More Influences – Rocky & Bullwinkle and Other Cartoons
Since I’m writing occasional posts about my influences and I started with MAD Magazine I figured I’d talk a little about the cartoon shows I loved that influenced me.
Growing up we had a series of cheap black and white TV’s. My parents didn’t buy their first color television until I had gone off to college, which was in the mid-1970’s. We didn’t have a lot of money and I don’t believe television was all that important to them. We were a household of readers. Which might explain why I haven’t had cable or a decent TV since the late 90’s. I’d still rather read.
So all the shows that influenced me were in black and white, or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when I was able to watch cartoons and shows like Rocky & Bullwinkle, or Beany & Cecil in re-runs and they were in color!
Yes I was a fan of the Warner Brothers cartoons, who wouldn’t be? Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and all of the crazy stuff that occurred in them. And so many cartoons from the 30’s and 40’s that were very dark and jazz influenced. Betty Boop, the Max Fleischer stuff. I could go on.
Opera
Someone wrote somewhere that they “learned all about opera from a rabbit in a wig with a horned helmet”. Or something like that… That was me.
All of the best cartoons were like MAD Magazine, filled with jokes that flew above kid’s heads but as you got older they got even funnier. They were made by a bunch of adults who obviously forgot to grow up.
Beany & Cecil
And it didn’t stop with the cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s. I was a huge fan of Beany & Cecil as well. I loved Bob Clampett and was lucky enough to see him speak a couple of times when I was in college.
Of course there was Rocky & Bullwinkle. Jay Ward is a personal hero of mine. If you ever want to read a great book check out, The Moose That Roared, all about working at Jay Ward Productions. It was even crazier than I could have imagined.
Hearing, and reading about what it was like to work at these places really made me want to belong. Especially since I read about all of the attempts to censor their work (the government actually seized one of their shows – it’s in the book) and all of the imaginative ways these artists found ways around the rules. I think they existed to bend and break “society’s rules” on what kids should be watching.
And Thank God They Did.
The work that was coming out of Disney and some of the other studios was technically amazing, but kind of boring. They had good stories and they tugged at your heart strings, but it was the Warner Brothers cartoons and Jay Ward who went straight for the funny bone. And that’s what made them so great.
Of course places like Jay Ward Productions never had huge budgets to make things look great (most of their animation was done in Mexico) but they knew good writing and they built up a great cast of voice talent.
I love the irreverence of these cartoons. They poked fun at everyone. Nobody was safe from their wit. At times they got cease and desist letters from attorneys but that never even slowed them down.
Please Sue Us!
In one case Jay Ward wrote back to the attorney’s and asked to be sued! Their ratings were down and he was afraid their show would be canceled but if they could be sued that would bring their show back into the news and hopefully help their ratings…
There were so many clever jokes going on that you had to watch them multiple times to get everything.
To this day I will forgive technical limitations (budget-wise) but I can’t forgive bad or BLAND writing.
My couple years as an editor at Will Vinton Studios working on some of the Claymation films gave me a small taste as to what a lot of that time must have been like. I worked with a lot of interesting and crazy individuals there and my life is richer for it.
To me it was an absolute straight line from MAD Magazine to these particular cartoons shows.
I believe my sense of humor (as warped as it may be) was shaped by Mad and these cartoons. And yes, I’m still shocked sometimes to see them in color…
Check this stuff out it’s all over on YouTube.
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Thanks.
Originally posted January 17, 2022