Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Funny & Enchanting in Places, But Largely a Chore to Read, August 12, 2000
I once read a review that began: "This book told me more about penguins than I ever wanted to know about penguins." Similarly, I'm tempted to say that this book told me far more about Jay Ward, Bill Scott, and the ups and downs of their years in show business than I ever wanted to know--and far less about one of the favorite t.v. programs of my long-ago adolescence, Rocky and Bullwinkle. (The book spends a lot of time discussing Ward's and Scott's other ventures into cartoon series, including Crusader Rabbit, Hoppity Hooper, and George of the Jungle as well as ads for Captain Crunch and other Quaker cereals.) If you venture into this book expecting it to be as full of zany humor and excruciating puns as Rocky and Bullwinkle were--as I did--you are in for a disappointment. While parts of the book are quite absorbing, it is on the whole a chore to read. The book badly needs edited down, especially given its repititiousness. The author tends to be a bit too gushingly adulatory of the work of Ward and Scott, too; while they were comic and artistic geniuses, they did misfire a few times.There are gems along the way--including the origin of the name Bullwinkle, the real identity of Ponsonby Britt, how the names Gidney and Cloyd were chosen for the moonmen, and the never-ceasing wars between Ward and Scott and their sponsors and networks--but you have to sift through a lot of gratuitous detail to find them. One of the most engaging parts of the book is the Reference Section. (Curiously, the reference section, the appendices, and the index account for 128 pages of the book's total 442 pages.) In the Reference Section, the reader finds synopses of all the episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairy Tales, Bullwinkle's Corner (aka, Mr. Know-It-All), Mr. Peabody's History, Aesop and Son, and Dudley Doo-Right. Just glancing through the names of the Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes is a delight (e.g., "A Creep in the Deep, or Will Success Spoil Boris Badenov?" "Fast and Moose or Charlie's Antler"). It is a reminder, too, of how much funnier and more engaging this book might have been if better focused and better written.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A detailed history of Bullwinkle and his creators, February 22, 2001
There are probably only three truly great houses of animation: Disney (of course), Warner Brothers, and Jay Ward Productions. Of the three, the latter seems to get the least attention, something this book attempts to remedy.This is a history of Bullwinkle and his creators, from when they first got into the business until their last creative efforts, i.e., pretty much up until the George of the Jungle movie, though there is mention of the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie as forthcoming. Though Ward and his cronies were comparatively good at keeping to their artistic vision despite outside pressures, there were enormous complications of business and dollars-and-cents issues that dogged them throughout. Most notably, much of the detailed animation of their key show was done in Mexico City. The goal was to save money, though all it accomplished in the short term was to reduce the quality of the product. This book covers those issues in detail, which are significant but not that interesting. More interesting is to hear about the madcap antics of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, and the others as they work together and play practical jokes on one another. Ward in particular has a gift for publicity, sending out bizarre weekly notices to the press to publicize the show via mock-pyramid schemes and other parodies of mail-order silliness. It's harder than usual to make a judgment about this book. Casual readers like me would probably have been happier if it had skimped on the business issues, sticking just to the creative aspects. People wanting to know how showbiz really works, on the other hand, will probably be fascinated by the business details described here, as unbelievable as they frequently are.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book for Rocky, Bullwinkle, Jay Ward fans, August 2, 2000
If you are a fan of Jay Ward and Bill Scott's zany animated creations, you really owe it to yourself to read this book. "The Moose That Roared" is filled with entertaining and enlightening quotes, observations, tales and all kinds of enjoyable information about the voice artists, writers, musicians and other folks responsible for these unforgettable programs. I can't imagine any author doing a better job at presenting the vast amount of material Keith Scott has compiled. In short, this is a terrific book.
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