The Rocky and Bullwinkle Book - Hardcover

Chunovic, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553105035 ISBN 13: 9780553105032

Publisher: Bantam, 1996

Synopsis

The adventures of Bullwinkle J. Moose, Rocket J. Squirrel, and their bumbling adversaries, Boris and Natasha, come to life in a detailed account of each episode of the classic animated series, behind-the-scenes anecdotes about its creation, original artwork, and a host of memorabilia.

About this title

Review:

In the late '50s and early '60s, the most subversive show ever to hit the airwaves enchanted millions of American grade-schoolers. The kiddies tuned in to watch Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, indulge in cartoon acrobatics and rattle off a series of unbelievable puns. This encyclopedic volume details their every adventure, from chasing the wailing whale Maybe Dick to joining the football team at Wossamotta U. The sinister Pottsylvanian spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale sneak into a goodly share of the pages, along with Dudley Do-Right, the square-jawed Mountie; Snidely Whiplash, the luxuriantly mustachioed villain; Mr. Peabody, the beagle who knows everything; and his boy Sherman. It's a loving, cleverly-illustrated tribute to these saviors of the free world and an admiring paean to the twisted, hilarious genius of Jay Ward, their modest creator, who set the standard for TV animation for generations to come.

From Booklist:

The wry, slightly subversive attitude of the TV cartoons featuring Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose made so great an impression on the baby boom generation that demand for this lavish tribute will doubtless be high. Granted, the pair's show is one of the few TV cartoon series that warrant coffee-table-book treatment. It lacked the visual lushness of classic theatrical animation, but producer Jay Ward compensated for that cost-dictated limitation with witty satirical scripts and brilliant voice work. Unfortunately, while Chunovic supplies plenty of behind-the-scenes tidbits and other information on the series (including a guide to all 326 episodes), he ignores Ward's career before and after the moose-and-squirrel and says virtually nothing about the show's other characters (perhaps Mr. Peabody, Dudley Do-Right, et al., are being held in reserve for future books of their own). Moreover, he tries too hard to capture the cartoons' wackiness with laboriously jocular prose. As Rocket J. Squirrel himself put it, "That trick never works!" Gordon Flagg

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0553105035
• ISBN 13: 9780553105032
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 211