The DVD Review
ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE AND FRIENDS  Complete Season One  

Released by AV Channel-Madman. Out now to buy.  Four Disc Set

Premiering in the states on 19 November 1959 Rocky and Bullwinkle cut a swathe through all the other animation of the time and now thanks to the AV Channel we can sample the complete season one (packaged in a very nice gatefold 4 disc box set). Full of satire and punning jokes the adventures of none too bright moose Bullwinkle (voiced by Bill Scott) and his best friend Rocky the Squirrel (voiced by June Foray) were pretty much patterned after the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road movies as well as owing much to the 1920’s serial flicks creator Jay Ward would have grown up on. Much of the series, with it’s setting of Frostbite Falls , Minnesota poked fun at the Cold War which was then at its height with Rocky and Bullwinkle being continually targeted by the evil trench coat wearing Boris and his partner Natasha.

Also a big part of the show was the Edward Everett Horton narrated segment Fractured Fairy Tales taking offbeat looks at well known fairy tales and the misadventures of Mountie Dudley Doright and his battles with the evil Snidely Whplash.

Thanks to the very witty narration by William Conrad this is a series that will appeal to adults and children alike.

EXTRAS: Advice to the lovelorn in Dear Bullwinkle, rarely seen segments featuring a Bullwinkle puppet; a few very good classic promotional reels; an episode in the form of an ad in which Rocky and Bullwinkle try to persuade their fellow Americans to join a savings stamps club; Then there is the clip driven The Many Faces of Boris Badenov and two episodes from season two.