Line #17 Trivia/RockyAndBullwinkle


1	* ActingForTwo: Many of the show's voice actors acted for two -- or in some cases, for three or four -- at various times.
2	** Rocky and Natasha are both voiced by Creator/JuneForay.
3	** This also occurs occasionally with characters voiced by Creator/BillScott or Creator/PaulFrees.
4	* BannedInChina: Even though Pottsylvania was generally seen as a spoof of both UsefulNotes/EastGermany and the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]], the latter banned ''Rocky and Bullwinkle'' for denigrating their culture.
5	* ChannelHop: It went from ABC to NBC when the show was renamed ''The Bullwinkle Show''.
6	* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Thanks mainly to the [[WesternAnimation/MrPeabodyAndSherman Dreamworks film]], the ''Peabody's Improbable History'' shorts are commonly referred to as simply "Mr. Peabody and Sherman". Technically it's not incorrect, since those are the names of the main characters, but it's not the original official title of the shorts.
7	* CrossDressingVoices:
8	** Creator/JuneForay as Rocky.
9	** Bill Scott also frequently played little old ladies, such as assorted fairy godmothers and witches in ''Fractured Fairy Tales'' (typically if the fairy tale was starring a young maiden voiced by June Foray.)
10	** In the licensed game ''Rocky & Bullwinkle's Know-It-All Quiz Game'', Sherman was voiced by one Creator/LaniMinella.
11	* DawsonCasting: Speaking of Sherman, the original series cast [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Tetley Walter Tetley]] to play him. Tetley was in his ''forties'' at the time, but never hit puberty (either due to a condition along the lines of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallmann_syndrome Kallmann syndrome]], or—if costar Bill Scott wasn't just joking—because his mother had him castrated so he could keep taking child roles).
12	* {{Defictionalization}}:
13	** The producers of ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' rented out a small island in {{UsefulNotes/Minnesota}}, called it Moosylvania, and began a tongue-in-cheek statehood campaign. The "Moosylvania for Statehood" campaign was cut short when the petition reached the White House just as the UsefulNotes/CubanMissileCrisis was unfolding.
14	** The Wayback Machine was defictionalized....as [[Website/WaybackMachine an internet archive tool]].
15	* EditedForSyndication: The ''Rocky And Bullwinkle'' episode intros originally had Rocky sailing past signage reading "Rocky the Flying Squirrel," followed by Bullwinkle adjacent to signage reading "featuring Bullwinkle the Moose." When it did a channel hop from ABC to NBC, Rocky's signs were replaced with "The Adventures of Rocky And Bullwinkle," rendering Bullwinkle's signs redundant.
16	** Some time in the 80s, the opening for ''The Bullwinkle Show'' had its end freeze-framed and the Jay Ward copyright tag replaced with [=FilmTel=]'s.
17	** Both season openings of ''Rocky And His Friends'' were altered for syndication. The General Mills plug in the first season open was cut with Bullwinkle now saying "Well, let's get started" in place of it. In season two during the motorcade, the dialogue was originally about Bullwinkle writing a letter to the sponsor ("Let's see...'dear spons'..."). In syndication, the dialogue was redone with Bullwinkle signing autographs ("John...Smith." Rocky: "But your name is Bullwinkle." Bullwinkle: "I know. But that's hard to spell!") It appeared that the animation for the dialogue was done specifically for when the show went into syndication.
18	* EnforcedMethodActing: Jay Ward was having trouble getting William Conrad to read his lines fast enough, as Conrad felt that his voice sounded hysterical the faster he spoke. So one day, just before the recording session started, Ward walked into the recording booth and ''set Conrad's script on fire.''
19	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Good luck trying to find the show with the original Frank Comstock music score as well as ''The Rocky Show'' and ''The Bullwinkle Show'' openings and endings. They were last seen via The Program Exchange syndication prints in 2016. If you want to see the show the way it initially aired (as in without the alterations and OutOfOrder supporting segments), you're out of luck. Only one episode print (in black & white) of ''Rocky and His Friends'' as it originally aired still exists.
20	* MissingEpisode: The ''Dudley Do-Right'' episode "Stokey the Bear" did not air after its initial broadcast after Jay Ward was threatened with jail over spoofing Smokey Bear. It ended up being included on the first season DVD set.
21	* TheOtherDarrin: Played straight for almost everyone in the 2014 short (most notably Creator/TomKenny as Bullwinkle), but averted for Creator/JuneForay as Rocky (and even then his voice was pitched up in post because the then-95-year-old Foray had lost a little bit of her magic; needless to say, it was her final role before her passing in 2017; it is often believed that Foray's last outing as Rocky was actually in a GEICO commercial, but in truth, it was Lauri Fraser, whose impersonation was so on-point, pretty much everyone was fooled). Later played straight in the case of Rocky in the 2018 series, in which Creator/TaraStrong inherited the role.
