Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullwinkle Goes to Press

I'm not sure if the misspelling of "acquainted" is deliberate.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullwinkle Goes to Press
ABC
May 6, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C

The "Box Top Robbery" arc wraps up, and a role-switching "Little Red Riding Hood & Wolf" story is balanced by Mr. Peabody's of course racist encounter with African cannibals.  The season, and thus the series, averages out to a C+, so you can see why I didn't buy more, although this is definitely not the last of Jay Ward Productions.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Fools Afloat

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Fools Afloat
ABC
April 29, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C+

"Kindly old Geppetto" exploits Pinocchio on television, and "our boys" float around in the elevator.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Adrift in the Lift

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Adrift in the Lift
ABC
April 22, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
B-

More satiric than in awhile, this has such moments as Boris cheerfully admitting that his plans never work, a Walt-Disney-looking prince opening Sleeping Beauty Land, and a Lawrence-Welk-loving Dudley the only person not put to sleep by Nell's singing.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Some Like It Shot

And Peabody and Sherman help Don Juan, I kid you not.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Some Like It Shot
ABC
April 1, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C+

The "Jet Fuel Formula" arc is finally completed.  Rocky wants to make the Moonmen into Americans so that Americans can land on the moon.  But Gidney and Cloyd fail their naturalization test, given by a senator who thinks naturalization should be more difficult.  (Even being born in new states Hawaii and Alaska is suspect to him.)  In a bit of poetic justice, his coat gets stuck in their rocket door when they're deported, so he blasts off with them.

The 1960s have now passed the 1950s in quantity, a record they'll obviously hold for awhile.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Moonman Is Blue

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Moonman Is Blue
ABC
March 18, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
B

As the subtitle suggests, Gidney and Cloyd return.  Their gig in Las Vegas [sic] led to a TV show called Moonsmoke, but unfortunately they scrooched the whole viewing audience, so now American TV is nothing but commercials.  (Ironically, this is as bad as what the Pottsylvanian government was planning.)  The moonmen want to go home, so Rocky agrees to allow them to use the mooseberry bush for the jet fuel formula, but Bullwinkle is aghast at Rocky's lack of patriotism, since they're supposed to be taking the bush back to the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, Tom Thumb is a tiny juvenile delinquent who ends up in pyschoanalysis; and Snidely falls for Nell, who doesn't seem to mind the idea of marrying him.  Possibly the most satiric episode so far, or even of the whole first season.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Watch Out for Falling Rockys

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Watch Out for Falling Rockys
ABC
March 4, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
B

This is easily the best episode of the series so far.  Not only does Dudley Do-Right return (with a hypnotized Stokey the Bear as an arsonist), but the Fractured Fairy Tale has a few twists.  A painter wants to be a shoemaker, so he takes the advice of elves and travels around Europe, only to find that the best shoemaker is the wife he left back home.  As for the main show, B & N (disguised as Swiss and Indian guides respectively) lead R & B to a mountaintop and they find a mooseberry bush "in only one episode."  Also, we learn that Fearless Leader has a boss, too: Mr. Big.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Fright-Seeing Trip

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Fright-Seeing Trip
ABC
February 25, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
B-

I laughed out loud at the elaborate scheme to make rocket fuel and colonize the moon, in order to beam back bad Pottsylvanian television to the Earth.  And the fracturing of Cinderella, with both Prince and title character more concerned with money than romance, also amused me.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Axe Me Another

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Axe Me Another
ABC
February 18, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C

R & B arrive in Pottsylvania, where they're almost executed and then imprisoned.  Mr. Peabody and Sherman meet General Custer, and the Indian stereotypes aren't quite as bad as I dreaded.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Captain's Outrageous

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Captain's Outrageous
ABC
February 4, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C

Capt. "Wrong Way" Peacefuzz accidentally steers the ocean liner all over the world.  The Fractured Fairytale tells of another "Fisherman and His Wife," only this time it's a talking fish instead of a mermaid who grants their wishes.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Adrift in the Mist

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Adrift in the Mist
ABC
January 28, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
B-

Most notable (at least in the version on DVD) for the introduction of Dudley Do-Right.  While R & B thrive on cliffhangers and other old-movie touches, this segment actually incorporates silent-movie touches, such as cards that say things like "A baby is crying!  Is it yours?"  Hans Conried (as Snidely Whiplash) and the other voice actors rise to the challenge of the very funny script.  I think even as a child, these "friends" were my favorite.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bomb Voyage

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bomb Voyage
ABC
January 21, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C+

Boris portrays another in a series of implausible ethnic identities, this time British.  So the mooseberry bush is disguised as Uncle Cholmondley, pronounced "Chumley."  This episode brings up the question of what the exact nature is of Boris & Natasha's relationship.  She's here passed off as his wife and they're sharing a cabin.  She often calls him "Darling," but that may not mean anything.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Canoe Who?

