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It's one of television's smartest, savviest, and most
subversively funny animated series, ranked by TV Guide as one of the top
50 series of all time. Like the animators at Warner Bros.' Termite Terrace
(birthplace of Porky, Daffy, and Bugs), producer Jay Ward, his partner Bill
Scott (the voice of Bullwinkle), and the cracked writing staff did not write
down to children. The dialogue is witty and sharply satiric. Characters break
the "fourth wall" between the screen and the audience. They make sly references
to the show's creators and the television network. They hurl barbs of mass
destruction at Washington, D.C. politicians. And then there are the godawful
puns. Linking the cliffhanging episodes are such hilarious segments as "Fractured
Fairy Tales," which upend familiar storybook favorites (Red Riding Hood, for
example, is a predatory fur merchant after the unwitting wolf), "Mr. Peabody,"
the canine genius who travels through time in the company of his boy, Sherman
and forthright Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, who must contend with his own
horse for the affections of sweet Nell. Bullwinkle gets extra credits as Mr.
Know-It-All and as the host of Poetry Corner. And watch him pull a rabbit out of
his hat! These cartoons are as fresh and funny as when they first aired more
than four decades ago. Boomer-era adults will be amazed at the jokes that no
doubt soared over their heads as children.
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