22	* OlderThanTheyThink: ''Rocky and Bullwinkle'' was the first American animated TV series to feature multi-episode story arcs and cliffhangers, something that would not become commonplace again until much later.
23	* PopCultureUrbanLegends: There's a popular belief that the Box Top Robbery story arc was cut short at twelve chapters (compared to the forty chapters of Jet Fuel Formula) because General Mills was not amused about the idea of counterfeit box tops. The more prosaic truth is that, with a total of fifty-two chapters at two chapters an episode, an episode count of twenty-six allowed for a clean repeat block for summer reruns.
24	* ReferencedBy: On ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Crowley nicknames Sam and Dean "Moose" and "Squirrel" respectively, which caught on with fans.
25	** During the run of Series/TheXFiles, "Moose and Squirrel" was a common FanNickname for AgentMulder and AgentScully, part due to the initials and part due to the height difference.
26	* SyndicationTitle: There are three syndication packages. Two 30-minute packages which use the "Bullwinkle Show" and "Rocky and his Friends" titles, and a 15-minute package, which uses the alternate title "The Rocky Show".
27	** When aired on Nickelodeon, the show was called "Bullwinkle's Moose-O-Rama", while Cartoon Network reruns were titled "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show".
28	** International airings as well as the DVD releases title the show "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends", replacing not only the original "Rocky and His Friends" title ("The Bullwinkle Show" opening does not appear on any of the UsefulNotes/{{DVD}}s) but also the 1961 "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" title card for those segments.
29	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
30	** Jay Ward and Bill Scott were planning a ''Rocky and Bullwinkle'' revival in the late 1970s, to be co-produced with Creator/DepatieFrelengEnterprises. Bill Scott even wrote a couple of scripts, but it never got into production.
31	** In 1981, another revival was planned, involving a UsefulNotes/SuperBowl parody. It was ultimately scrapped because the NFL didn't like the idea of parodying team owners and it involved Boris fixing the game.
32	** If Disney had the rights to make a new ''Rocky and Bullwinkle'' series in 1989, we would've had [[http://michaelperaza.blogspot.com/2010/08/bullwinkled.html this]]. It would've had new ''Rocky and Bullwinkle'' stories, new ''Peabody's Improbable History'' stories, new ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'' stories, new ''Mr. Know-It-All'' segments and a whole new segment called ''Fractured Scary Tales'', which would've been spoofs of famous horror films. Of course, if Disney did have the rights, then we wouldn't have gotten what was the end result of the replacement pitch, ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''. This is because Disney held the video rights at the time- the TV animation dept. misconstrued that to mean they had all the rights (Creator/{{Universal}} had most other rights at the time- see for evidence the theme park rides with Ward-created characters, the 1999/00 adaptation films, and even the 1995 [[Advertising/EnergizerBunny Energizer]] commercials with Boris and Natasha (which bore an MCA/Universal copyright).
33	** A few years before ''Rocky and His Friends'' began, there was a storyboard idea called ''The Frostbite Falls Revue'', which would've starred Rocky, Bullwinkle (then called the French-Canadian Moose), Sylvester the Fox, Flora Fauna, Blackstone the Crow and Oski the Bear.[[note]]Named in honor of [[https://calspirit.berkeley.edu/oski/history.php the mascot]] at Jay Ward's alma mater, University of California, Berkeley[[/note]] It would've involved them running a TV station in the North Woods.
34	** Creator/MattGroening, who counts the show as a big influence on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', very nearly revived the show around the 2000s. However, he decided to go with his little [[{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}} sci-fi show]] instead.
35	** Early on, the show would have been just a 5-minute series titled ''Rocky the Flying Squirrel'' that would have been syndicated and aired on local kiddie shows. However, sponsor General Mills wanted a full half-hour show, resulting in the creation of various supporting segments.
36	** The "Peabody's Improbable History" segments were originally about a super-genius boy and his curious dog. Ward and Scott quickly agreed that reversing the dynamic to a super-genius dog and his curious "pet" boy was much funnier.
37	** The 2014 CG short film was intended to run before ''WesternAnimation/MrPeabodyAndSherman'' in theaters, [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot as a testing ground for a possible feature film and a relaunch of the franchise]]. However, Dreamworks wanted to push ''WesternAnimation/Home2015'' instead, and the short was relegated to being an extra on the ''Mr. Peabody'' 3D Blu-ray.
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Context Trivia / RockyAndBullwinkle