Peabody's Improbable History In Two Parts!

If I'm allowed only one cartoon show for the rest of my days, my choice is clear -- The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Those classic satires from the early 60's are endlessly watchable, supplying entertainment each and every time. The gags are familiar and even at times particularly lame, but the bon vivant with which the show was created and delivered makes even the corniest jokes succeed. 

Part I 

One of the absolute highlights of the show was "Mr. Peabody's Improbable History" in which a genius dog and his boy Sherman use the impossible WAY-BAC Machine to travel the byways of history, and almost always making history succeed. 

From Rocky and his Fiendish Friends #1 and the dark recesses of the internet come these twin tales of Mr.Peabody as he and Sherman take a little time trip. The art for the cover above and for the strips below is by Al Kilgore. He's the writer too according to GCD. 

And here's another tale about the invention of television no less.

Those are big fun, though not quite like the television cartoons. While Peabody and Sherman had to rely on their own twist on modern technology to visit the past, I think it's worthwhile to point that we all get to share a similar is somewhat less dramatic means of visiting olden times with this very device -- the internet. Finding treasures from the dim half-remembered days of yore can be as simple as Mr. Peabody saying "Sherman set the WAY-BAC machine...". We live in interesting times.   

Part II

I debated how to approach a review of 2014's Mr. Peabody and Sherman after watching it again recently. It's an animated movie for certain, one of the scores of animated movies that tumble out yearly in these modern digital days of animation. In that sense it's just as good as most of them are but not really that different. It's yet another movie that takes a venerable television property and amps it up the for the big screen and in that regard, it does an adequate job in keeping most of the key elements (most significantly those delicious puns). There's much here to indicate the makers had a high regard for the source material. 

But I finally decided to grade it as what it essentially was -- a time travel movie. Time travel movies are one of the most interesting sub-genres in films as far I can see. There's of course the classic The Time Machine from George Pal which adapts the H.G.Wells movie and that one was remade in this century with some interesting improvements but mostly too much hyperbolic action. There are time travel comedies like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Time Bandits, and Hot Tub Time Machine (which I haven't seen). There are time travel romance yarns like the superb Time After Time, Somewhere in Time and The Time Travelers Wife (which I haven't seen). There are the monster time travel hits like Terminator and its progeny and the myriad Back to the Future films. There are scuds of time travel movies and Mr. Peabody and Sherman fits well into that genre. 

First it has a wonderful mechanism to breach time. The WABAC (called the Wavelength Accerlation Bidirectional Asynchronus Controller for this movie). In the classic cartoons they just walk through a door and they are there, but in this movie getting there is a lot of the entertainment. I was a bit wonky about this at first but it won me over in the end. And they travel to a host of interesting time events such as the French Revolution, the Trojan War, the home of Leonardo De Vinci, ancient Egypt and a few others here and there. The makers of the movie found clever ways to keep the anachronistic qualities of the cartoon intact for the movie with historical figures talking in modern slang as often as not. There is a time pardox which must be solved as it often the case with these movies and as is often the case all of reality is at stake. I like time travel movies because they make you think and this one does that. 

Like so many movies of this kind the makers felt compelled to "flesh out the characters" and by that they give them fuller motivations for their actions, but sadly often those motivations are so stereotypical that they weren't really adding to the brew. Movies like this feel the need to be sappy, to tug at the heartstrings and this one does as well. But it's a bit of a cheat in the end to be honest because once you head down the road of characterization you have the obligation to see it through. Also the addition of Penny a  bratty nemesis and then girlfriend for Sherman, struck me as nervousness on the moviemakers' part about the relationship between Peabody and Sherman which always utterly harmless to me, but of course in the modern day much ado is often made about nothing. 

If you haven't sampled this one yet, I highly recommend it. It ain't as good as the cartoons, but there ain't nothing ever going to be as ideal as that. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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George Of The Jungle!

