November 19, 1959…America Meets Rocky And Bullwinkle
November 19, 1959…America Meets Rocky And Bullwinkle
Today is the anniversary of the debut of one of my all time favorite cartoon shows…probably one of yours too. The show debuted as ‘Rocky And His Friends’ on ABC and although done in color, it was broadcast in black and white. Before third season began in 1961, the show moved to NBC where it was broadcast in color and called ‘The Bullwinkle Show’.
Production began in February 1958 with the hiring of voice actors June Foray, Paul Frees, Bill Scott, and William Conrad. Ward hired most of the rest of the production staff, including writers and designers, BUT…no animators were hired!?! Why? Because Ward was able to convince some friends at Dancer, Fitzgerald, & Sample (an advertising agency that had General Mills as a client) to buy an animation studio in Mexico called Gamma Productions, originally known as Val-Mar Animation.
This outsourcing of the animation for the series was considered financially attractive by primary sponsor General Mills, but caused numerous problems. In a 1982 interview by animation historian Jim Korkis, Bill Scott described some of the problems that arose during production of the series: “We found out very quickly that we could not depend on Mexican studios to produce anything of quality. They were turning out the work very quickly and there were all kinds of mistakes and flaws and boo-boos. They would never check with us on details…mustaches popped on and off Boris, Bullwinkle’s antlers would change, colors would change and costumes would disappear. By the time we finally saw it, it was on the air.”
General Mills had signed a deal to sponsor the cartoon, under the condition that the show be run in a late-afternoon time slot, where it could be targeted toward children. The show was broadcast for the first time on November 19, 1959, on the ABC television network under the title ‘Rocky and His Friends’ twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, following American Bandstand at 5:30 p.m. ET, where it was the highest-rated daytime network program.
The show moved to the NBC network starting September 24, 1961, broadcast in color, and first appeared on Sundays at 7 p.m. ET, just before ‘Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color’. Bullwinkle’s ratings suffered as a result of being aired opposite perennial favorite Lassie. A potential move to CBS caused NBC to reschedule the show to late Sunday afternoons (5:30 p.m. ET) and early Saturday afternoons in its final season. NBC canceled the show in the summer of 1964. It was shopped to ABC, but they were not interested. However, reruns of episodes were aired on ABC’s Sunday morning schedule at 11 a.m. ET until 1973, at which time the series went into syndication.
An abbreviated fifteen-minute version of the series ran in syndication in the 1960s under the title ‘The Rocky Show’. This version was sometimes shown in conjunction with The King and Odie, a fifteen-minute version of Total Television’s King Leonardo and His Short Subjects. The King and Odie was similar to Rocky and Bullwinkle in that it was sponsored by General Mills and animated by Gamma Productions. NBC later aired Bullwinkle Show reruns at 12:30 p.m. ET Saturday afternoons during the 1981-1982 television season.
Below is a clip of the main voices of the show, June Foray and Bill Scott talking about their “adventures”. Other famous voices on the show included William Conrad as the narrator, Paul Frees as Boris Badenov, Wally Tetley as Sherman, Daws Butler as Aesop Junior and various other characters, Charlie Ruggles as Aesop, Hans Conried as Snidely Whiplash and Edward Everett Horton as the narrator for Fractured Fairy Tales. -Bobby Ellerbee
Anyone remember the episode in which Bullwinkle was to lose a body part? I saw it only once.
I have heard several stories about how the name “Ponsonby Britt” came about. Can you shed any light on that subject?
Ah, Saturday mornings, when all was right with the world!
June Foray….still with us at age 99. Won her first Emmy a few years ago.
Thank you so much for this! What memories!
What was amazing about the show was that, according to a book I read about the production, Rocky and Bullwinkle was a total shoestring production. Lots of subcontracting, minimal management structure…I can’t say it hurt the final project but you have to wonder how it ever made air.
Brilliant post, as always. Thanks!
I think one syndication package actually combined “Dudley Do-Right” and the” King and Odie” cartoons into one show. That’s a shame, because the Jay Ward product had about a hundred times the wit of the “King and Odie” stuff. Why not give us a half hour of pure Jay Ward?
Those shows and mad magazine kept me entertained and laughing most of my pre teen years
Nice
Great show, great political satire. In the early 80’s, during my Showtime tenure, no trip to LA was complete without a visit to The Dudley Do-Rite Emporium run by Mrs. Ward. At the time I was reformatting one of Ward’s series, Fractured Flickers, for Showtime. She gave me a lot of insight into their process and history.
Bullwinkle at the Bat for Cheerios. My favorite.
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/commercials-animated-by-gerard-baldwin/
“And now here’s something we hope you really like.”
You did it again, another great post. i often wondered who those Jay Ward characters voices belonged to. I loved the humor that was written into the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Ward, along with the Warner Bros. cartoons, The Three Stooges etc. were a big part of my childhood and became a piece of my DNA.
I was in the tenth grade when Rocky premiered. It was one of my favorite shows all through high school.
The King And Odie was the first show I ever saw in color on an RCA set in a department store in Washington, D. C.
One of my all-time favorites. I loved Rocky & Bullwinkle . . . to this day!