Rocky and Bullwinkle Creator Passes

Obituaries for folks in the entertainment world that have come to the end of the road.

Rocky and Bullwinkle Creator Passes

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Mon Oct 25, 2010 5:08 pm

Creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle Dies

By Matt Schudel / The Washington Post


Alex Anderson, the artist who created the cartoon characters Rocky and Bullwinkle, the flying squirrel and hapless moose who were TV fixtures in the early 1960s, died at age 90, Oct. 22 at a nursing facility in Carmel, Calif.

Anderson said, in 1991, that the idea for Bullwinkle came to him when he dreamed that a goofy moose was sitting in on a poker game.

"There's something majestic about" moose. They're macho, but they have a comic aspect, with that schnozzola of theirs. There are few creatures just begging to be caricatured."

Near his Berkeley studio in those early days, there was a car dealer called Bullwinkel Motors. Anderson changed the spelling of the name and gave it to his moose, and an unforgettable cartoon character was born.
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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Re: Rocky and Bullwinkle Creator Passes

Postby drmusic » Mon Oct 25, 2010 5:42 pm

Alex Anderson was the nephew of Paul Terry (of "Terrytoons" fame - Heckle and Jeckle, etc.) After failing to convince his uncle to move into television, he teamed up with Jay Ward to create Crusader Rabbit, the first animated series produced for television.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3hHQvkUhJo

After losing the rights to that program, Anderson and Ward worked up a pilot called the Frostbite Falls Revue, which included Rocky and Bullwinkle as characters. But it should be noted that by the time Rocky and his Friends went to air as a series, Anderson was no longer involved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHk4VXMlE8Y
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Re: Rocky and Bullwinkle Creator Passes

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Mon Oct 25, 2010 5:56 pm

One of my favorite lines from the series goes to one of the best villains ever, Boris Badanov who, commenting on his failure to "brainwash" Bullwinkle, observed: "No brain..No effect".
It was, for a time, adopted as the motto of our creative department.
Sometimes contributor UnknownCopywriter may recall.
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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