by Rocky. In one common introduction, Rocky would be interrupted by Bullwinkle's cry of "Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." Undaunted by Rocky's response ("Again?"), Bullwinkle then proceeded to pull out something preposterous, such as the head of a Lion , a Tiger , a Rhinoceros , and sometimes even Rocky himself. (Bullwinkle: "Well, I'm getting close!") CAST
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ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE IN POPULAR CULTURE
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