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Canoe Who?
ABC
January 7, 1960
Cartoon
DVD
C+

Welcome to the 1960s, even if it doesn't yet feel like it.  We'll be here much longer than the '50s.  This episode has B & N, disguised as Indians, paddling a canoe back to Washington, D.C., while R & B follow on a boat made of the crashed plane, with half a tree for a mast.  More memorable is the Fractured Fairytale with a Phil-Silvers-sounding agent and a beatnik-sounding town cryer, although unfortunately the characterizations are not carried over to the animation, which seems to be getting shoddier as time goes on.  (Like the moment when Queen Elizabeth is on her throne and a puddle briefly appears beneath her.)

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullwinkle's Water Follies

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullwinkle's Water Follies
ABC
December 31, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
C

Bullwinkle goes over the falls but is saved by a mooseberry bush and Rocky.  Boris of course absconds with the bush.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Flying Casket

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Flying Casket
ABC
December 24, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
C

R & B have to get back home to Frostbite Falls to gather mooseberries for the formula, and the only way to travel seems to be to charter a plane, so of course Boris (who's going through a lot of disguises already) passes himself off as a pilot.

One of the more pointless historical interludes.  He doesn't even finish the symphony.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: There's No Place Like Space

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: There's No Place Like Space
ABC
December 17, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
B-

The best episode since the pilot, with better "friends" segments than lately (the Fairy Godmouse is so random in the Jack & the Beanstalk story), and an increasingly convoluted plot with the moonmen.  They're embraced by the public and soon inspire fads, but they tire of fame and just want to go home, taking R & B along to prevent them rediscovering the formula.  (Gidney & Cloyd overheard a hypnotized Bullwinkle recite the recipe, but none of the Earthlings know yet.)  But anyway, this is the episode you watch for the very interesting bookcase on the spaceship:

Not just Sex on Planet "X" but a Forever Amber satire.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Squirrel in a Stew

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Squirrel in a Stew
ABC
December 10, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
C+

This time, our heroes tangle with the U.S. Government, as well as B & N and the moonmen.  (Although they never seem that worried about the aliens for some reason.)  Rocky spells out in the sky that he's a U.S. taxpayer (I have no idea what his occupation is), so everything seems OK for awhile, but then they're arrested at the end.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Scrooched Moose

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Scrooched Moose
ABC
December 3, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
C+

Mostly notable for the mocking of various governments, with the moonmen having a slogan that includes "Uber Alles" but also a Churchill-like leader, while we get some glimpses of Boris & Natasha's Iron Curtain homeland.  As on the previous episode, the Fairytale and Sherman segments are meh.

Note, from this point on, I will be fast-forwarding through most of the credit  and transition sequences, which seem to make up a good portion of each episode.

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullseye Bullwinkle

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Bullseye Bullwinkle
ABC
November 26, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
C

Despite the introduction of actual moonmen (Gidney and Cloyd), this is a mostly forgettable episode, although the quick flashbacks to Bullwinkle's youth are cute.  I'm using my favorite of the four subtitles, which will probably be what I'll do with future episodes.  (Each has two R & B segments.)

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Jet Fuel Formula

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Jet Fuel Formula

Natasha is more of a Mata Hari type here than later.

ABC
November 19, 1959
Cartoon
DVD
B-

The history of this show, including the title and subtitles, is a bit tangled, but I'm going to go with what makes sense to me, and not worry too much about how the series was packaged and repackaged.  I'm using the title from the DVD release, even though the series was originally Rocky and His Friends, because obviously Bullwinkle was an important costar from the beginning.  In turn, "Jet Fuel Formula" is actually the name of the very long-running story arc, and it isn't till the "tune in next time" part that the punning alternative episode titles begin.

As an introduction to the show (and its shows within the show), this isn't bad.  Rocky and Bullwinkle are introduced as supposed spacemen who turn out to be Frost Bite Falls residents with an explosive cake recipe that's also the formula.  (Note that Boris and Natasha do not yet have their distinct characterizations, although the voice acting is basically as it would be later.)  The Fractured Fairytale (narrated by the one and only Edward Everett Horton) is more straightforward than later ones, a fairly literal interpretation of Rapunzel, although with humor of course.  The Peabody's Improbable History portion explains how the dog adopted his boy Sherman and invented the WAYBAC machine for Sherman's amusement.