Creator of TV cartoon Rocky and Bullwinkle dies

[n2doc]

Source: SF Gate/AP

(10-26) 08:05 PDT Carmel, Calif. (AP) --

Pioneering TV cartoon artist Alexander Anderson Jr., who created Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose, has died. He was 90.

Anderson's son Terry tells the Los Angeles Times his father died at a Carmel nursing home on Friday after battling Alzheimer's disease. The elder Anderson was a longtime resident of Pebble Beach.

Anderson teamed up with his childhood friend and former University of California, Berkeley, fraternity brother Jay Ward to make low-budget TV cartoons.

Their creations also included Crusader Rabbit and his pal Rags the Tiger and Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/26/entertainment/e072026D36.DTL&tsp=1

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Sad, Sad day. They don't make good subversive Cartoons like that anymore.

[Jkid]

1. How was Rocky and Bullwinkle 'subversive' ?

[AlbertCat]

12. How was Rocky and Bullwinkle 'subversive' ?

It was the Cold War. Characters like Boris Badenov and Natasha with Fearless Leader, incompetently battle the clueless, but very very lucky "moose and squirrel". Por ejemplo:

Rocky & Bullwinkle have something really important to tell the president in Washington DC, but Capt Peachface is sent off course by Boris and Natasha and they end up in Arkansas (or somewhere - I'm trying to remember these things I haven't seen in years.) in a little town with flat facades of, like, the Capital and White House in front of the town's buildings. R&B never guess that they're not in DC. Something happens to make one of the facades fall flat in front of them and then Rocky slowly says "Heeeeey... wait a minute..."

Or


Bullwinkle in his segment "Mr Know-it-all" recites (Hello, poetry lovers!) "Thom, Thom, the piper's son: stole a pig, and away he....oof!" He's stopped by two FBI agents in black "Are you Thom, the Piper's son? Is this your pig?...."

See.... amusingly subversive.

[elocs]

Late news since he died last Friday. n/t

[Kolesar]

5. Celluloid heroes never really die...eom

[Kolesar]

6. del

[elocs]

9. True, absolutely true. n/t

[elocs]

17. Here's the thread I posted in about this last Saturday:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9372963

[Botany]

2. now watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat

RIP Alexander Anderson Jr

[ewagner]

3. Another pioneer has passed

Sad.

But Rocky and Bullwinkle set the table for new generations of cartoons/animated stories...Simpsons, Family Guy, etc.,

Rocket J. Squirrel was the first.

[COLGATE4]

4. One of the greatest cartoons of all times! nt

[Kolesar]

7. I loved the Fractured Fairy Tales and Peabody and Sherman

I got tired of the Boris Badanov schtick.

Dudley Doright does not show on the rebroadcasts and I don't understand that.

[Blue_Tires]

14. and Commander McBragg

[Kolesar]

16. Ha!

good one

[AlbertCat]

8. They don't make good subversive Cartoons like that anymore.

Yes they do.... don't you watch Adultswim?

But nothing is like Bullwinkle! The jokes at the expense of the Cold War are funny on their own. It's where I learned to be critical and to think about things twice. As a kid, I used to skip church, go to my grandmother's (she wasn't there... she was at church!) and watch Bullwinkle and eat round mint flavored Eskimo Pies. Ahhhh....memories....

[n2doc]

10. Well, maybe Aqua Teen Hunger Force...

But too much of it has no subtlety (not that ATHF has any). I think the genius of R and B was that it made great fun of the issues and fears of they day without really being heavy handed about it.

[greiner3]

11. I loved that show;

It was the only cartoon show broadcast on Sunday mornings. Half hour of goodness.

[rocktivity]

13. Crusader Rabbit--my first girlhood crush!

and this looks like an earlier rendition of Moose and Squirrel:



:loveya:
rocktivity

[ProudDad]

18. Crusader Rabbit

was one of my early seminal influences...

Wonderful memories...

[klook]

15. Changed my life.

The first thing I watched on my streaming Netflix account was Episode #1 of Rocky & Bullwinkle. That is just wonderful stuff, and I laughed out loud many times.

The R&B stories are so much more dependent on the writing than a lot of cartoons - that was part of the appeal to a verbal kid like me (because, let's face it, the art work is pretty simplistic for the most part). And R&B had a smartass attitude that I've always enjoyed. It was the closest thing to Mad Magazine on TV when I was a kid. And the voices! June Foray, Paul Frees, Bill Scott, William Conrad, Hans Conried, Walter Tetley, Edward Everett Horton -- I don't know if there's been a better cast of voice talent assembled in one place.

I have an old tape of music from Jay Ward Productions -- including some of the tinkly piano music from Fractured Flickers, as well as the themes from Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Fractured Fairy Tales, etc. My favorite track, though, is the fight song for Moosylvania U, which is hilariously sung in traditional style by a men's chorus:
"Moosylvania U! Moosylvania U! Moosylvania U! Ooooooooohhhh!!
Scrape yourself off the ground, Moosylvania --
Please try not to smile.
You'll find all your teeth, Moosylvania --
Underneath that pile.... " (etc.)

I'm glad Alex Anderson got some recognition as the creator of Bullwinkle and other characters while he was still around. Now he's pushin' up sunflowers.