What we do today, darling? Kill Moose and Squirrel ?
-- Natasha Fatale
Why are people so fucking stupid? Why can't they be more intellligent, like me?
-- The Kim Jong-Il Character in
Team America: World Police (2004)
Perhaps one of the greatest influences
on the intellectual development of people of my generation was The
Rocky and Bullwinkle Show by Jay Ward Studios. The four years
that this show was on air and the billions of years that it showed on
reruns was fundamental to the development of the ethics,
intelligence, world view and appreciation of puns for people all over
this country and the world.
The end of a very surrealistic sequence in which Rocky and Bullwinkle are reincarnated in plant form.
In this post we discuss the mystery of
what the show was actually called, why the show is important, and its
context in the period of the Cold War. Finally we discuss the origins
of one of its greatest creations: the term "Fearless
Leader".
According to IMDB, there were two shows
that overlapped each other in time. Rocky and His Friends, which
aired from 1959 to 1964 and The Bullwinkle Show from
1961 to 1964. But according to Wikipedia, the show was called
Rocky and His Friends for the first two years and The
Bullwinkle Show for the last two years. This confusion probably
arises from the attempt by the network and Jay Ward to improve the
ratings for the show which never did all that well. The show was
shuffled from Prime Time to Saturday Morning in an
effort to find its audience and improve ratings. Ultimately they
failed and the show was cancelled after the fourth season.
But they did achieve the minimum number
of episodes required for reruns in syndication, and the show lived on
in various edited forms, for at least a decade longer and in 100
countries. There is now a complete boxed set on DVD which is highly
recommended for those of us who appreciate higher culture.
The show was structured like a variety
show of vaudeville (1). Each episode would begin and end with a
Rocky and Bullwinkle segment that was part of a larger, multiple
episode story. Between these two segments would be a variety of
other acts including Mr. Peabody's Improbable History, Dudley
Do-Right of the Mounties, and Mr. Know it All. The
actors who contributed voices reads like a voice-over Hall of Fame
including: June Foray, Bill Scott, Paul Frees, Hans Conreid, William
Conrad, Edward Everett Horton and many others reknowned in the
history of animation.
Mr. Peabody, Sherman and the Way Back Machine
My favorite pun of the entire show was the school that Bullwinkle attended as immortalized on a shirt he would wear: Whatsamatta U.
Of course it is the villians who are
among the most memorable of the characters. The two villians that we
normally see in the show are Boris and Natasha, more formally Boris
Badenov and Natasha Fatale. But they worked for a mysterious figure
whom we knew as "Fearless Leader". Boris and Natasha, our
archtypal Russian spies and saboteurs, were terrified of Fearless
Leader.
Fearless Leader
The show, which took place in the Cold
War, usually had plots that involved our villians Boris and Natasha,
as directed by Fearless Leader, to do something evil and being
thwarted by Rocky and Bullwinkle. What distinguished the Cold War
from other conflicts was the relentless use of spies, conspiracies
and secret plots. It was part and parcel of the Cold War that there
would be masters of evil who led these conspiracies, from Ernst
Blofeld, to Dr. No, to Joseph Stalin, to Kim Jung-Il.
Peerless Leader
Kim Jung-Il had many honorifics that
were bestowed on him by his grateful people. Most people know that
he was called "Dear Leader" by the people of N. Korea. But
that was just the tip of the iceberg, in fact he had a great many of
these, some used in special circumstances, some used more generally.
These honorifics included:
Superior Person, Beloved Father, Beloved and Respected General, Ever Victorious Iron Willed Commander, Great Man Who is a Man of Deeds, Mastermind of the Revolution, Invincible and Ever-Triumphant General, Dear Leader, Respected Leader, Wise Leader, Great Leader of Our Party and Our Nation, Sun of the Communist Future, Shining Star of Paektu Mountain, Peerless Leader, Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love, Bright Sun of Juche, Great Marshall and Dear Father.
Was Fearless Leader in fact named for
the real life "Peerless Leader" of N. Korea? We may never
know for sure. (2) (3) But certainly we can say that if Kim Jung-Il had ever
been called "Fearless Leader", that it would be right in
line with his many other titles.
With that mystery hanging in the air, I
want to end this post with a sad story about what happened when Jay
Ward proposed a TV special based on Rocky and Bullwinkle.
For every Rocky and Bullwinkle, Ren and
Stimpy or The Simpsons on television, we must wonder how many other
interesting and important shows were destroyed by Network Stupidity.
At June Foray's urging to reboot Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jay Ward
pitched a Rocky and Bullwinkle special to a network, I think
it was NBC. In this proposed episode, Boris and Natasha would steal the
Superbowl. The studio executive said something stupid like "Good
Americans would never allow for the Superbowl to be stolen" and
rejected the idea. Jay Ward figuratively threw his hands up in the air, said
"I can not work with these morons" or words to that effect,
and returned to doing Quisp Cereal commercials.
Quisp and his fellow breakfast cereal Quake
A Quisp commercial on Youtube.
We at Global Wahrman sincerely wish and
hope that the so-called studio executive who rejected Jay Ward will
rot in hell for all eternity.
____________________________________________
1. In the UK, this was called a "Music
Hall"
2. Since Kim Jong-il was about 20 years old at the time when Rocky and Bullwinkle first went on-air, it is extremely unlikely that Jay Ward was thinking of him as a model for Fearless Leader. It is less clear if his father, Kim Il-Sung the Magnificent, was called these same glorious titles. Perhaps Jay Ward was psychic as well as being brilliant, then he *could* have channeled Kim Jong-Il from the future.
3. In case you are not aware, the phrasing "Did so-and-so do such-and-such? We may never know for sure ..." is the classic way you can make crazy assertions and not be sued. "Did aliens from outer space build the fast food restaurants? We may never know for sure ....".
2. Since Kim Jong-il was about 20 years old at the time when Rocky and Bullwinkle first went on-air, it is extremely unlikely that Jay Ward was thinking of him as a model for Fearless Leader. It is less clear if his father, Kim Il-Sung the Magnificent, was called these same glorious titles. Perhaps Jay Ward was psychic as well as being brilliant, then he *could* have channeled Kim Jong-Il from the future.
3. In case you are not aware, the phrasing "Did so-and-so do such-and-such? We may never know for sure ..." is the classic way you can make crazy assertions and not be sued. "Did aliens from outer space build the fast food restaurants? We may never know for sure ....".
Rocky and Bullwinkle on IMDB
N. Korean Cult of Personality on Wikipedia
List of Rocky and Bullwinkle
Episodes
Quisp Cereal on Wikipedia
Team America: World Police on
IMDB
Variety Show, aka Music Hall, on
Wikipedia
Kim Jong-il on Wikipedia
Kim Il-Sung
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