The Moose That Roared

Rocky and Bullwinkle aficionados, rejoice: here's a ripsnorting celebration of the cartoon characters and their human creators.
A voice actor who works mostly in Australia, Scott has been an ardent admirer of Bullwinkle T. Moose and Rocky Squirrel since childhood—the kind of fan who pestered the cartoon's production company until it finally gave in and allowed him access to the key players, led by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. (He also got to do his beloved moose's voice in the forthcoming Rocky and Bullwinkle movie.) His history of the series, written over many years, is full of anecdotes about the team's improbable success with their sarcastic parody of Cold War–era politics, a pun- and double entendre–riddled send-up of "intrigues, spies and history" that first aired in 1959 and enjoyed a cult following for years to come. Born from the ashes of an earlier ("pretty primitive") cartoon series called Crusader Rabbit, Rocky and His Friends (those friends being, of course, the likes of Dudley Do-right, Sherman and Peabody, Boris and Natasha), the show was startlingly fresh, even downright subversive. Its corporate sponsors, chief among them the food-production giant General Mills, didn't quite know what to make of the proceedings and raised frequent objections to matters of content (demanding, for instance, that the word "darn" be removed from a script on the grounds that its use would inspire young viewers to take up swearing). Ward and company, however, generally prevailed, and they inspired others to raise the kiddie-show bar. Their enduring work, writes Scott, reminds us "of a time when the sole purpose of cartoons was laughter—not tie-ins with unprepossessing plush toys, or the dictums of network censors concerned with cutting jokes and substituting tedious 'new age' relevance."
Thoroughly researched and brightly written, this is fine tribute to the famed moose and squirrel duo and their creators.