‘The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle’ Flew Onto TV Screens 65 Years Ago … Under a Different Name
Everyone knows Rocky and Bullwinkle. The beloved moose and squirrel (make sure to read that in a Boris Badenov voice) were created by cartoonist Jay Ward in 1959 and have been present in our culture ever since, whether through reruns of the eternally popular show The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle or in the form of toys, movies, reboots and spinoff series, and the famous Bullwinkle balloon, which appeared in more than 25 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades between 1961 and 2000.
But did you know that when Rocky and Bullwinkle first appeared on TV screens 65 years ago today, on Nov. 19, 1959, their show wasn’t called The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle? The original show was actually called Rocky & His Friends when it first debuted on ABC, downgrading Bullwinkle to just another one of Rocky’s associates, like Professor Peabody.
After running under that name for three years, the show changed both titles and networks, jumping to NBC and changing its name to The Bullwinkle Show from 1961 to 1964.
Photo courtesy Everett Collection
So why do most of us know it by another name? When the original run of the series wrapped production in 1964, the show was repackaged to be shown as a Saturday morning cartoon, changing its name to The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (or The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show in some markets). It also aired under this title for decades in syndication, on channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
However, the show has had yet another name change — this year! The series now airs on MeTV Toons, under the name The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Friends.
What else don’t you know about Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose? Read on and watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!
1Rocky & Bullwinkle Have the Same Middle Initial for a Charming Reason
Photo courtesy Everett Collection
If you checked Rocky and Bullwinkle’s driver’s licenses, you’d find their full names share an odd similarity: Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose. Why do they both have the middle initial “J”? In both cases, it’s a tribute to their creator, Jay Ward.
2Frostbite Falls Is Based on a Real Place in Minnesota
Photo courtesy Everett Collection
The icy place that Rocky and the Canadian moose call home isn’t just another cartoon flight of fancy (you know, like a talking, flying squirrel). It’s based on a real town called International Falls, Minnesota, which is also known as “The Icebox of the Nation,” due to the fact that the town has an average of over 100 days each year when the temperature is below freezing. The town, which is tucked up near the Canadian border, is far from creator Jay Ward’s home town of Berkeley, California; legend has it that Ward became a fan of the University of Minnesota football team the Golden Gophers, and while listening to their games on the radio, became intrigued by a Gopher who hailed from International Falls.
3The Producers Made an Island From the Show Into a Real Place
Everett Collection
Bullwinkle J. Moose has many professional duties, among them serving as the mayor of Moosylvania, an island in a lake along the U.S.-Canadian border. In 1962, Ward decided to make Moosylvania a reality, setting out to purchase an island in Lake of the Woods, a lake that connects Canada and the U.S., and campaign for its statehood. Unable to outright buy an island on the U.S. side, producers settled for a three-year lease, and traveled the country collecting signatures to make Moosylvania a reality.
It wasn’t just a joke — well, it wasn’t purely a joke. The Rocky and Bullwinkle crew collected tons of signatures from viewers all over the country and brought them directly to the White House, seeking an audience with President Kennedy. Unfortunately, their timing couldn’t have been worse: They arrived in D.C. the day the Cuban Missile Crisis began. Naturally, they were not able to get an audience with Kennedy, and Moosylvania remains unrealized to this day.
4An Important Internet Tool Takes Its Name From the Series
Everett Collection
Have you ever logged onto the Internet Archive to try to look at an old website that no longer exists? If you did, you used a tool called “The Wayback Machine,” which was named by its creators after Mr. Peabody’s time-travel tool.
5Herman’s Hermits Named Themselves After the Show (Sort Of)
Even though there’s no character on the show named “Herman,” the “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” songsmiths did indeed name themselves after one of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s friends … they just misheard his name.
“I guess I’ll always be ‘Herman,’ ” singer Peter Noone told The Los Angeles Times in 1992. “I got the name from the ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle’ show. There was a part of the show about Peabody the dog and his boy, Sherman. This was in about 1964, and everybody thought I looked like Sherman, except we thought his name was Herman.”
Kid Stuff
June 2018
Unleash your inner child by reliving your favorite kids TV shows, cartoons, toys and more!
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