George of the Jungle from 1967 is by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, the masterminds behind the amazing Rocky and Bullwinkle shows. They tried to capture that zany irreverent magic again with George of the Jungle and in my opinion they caught it. The show has a slightly more glitzy look since it was animated in these United States by Hollywood talents, but that doesn't hurt it at all, since the creators don't let the slightly more sophisticated animation hurt the pacing or the quality the scripts.

Each episode feature one George of the Jungle cartoon. George of course is a spoof of the immediately recognizable Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and it's a parlay on the films which makes many of the gags work. I did catch at least one giant gorilla called Kerchak though, so there is some recognition of the novels. George is assisted by is girlfriend Ursula who he cannot seem to pay enough attention to even remember her name or her gender. He' likewise confused by his elephant companion Shep who George insists is a dog -- Shep seems also to be confused on this issue.

And then there's my favorite George character known merely as Ape, an urbane highly intelligent gorilla who sounds just like Ronald Coleman. I didn't even know who Ronald Coleman was when I was a kid, but I always loved Ape's ironic comment son George's stupidity. When I finally got to see Coleman, I immediately thought of Ape.

Some research tells me George was based, at least in part, on George Eiferman, a bodybuilder with small renown. A picture does show a remarkable kinship between the two Georges.

Each show featured a Super Chicken cartoon. This is a terrific send up of the superhero shtick with the wildly rich Henry Cabot Henhouse III becoming Super Chicken with the help of his musketeer costume and a "super sauce" brewed by his assistant Fred who serves it to him often in a martini glass. The duo keep a wonderful patter going as they confront an array of villains like the Zipper, the Geezer, the Oyster, Merlin Brando, a giant living Toupee, and even my fave, a dope called Salavador Rag Dolly.

Also on display each episode is a race by Tom Slick, an all-American hero in the mold of the classic ultimate Mountie Dudley Do-Right. Tom races around the globe converting his car the "Thunderbolt Greaseslapper" for all sorts of events (cars, trains, planes, boats, submarines, skateboards, and even blimps) and often battling  the nefarious Baron Otto Matic and his hapless henchman Clutcher. Tom is adored by Marigold who will literally do anything for him and often scolded by Gertie Growler, his mechanic and just about the only character in the cartoon who sees the absurdity of the situations.

All of these features were put into comic book form by the folks at Gold Key. I think I owned at least one of these at one time, but I don't have them now. A nifty reprint would likely not be cost effective, but there's always hope.

The George of the Jungle cartoons were gathered up several years ago in very colorful package. The gags hold up very well and the cartoons are breezy and brisk entertainments which are ideal for a gloomy day. You can't watch these and not feel better -- they're too much fun.

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Bullwinkle Bonanza!

I spent some quality time in my new favorite store Half-Price Books and with excellent results. I picked up a sweet copy of Keith Scott's detailed and lengthy The Moose That Roared, a look at the work of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, the creators of Rocket J. Squirrel and his best buddy Bullwinkle J. Moose. How the Moose and Squirrel came to be, what preceded them,  what happened to them and such like is the stuff of this highly readable volume. The level of detail in what I've already scanned is most impressive.

I also found a copy of this 1996 coffee table tome The Rocky and Bullwinkle Book by Louis Chunovic . This one is a visual feast, but a bit hard to actually read. It's got useful information, but precious little of it for a book this size, almost in many ways the reverse of the Scott book above, a book which prizes style over substance. But it does have value.  The detailed episode guides for the show is the highlight along with a gaggle of behind-the-scenes promotional materials produced by the staff. Since I got this book for a tiny fraction of its fifty dollar price tag, I'm more than pleased.

And finally I found and picked up a copy of Fractured Flickers, a dvd gathering up all of this obscure Jay Ward production. It's an offbeat blend of some small animation but mostly live action as Hans Conried hosts a show that takes vintage silent movies and "fractures" them by altering the storytelling and adding some off-the-wall dialogue which in many instances can be quite funny. There are also seqments in which Conried interviews various celebrities. It's a clear attempt by Ward and company to move beyond animation, but alas a failed one lasting only one season if that. It's a neat thing to have for any Bullwinkle fan though as the zany humor of that show is much in evidence here.

All in all a great Frostbite Falls haul indeed!

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