by Brandie Ashe
The great voice artist June Foray (who passed away last summer just two months shy of her 100th birthday) once told the story of how she came to embody one of the most iconic characters of her career. After her agent told her that two industry men named Jay Ward and Bill Scott–whom she had never heard of–wanted to take her to lunch, June met them at a restaurant in Los Angeles, where the two men were having martinis when she arrived. “And they said, ‘Well, have a martini,’ and I said, ‘Well, you know, I don’t drink at lunch.’ And they said, ‘Aw, come on, we’re having a drink!’ So I said okay. And on the first drink, they told me they had an idea of a moose and a squirrel and I thought, ‘Gee, that’s a real cockeyed idea,’ you know. But after the second martini, I thought it was great.”
When you think about it, Foray’s initial impression wasn’t wrong. The concept for Rocky and Bullwinkle is an odd one, even considering some of the crazier cartoons that made their way onto movie and television screens in the first half of the 20th century (I’m side-eyeing you, Max Fleischer). But as wild as the concept may have seemed in 1959–when the show premiered on ABC–it just worked, strangely enough. Rocky and Bullwinkle became a pop-culture phenomenon, one that appealed to both kids and adults with its wide-ranging humorous style. And even though the original show lasted only five years, it remains to this day a popular nostalgic series, one that Hollywood can’t seem to help from trying to adapt in various forms (including a number of big-screen live-action and animated adaptations, none of which quite capture the zany brilliance of that first incarnation).
The series is essentially a compilation of shorts featuring a diverse cast of characters, framed by the Rocky and Bullwinkle-starring serials, in which the moose (voiced by series co-creator Bill Scott) and squirrel (voiced by Foray) inevitably find themselves at odds with the inept Russian spy duo of Boris and Natasha (voiced by Paul Frees and Foray). These serials featured cliffhanger endings and tended to last over multiple episodes; in fact, the first (and perhaps best-known) of these series, called “Jet Fuel Formula,” lasted forty episodes and introduced the concept of weird misunderstandings and random happenstance that propel Rocky and Bullwinkle into many of their misadventures. In this initial series, Bullwinkle inadvertently discovers the recipe for a very effective rocket fuel while baking a cake … which leads one to wonder, just how much should we trust the cooking skills of a moose? (The answer to that question is “not at all, unless you want to find yourself flying ass-first to the moon.”)
Those Moose and Squirrel were the ostensible stars of the show, the other segments featured characters who would soon become immensely popular in their own rights. There were the “WABAC” travels of Mr. Peabody, a genius talking dog, and his somewhat less-intelligent boy, Sherman, who used their time machine to visit key events in the history of mankind; the tales of Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right, which parodied the kind of old-fashioned “damsel tied to the railroad tracks” serials that were particularly popular in the silent era; and two ongoing modernized takes on classic tales and legends featuring two great classic character actors: the “Fractured Fairy Tales,” narrated by the always-great Edward Everett Horton, and “Aesop and Son,” starring the vocal talents of the inimitable Charlie Ruggles.
In my previous essay for this countdown for the current television series Bob’s Burgers, I mentioned that its dialogue-driven episodes can almost function like an old-time radio serial, with the visuals sometimes secondary to the delightful wordplay between the characters. In this respect, I believe the creator and writers of Bob’s Burgers may have taken some influence from Rocky and Bullwinkle, a show that is not known so much for the crude artistry of its animation as for its witty humor, malapropisms, and pun-laden dialogue. It’s truly a show that is driven by the writers. The characters frequently break the fourth wall, acknowledging that they are starring in a television series (Natasha: “Boris, is Moose you said you killed in previous episode?” Boris: “Look, it’s his show. If he wants to be hard to kill, let him”), and drawing attention to the artificial–and ratings-dependent–nature of their existence (Rocky: “I’m not talking about The Bullwinkle Show.” Bullwinkle: “You had better. We could use the publicity”).
And, oh, those puns. The frequent, sometimes hilarious, sometimes groan-inducing puns, which the writers of the show knew were just plain painful. Case in point:
[Scene: Rocky and Bullwinkle bring a small, jewel-covered boat, named “Omar Khayyam,” to a local jeweler for appraisal.]
Jeweler: “You know what you have here?”
Bullwinkle: “We were hoping that you would tell us.”
Jeweler: “This little doll here is composed of ruby! Yes, sir, it’s rubies!”
Bullwinkle: “No, it isn’t! It’s mine!”
Rocky: “Well, my gosh, if it’s made out of rubies, then …”
Bullwinkle: “If you’re hesitating for me to finish the line, you’ve got a long wait!”
Jeweler: “And I don’t have the guts to say it!”
Rocky: “Okay, then, here goes. If it’s made out of rubies, then this must be the Ruby Yacht of Omar Khayyam!”
Bullwinkle and Jeweler: “UGH!”
To borrow the next line from the show’s Narrator: with that little gem, we bring down the curtain.
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