I used to love this show. Perhaps it ought to make me feel old to learn that it’s 50 years old (see this CNN story), but if anything it makes me feel young, because there are moments, watching a clip like the one below, when I feel the same delight as when I watched it at age 12 or so.
I was old enough to get at least some of the things that were meant to amuse adults. But there were a good many that I missed, of course. I was probably in my 40s, for instance, before it hit me that Boris Badenough was a play on Boris Godunov (which, at least as typically pronounced by Americans, is more or less “Boris Goodenough”). There are a lot of references that won’t make sense to anyone who didn’t grow up with ‘50s television, e.g. the magic hat known as “the legendary Kerwood Derby,” a play on the name of a TV personality, Derwood Kirby (actually “Dirward,” but it sounded like “Derwood”).
The CNN story compares Rocky and Bullwinkle to contemporary cartoons such as Family Guy, and I suppose they’re similar in a way, but the comparison reveals something about the direction of our culture over the past fifty years. I think Rocky and Bullwinkle was more literate; it was certainly less mean and crude. And while Rocky was meant to amuse everyone, Family Guy is obviously intended for adolescents and younger adults. And, I suppose, a somewhat cynical and sophisticated subset of those.
Light On Dark Water 
Leave a comment