Jay Ward's Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959-64, and rehashed into many different series during the 1960s) is often praised as genius, a classic of animation. Amazon promises: "the wittiest, most inspired, and relentlessly hilarious animation ever created!"
No one thought it was great in the 1960s. It was relegated to the Sunday morning ghetto, with Totalitarian Television and Davy and Goliath.
Either of which were preferable to the Moose and Squirrel.
Ok, maybe I was too young to understand the clever satire, so a few months ago I purchased and watched Season 1 on DVD.
I still hated it.
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50% of each episode was devoted to repetitive, incomprehensible filler:
When the mountain they are climbing is destroyed by lightning, Rocky and Bullwinkle fall to their deaths, but are resurrected in a field of daisies.
A magician, Bullwinkle tells Rocky, "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." He pulls out a scary monster instead, and quips, "I take a 7 1/2."
When you finally got to the story, it was an endless serial cut into five-minute segments. I never saw the first or the last of them, so I had no idea what was going on. But they were bound to have an incomprehensible pun.
The Treasure of Monte Zoom
Maybe Dick
The Guns of Abalone
Kerwood Derby
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I know what most of them refer to now, except "Kerwood Derby." It's a malapropism of "Durward Kirby," a very, very, very minor tv personality of the early 1960s.
And the animation! There wasn't any. Static scenes, the art incomplete, splashes of color instead of filled-in lines, with only the tiniest mouth movement or gestures. Abysmal!
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The only things I liked were:
1. The scenes set in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, the home town of the Moose and Squirrel, where they behaved and were treated like romantic partners.
2. Boris and Natasha, the Cold War spies from Pottsylvania assigned to steal the couple's secret or just grift them in various ways. Although a male-female dyad, they were obviously not a romantic couple, nor did they express any heterosexual interest.
3. Some of the supporting features, like Fractured Fairy Tales, Mr. Peabody's Improbable History, and Aesop & Son.
The gay connection?
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1. Creator Jay Ward (1920-1989) lived in West Hollywood.
2. Edward Everett Horton, who narrated Fractured Fairy Tales, played "pansy" roles during the 1930s.
Not very impressive, is it?
That's because I don't like the program enough to do thorough research.
See also: Peabody and Sherman
No one thought it was great in the 1960s. It was relegated to the Sunday morning ghetto, with Totalitarian Television and Davy and Goliath.
Either of which were preferable to the Moose and Squirrel.
Ok, maybe I was too young to understand the clever satire, so a few months ago I purchased and watched Season 1 on DVD.
I still hated it.
When the mountain they are climbing is destroyed by lightning, Rocky and Bullwinkle fall to their deaths, but are resurrected in a field of daisies.
A magician, Bullwinkle tells Rocky, "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." He pulls out a scary monster instead, and quips, "I take a 7 1/2."
When you finally got to the story, it was an endless serial cut into five-minute segments. I never saw the first or the last of them, so I had no idea what was going on. But they were bound to have an incomprehensible pun.
The Treasure of Monte Zoom
Maybe Dick
The Guns of Abalone
Kerwood Derby
And the animation! There wasn't any. Static scenes, the art incomplete, splashes of color instead of filled-in lines, with only the tiniest mouth movement or gestures. Abysmal!
1. The scenes set in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, the home town of the Moose and Squirrel, where they behaved and were treated like romantic partners.
2. Boris and Natasha, the Cold War spies from Pottsylvania assigned to steal the couple's secret or just grift them in various ways. Although a male-female dyad, they were obviously not a romantic couple, nor did they express any heterosexual interest.
3. Some of the supporting features, like Fractured Fairy Tales, Mr. Peabody's Improbable History, and Aesop & Son.
The gay connection?
2. Edward Everett Horton, who narrated Fractured Fairy Tales, played "pansy" roles during the 1930s.
Not very impressive, is it?
That's because I don't like the program enough to do thorough research.
See also: Peabody and Sherman