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. 

Rip Off

Frostbite Fridays - Rocky And Bullwinkle!

Thanks to the cartoon wisdom of Mark Evanier the IDW mini-series starring the Moose and Squirrel comes off pretty well. Evanier is a writer who is deft and clever but not always do I find his scripts as funny as I think they ought to be. But in the world of Frostbite Falls his love of puns and affection for the characters and the people who portrayed them is ideal. That doesn't at all minimize the work of Roger Landridge who as usual offers up a delicate and charming batch of imagery. 

If anything Landridge's artwork as embellished by Andrew Pepoy might be a little too elegant and refined. I've always associated a quick and dirty parade of images with these cartoons, well crafted but always showing around the edges the evidence of haste and deadline pressure. The art is what it is and pretty though it be, it's always going to be the writing which makes Rocky and Bullwinkle work or not. 

In these comics we only get one co-feature and that Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties. He's in fine fettle, though al of his escapades felt somewhat brief to me. Evanier does the smart thing and with two installments of R&B each issue gives the reader at least a hint of the continued storylines which made the vintage classics so robust. 

My favorite issue was the one in which Pottsylvania claims ownership of the Moon. That makes Rocky and Bullwinkle head to the Moon and that means we get some great Gidney and Cloyd action. I love the Moon Men and they are totally on point in this adventure and in another in which they play a lesser role. Boris and Natasha sound right also with Evanier getting the rhythms of their distinctive speech. 

This is a fun series and if you can them cheap I recommend them. They aren't as good as the cartoons, but that was never going to happen. The original Rocky and Bullwinkle are gems produced in their own time and reflecting that time but also speaking to audiences well beyond. 

Rip Off

 

Rocky And Bullwinkle - The Movie!

It's difficult to believe that it has been over two decades since this movie The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle hit the screens. As imperfect an artifact as it is, I have always had a soft spot for it and upon watching again recently I was reminded of what I liked and what still rankles me. I wish it was full animation first and foremost, done in the handsome style of the earliest and final sections of the film before the characters are yanked "from reruns" to enter a somewhat more realistic domain. But clearly the makers here wanted something more akin to The Adventures of Roger Rabbit than a more traditional animated movie. Maybe this one came just a bit too early to fully realized as a complete animated feature, but it's a loss overall. 

That said, what of the movie we do have. It's not without virtues. First is the wonderful animation I've already alluded to, but also if there must be real live people playing the likes of Fearless Leader,  Boris Badanov, and Natasha Fatale, then the trio of Robert DeNiro, Jason Alexander and Rene Russo ain't a bad trio to do the job. DeNiro in particular I thought jumped into the part and at times Alexander got the Boris voice down perfect. But as good as they were, they were only analogs of the real animated characters, and limited in that way. There tons of cameos in this movie by the likes of long-standing stars such as Whoopi Goldberg, John Goodman, and the late great Jonathan Winters, but by and large aside from a quick laugh they don't add up too much. The Keenan and Kel side plot is there for the youth of the day who sought out the flick and that brings up my big complaint. 

The biggest deficiency of this movie is not the dated animation (not what the show was ever about) nor really the inclusion of the real world (as much as I don't prefer that) but the fact it's not really about Rocky and Bullwinkle despite the title. We are introduced to Agent Sympathy of the FBI (played by the exceedingly cute Piper Perabo) and as it turns out the movie is really about her. She's the one given the mission of which Rocky and Bullwinkle are important parts, and it is her character transformation which is the thematic center of the movie. That's too bad because that theme is pretty hackneyed and not really appropriate for the always acerbic R&B Show. Once again the producers thought that since this was at least in part a cartoon show it must be for kids and so we get inflicted upon us a noisome notion of keeping in touch with one's inner child. Yuck and Double Yuck! 

What I want is a Rocky and Bullwinkle movie that's not catering to kiddies but to the adults which the show was aimed at to begin with. I want animation for adults, and not animation for kids and adults, just the adults. "Now that's something you don't see everyday Chauncey." said Edgar.

Rip Off

Frostbite Fridays - Star Billing!

Because it's a cartoon there's a notion that the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (and the other variants of this title) is for the stereotypical "children of all ages". I'd actually reject that and suggest that these cartoons are primarily for adults and if kids get some fun from them it's purely ancillary. The best way I've heard these shows described is that they are radio shows with some few pictures. That's why the animation (such as it is) doesn't really matter all that much. It's the words and the character designs that make the show work. If they move, that's just gravy. 

And that's likely why Rocky and Bullwinkle have had such a checkered career in comics. Unlike other animation powerhouses which hold their edge decades later like Popeye, Woody Woodpecker and the Disney gang, the Bullwinkle universe is not one conducive to the primary audience for comics -- kids. That said, the artist Al Kilgore does a bang up job in these earliest issues of Gold Key's offerings. IDW reprinted these stories some years back, likely in connection with a revival of the cartoon on Amazon.  (That cartoon by the way owes more to Ren and Stimpy than it does to Jay Ward's universe.) Whatever the reason it was fun to see these well rendered comics which attempted to evoke the satiric fun of the show. This first volume in the collection brings together four issues.

It's easy to get the goofiness of Bullwinkle, but the heroic sweetness of Rocky is more difficult. And while the format of these comics does a delightful job of emulating the show in regard to offering multiple features such as "Fractured Fairytales",  "Mr. Peabody's Improbable History" and "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties" does a splendid job of making the comics, especially the earliest issues resemble the cartoon show. 

While there is some meager attention to plot, the notion of a serial story is not used alas and that's likely a good thing for folks picking this up at the time. One of the early Bullwinkle stories does have a two-part element and features the Moon Men in an especially aggressive mode. 

And that alas is the miss on these adaptations. While they get the look pretty well (given that the cartoons themselves had a range of looks) the snap and crackle of the characters is a smidge off base. There is the occasional fourth-wall breaking reference but not the ongoing gag of the interactive narrator which keeps the satiric boil on in the shows. These comics are an imperfect reflection of what The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show might've been if it had been more traditional in its time. I'm so very glad it was not. 

Rip Off

Look Out For That Tree!

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.

Rip Off