Customer Reviews

Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Seasons 1-2 (Amazon.com Exclusive)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What's the point of this collection? Buying the two

seasons individually is cheaper, and there appears to

be nothing added.

Someone at Amazon apparently has a sense of humor.....or is smoking crack. I can either buy series 1 & series 2 for 29.99 each, or I can buy them together for $67.97?.......or better yet, I can buy them together & get a second copy of series 2 for $97.96 with the better together option?

Lovers of puns, rejoice. In these two sets we have what is probably the best TV example of a great punny program in Rocky and Bullwinkle.

So far, the first two seasons have been released in complete sets. Season one was only 26 episodes long and is collected on four single sided discs. There are only two storylines, "Jet Fuel Formula" and "Box Top Robbery." Extras include rare commercials and promotions, including for the saving stamp club, a collage of Boris's disguises, and footage from a proposed segment of the show featuring a Bullwinkle puppet that didn't actually air.

Season two had 52 episodes. To keep costs down, the set is again four discs, this time double sided. This time, there are seven storylines for our heroes, including "Upsidasium," "Metal Munching Mice," "Rue Brittania," and "Wailing Whale." Extras include an interview with June Foray, who provided many of the voices, "Moosecalls," and some classic Cheerios commercials featuring our favorite moose.

Of course, along with Rocky and Bullwinkle's adventures, you get the other segments from the show. How can you forget Aesop and Son, Fractured Fairy Tales, Bullwinkle's Corner, Mr. Know-It-All, Dudley Do-Right, and Peabody's Improbably History?

Picture on these discs is sharp. Sound is mono but it doesn't need to be any better. Each set comes with a book that lists exactly what is in each episode, with one exception. They don't list the Bullwinkle's Corner or Mr. Know-It-All segments. Since those are some of my favorites, I find it annoying.

Looks like the price on this combo can fluctuate, so double check the single sets before you buy. Either way, if you have ever been a fan of Moose and Squirrel and friends (and enemies), be sure to get these sets.

D'Artagnan, Aragorn, Rassendyll, James Bond, Benedick and.... Rocky and Bullwinkle? In the late 1950s, the goofball moose and smart squirrel became the center of the cartoon series "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle." With simplistic animation and wonderfully weird storylines, this is a must-see.

A spaceship crashes on Earth, but aliens aren't inside -- instead it's a Minnesotan moose and squirrel, respectively Bullwinkle and Rocky. As they try to recreate the mystery rocket fuel (from a family recipe) that allowed them to travel to the moon and back. Except that a pair of inept Pottsylvanian secret agents, Boris and Natasha, are on their trail and determined to get the rocket fuel for themselves and their tiny fascist country.

That kicks off the series. In the two seasons that follow, Rocky and Bullwinkle deal with: an anti-gravity metal in a floating mountain, a massive inheritance and three murderous Englishmen, a prophesying "oogle" bird, a weather-forecasting bunion, savage metal rodents, and many other weird things. And the evil (but not very lucky) Boris and Natasha are always on their heels.

What's more, the series has a lot of lesser series woven in: "Bullwinkle's Corner," in which Bullwinkle tries to teach people and recite poetry, with mixed results; "Aesop's Fables," in which the storyteller lectures his smart-aleck young son; "Fractured Fairy Tales," which are exactly what they sound like; "Peabody and Sherman," the tale of an ultraintelligent dog and his boy time-traveling; and "Dudley Do-Right," about an inept and very stupid Mountie who only intermittently gets his man (Snidely Whiplash).

"The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" had cheap animation, dumb characters and groanworthy jokes -- when told he has to live at Abominable Manor, Bullwinkle announces "Shucks, I've been livin' in an abominable manner all my life!" And... all those things add up to a gloriously funny comic experience. The creators obviously knew what they were doing.

A few of the jokes haven't aged too well, but the majority of them are still hilarious. One scene has Rocky convincing a newspaper editor to redistribute old papers, because the headlines ("Cost of Living Up Again," "International Tension Grows") never change at all. Same ol', same ol'.

What makes this particularly funny is the writing, and how "normal" it seems to have floating mountains and extraterrestrial robot mice. The perpetual idiot Bullwinkle and his sharp pal Rocky make fun heroes who somehow never recognize the villains, tiny schemer Boris Badenov and his towering partner Natasha Fatale. (I'm not sure how the 1950s censors allowed male and female "partners," apparently unmarried, to pass)

With a pair of animals as national heroes, "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Seasons 1-2" is a must-have. Funny, weird and thoroughly enjoyable.

Rocky and Bullwinkle were among my favorite cartoons as a kid. Not all of those memories stand up under an adult eye, but these do.

The R&B artwork isn't the most meticulous in animation history. Still, it's quite strong enough to carry the bad puns, strange views of history and fairy tales, and all the rest that made R&B so much fun.

Even after all these years, the Fractured Fairy Tales (with the little Fractured Fairy), Mr. Peabody, and Aesop & Son are as much fun as I remembered. These cartoons were a real part of growing up for my generation. However dignified and learned someone may seem, people seem to light up when they discuss these cartoons - and everyone will talk about them.

In some ways, it's even better coming back to these as an adult. Boris and Natasha are the iconic Cold Warriors. The race to the moon was current news, back then. These 'toons really do capture their moment, not just in visual style but in social commentary, as well.

The only disappointment is that the second season ran into trouble near the end, around episode 43. The animation quality went down, and there were few or no new extras (Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop and Son, Mr. Peabody, Dudley Doright).

The DVD is hugely better than the VHS, at least on my players - that nasty copy-protection signal on the tape played havoc with the colors.

As others have pointed out, comparison shoppers will probably buy the two season sets separately (or used). The content is worth that bit of extra effort in looking around.

//wiredweird

For those my age who grew up during the cold War with threats that an atomic bomb could hit my town any day (but were never really afraid of it), and with eager anticipation for the next issue of Mad Magazine, the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle were a part of all that and were the best entertainment ever. And now that we can once again enjoy these programs in our later years, the meaning of the jokes, gags and puns comes through all the better. And best of all, we can have these shows to watch and enjoy any time we want.

I purchased Seasons 1 and 2. The video is superb with rich colors and the sound quality is very good. Or could it be that the sound systems with our modern televisions is far superior to the five inch speaker built into our old 1950's - 1960's TV's? The dvd set looks great and I hope additional seasons are released so that when Bullwinkle tries to pull that rabbit out of his hat, we can hear Rocky say: "But that trick never works!"

I have never been so happy with a purchase in My life.I love having the complete shows. This cartoon is even better than I remembered.I've been looking for this cartoon a long time.I also have Season 3 and it is just as good. Just Fabulous.