On The Occasion Of Rocky And Bullwinkle’s 50th Anniversary

As animation goes Rocky and Bullwinkle was déclassé. This was no Disney romp with full foreground and background movement.

Fifty years ago today Rocket J. Squirrel took flight for the first time from Frostbite Falls, MN (before Minnesota was even abbreviated MN) launched by his buddy Bullwinkle Moose. As a kid I watched this show religiously. It was always funny, always sharp.

As animation goes Rocky and Bullwinkle was déclassé. This was no Disney romp with full foreground and background movement. The characters was sketched. The backgrounds were static. There are 30 frames per second on TV. There’s no way there were 30 drawings per second on this cartoon.

Rocky and Bullwinkle lived and died on the strength of writing and acting. The pen and ink skill was far behind in importance.

Here is what’s probably my all time favorite YouTube clip: A medley of Boris Badenov, featuring June Foray, Paul Frees, Bill Ward and William Conrad.