Book: The Art of Jay Ward Productions

Posted on December 18, 2016 at 7:32 pm

Featuring almost 1000 images and over 350 pages, The Art of Jay Ward Productions provides the ultimate overview of the Jay Ward studio from its early inception through its many fondly remembered cartoon shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-right, Fractured Fairy Tales, George of the Jungle and Super Chicken, plus animated commercials for products like Cap’n Crunch and Quisp & Quake.

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Books Film History Movie History

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Posted on March 6, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Mr_Peabody_&_Sherman_Poster
Poster copyright Dreamworks 2014

Jay Ward’s irresistibly daffy cartoons of the early 1960’s were charming and witty, with a post-modern meta wink at the fourth wall, wacky puns, and jokes that kids would suddenly remember and understand years later.  This reboot is smarmy, overblown, dumbed down, and off-kilter.  Who thinks it is a good idea to have a movie for children about time travel begin with a trip to the French revolution and the guillotine?

Cartoonist Ted Key, best known for the Hazel character played by Shirley Booth in the television sitcom, came up with the super-genius dog, Mr. Peabody, inventor of the WABAC machine, and his boy Sherman, for Ward’s “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.”  In each episode, the duo would go back in time and somehow help a historical character solve a problem.  In this computer-animated, 3D, full-length feature version, the wit of the original devolves into bathroom humor and slapstick.  If the poster slogan is a doggie potty joke (“He makes his mark on history”), it is not a good sign.

As in the original, Mr. Peabody (“Modern Family’s” Ty Burrell) knows everything.  He’s a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who advises world leaders and makes a mean cocktail.  In one of the movie’s highlights, he is challenged to play musical instruments ranging from a flamenco guitar to a didgeridoo, and performs flawlessly.  He has invented a WABAC machine to take Sherman back in time, where they have encountered a cake-loving Marie Antoinette, with Mr. P led to the guillotine, and an unhappy Mona Lisa (Lake Bell), refusing to smile for Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Tucci).

He has an adopted son, Sherman (Max Charles), who attends a fancy private school, where a girl named Penny (“Modern Family’s” Ariel Winter) gets angry when Sherman corrects her answer about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, explaining that it never really happened.  After a sloppy misuse of the term “sarcastic,” she insults Sherman in the lunchroom, calling him a dog because he has a dog for a father.  They get into a fight, and Sherman bites her arm.  Mr. Peabody is called to the principal’s office, where Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney), a representative from Child Protective Services, tells him Sherman will be removed from the home if he is not an appropriate parent.

Mr. Peabody invites Penny and her parents and Ms. Grunion over for dinner to straighten things out.  Sherman shows Penny the WABAC machine that Mr. Peabody invented to take them back in time, and soon the two kids find themselves in ancient Egypt, where Penny becomes engaged to the young King Tut, until she finds out what that entrails, I mean entails (the bad pun thing is contagious–parents be warned).   Soon they are zipping around through history, meeting up with Agamemnon (Patrick Warburton, hilarious as always, despite an Oedipus joke) and soaring over Renaissance Florence in one of da Vinci’s flying machines.

The time travel plot gets bogged down in time-space continuum anomaly mumbo jumbo.  Then there are the father-son issues.  Mr. Peabody, who wants his son to call him Mr. Peabody, has a problem with the l-word.  Ms. Grunion’s blustery bullying and threats to remove Sherman from his home will make some families uncomfortable.  It should also make them uncomfortable that the movie appears to portray kidnapping a woman as a romantic gesture that should make her instantly fall in love.  Jokes about Oedipus and Bill Clinton are particularly disappointing.  Warburton’s dry delivery and some good scenery and action sequences can’t make up for the fact that this movie is a disappointing come-down that completely misses the charm and humor of the original.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of potty humor, some crude jokes, cartoon-style peril and action including a guillotine and a taser, a character is presumed dead but later shown to have survived, a woman is captured as a romantic gesture, and child protection services challenges an adoption and attempts to remove a child from his home.

Family discussion:  If you could go back to any time in history, what would it be?  Who would you want to meet?  Why was Penny so mean?

If you like this, try: The original series and the other Jay Ward classics like “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “Fractured Fairy Tales,” and “Dudley Do-right.”

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3D Action/Adventure Animation Based on a television show Fantasy For the Whole Family Talking animals

Happy Birthday June Foray (Voice of Rocky)

Posted on September 18, 2011 at 11:58 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65t-OzhlmvE

Here’s a tribute to one of the all-time greatest voice actresses, June Foray, who celebrates her 94th birthday today.  Best known as Rocky the flying squirrel, she also provided voices for Lucifer the cat in “Cinderella,” Grandmother Fa in “Mulan,” and Cindy Lou Who in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  On “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” she not only played Rocky but also Nell Fenwick and Natasha Fatale.

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Animation Television

Tribute: Alex Anderson, Creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Posted on October 26, 2010 at 3:53 pm

Alex Anderson, who came up with the beloved characters Rocky the flying squirrel, Bullwinkle Moose, and Dudley Do-Right, died this week at age 90. While Jay Ward usually gets the credit, it was his childhood friend and partner Anderson who created those characters — though he had to bring a lawsuit to be given credit for it. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly has a tribute to Rocky and Bullwinkle that gets the joy of their subversive humor just right:

It’s difficult to imagine, these days, the thrill of discovering Rocky and Bullwinkle as a kid. You felt as though you’d been let into a secret back door to TV, where the characters joked about their show’s low ratings and the very nature of the narrative itself. During one edition, Rocky thinks he hears Boris, and says, “That voice — where have I heard it before?” Bullwinkle replies, “In about 365 other episodes.” Then he added, ever the dumb one, “But I don’t know who it is, either.”

And be sure to check out the Washington Post’s list of the 15 greatest Rocky and Bullwinkle quotes.

I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle because I could watch it as a kid and then again as a teenager and enjoy it even more. There were jokes I didn’t get until I was in college. They even made a joke once about my dad, who still has a Rocky and Bullwinkle drawing on his wall. I loved it that there was a character named Nell — my niece gave me a Nell Fenwick doll that I keep in my office. And every so often I tune in again to watch Bullwinkle pull another rabbit out of his hat or read fan mail from a flounder.

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Animation Behind the Scenes Television Tribute

Rocky and Bullwinkle Celebrate their 50th Anniversary

Posted on November 20, 2009 at 8:54 am

My friend Bob Elisberg has a marvelous salute to the sensational Rocky and Bullwinkle, “from the maniacally clever mind of Jay Ward,” who yesterday celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first broadcast.

My parents were very strict about television, but this was one of the few shows they let us watch. They not only let us — they watched with us. It was one of the first television shows for children to have jokes for adults. As I grew up, there were innumerable times when I would learn something new and suddenly have the retroactive pleasure of understanding some past Rocky and Bullwinkle joke. There’s an opera called “Boris Godunov?” Aha! That explains the name of R&B bad guy Boris Badanov! And remember the name of their alma mater? Wassamata U? Remember “fan mail from some flounders?” And “watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?” (“That trick never works!”)

Few people today will get the joke about the Kerward Derby (a play on the name of then-minor-celebrity Durward Kirby), but this is still purely delightful.

And of course I always had a special fondness for Dudley Do-Right because his leading lady was named Nell.

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