I realize that many people are out there in the world, just “living” their “lives,” going to “work” and eating “food” and having “complex inner dialogues wherein they contemplate the nature of existence and their place within this grand interconnected universe” and all that bullwastes, and while I respect their journeys, I pity those fools who fail to attempt to connect every possible aspect of human life to automobiles. It’s like most people don’t even try to link everything to cars, somehow! Those poor bastards. Anyway, I’m here to turn on headlights rather than curse the darkness, so with that in mind, let’s connect cars to something not obviously car-related: Bullwinkle J. Moose.
Are you familiar with Bullwinkle? You should be, I think. Bullwinkle, along with a flying squirrel named Rocky and a couple of pseudo-Soviet Bloc adversaries named Boris and Natasha formed the basis for one of the most strange and subversive cartoon series ever, one that started way back in 1959 and was the inspiration for so many subversive animated series that followed, like The Simpsons. There’s whole videos made talking about the peculiar postmodern propensities proffered by the series, which I’m linking right here, if you’re curious.
Here’s a sample episode, in full, if you’d like to waste a solid half-hour of your workday doing something constructive for a change:
It’s silly and crude and the animation, while very mid-century charming, is hardly impressive, but I loved Bullwinkle et al since I was a kid, watching it on a little black-and-white television in my parents’ room far too early on a Saturday morning, when they just wished they could sleep in peace, a service I had zero interest in offering.
More importantly, though, what’s the automotive connection to Bullwinkle? Well, his very name comes from an automotive source, specifically a Ford dealership in Oakland, California, that started in September of 1940. Jay Ward, the man behind the whole Bullwinkle Empire, had seen the name on the dealership while growing up and found funny. When it came time to name his famous dim-witted, be-gloved and beloved moose, he just flipped the last two letters and a star was born.
Clarence Bullwinkel’s reminiscences are actually cataloged at the Henry Ford Museum, if you’d like to read more about the man and his reflections on dealer relations with Ford Motor Company from 1912 to 1952, a pretty significant span of time, both in length and content. I haven’t read all of the memoirs myself, but I did happen to see one passage that seems to suggest some exciting stuff:
Communists, welded gates, key men, no leader – sounds pretty exciting!
So, there you go: Bullwinkle was named after a Ford dealership. But that’s not all the Ford-related Bullwinkle connections! Back in 1962, as a publicity stunt, Jay Ward had an idea to take an element from one of the Bullwinkle cartoons – an island in between the US and Canada known as Moosylvania – and make it real. Not just real, but an actual US state. He was able to get a three-year lease on an island in Lake of the Woods, Minnesota, and then set out on a cross-country tour to promote the plan of getting Moosylvania named America’s 52nd state (he told press he felt Mississippi would be the 51st).
To undertake the publicity tour, Ward bought a Ford Econoline, and instructed Sam Clayberger to come up with some ways to customize the van so it would attract the most attention. Clayberger’s sketches are fantastic:
Predictably, Ward picked the most ostentatious one, on the lower right there. They dressed up in Napoleonic uniforms and had a calliope to blast carnival music and set off across the nation:
They eventually made it to Washington, DC, where they planned to confront President Kennedy, somehow, to issue their petition for Moosylvania statehood, with its many, many signatures. Unfortunately, they showed up on the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Howard Brandy, Ward’s publicist, recounts the attempted meeting in this bit from a documentary about Ward et al:
Amazing, right?
And all thanks to cars! Sort of. I mean, not much, but still!
“we visited 50, 60 states” was more on-brand; he shouldn’t have corrected himself.
There are new(ish) episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle from a few years ago that are surprisingly good and reasonably faithful to the original. Worth checking out.
I miss the Dudley Do-RIght Emporium, across Sunset from the Hotel Marmoset.
“an island in between the US and Canada known as Moosylvania – and make it real.”
I think we found Jasonia!
I rarely ever wore a tie, even for interviews way back when. However when I visited Hong Kong (pre-China takeover) I had a suit made for me. To go with the suit I needed ties, and being averse to them I searched far and wide. I ended up with obvliously un-artist approved ones: one with Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris, and Natasha and the other Calvin and Hobbes. Years later when I did need a tie that looked “respectable” I got a Jerry Garcia designed one.
Also have a Jerry Garcia tie, one of my favorites
this is gold. Thx
Whenever I meet a Russian girl with an accent, I always ask them to say,
“I’ll get you, moose and squirrel!”
And they always do, in spite of having no idea why!
I bought a cheap Miata with a hard top back in November, $5500 and a good decent runner with a little rust and one fender needing some love. Enough to drive for fun without worrying about anyone scratching the paint.
We discovered the circuit with the tail lights, side markers, license plate and dash lights kept blowing fuses. After a couple garage sessions with everything related unplugged and still showing a short, my friend towed back to his full garage for more lengthy checking.
He sent me 3 photos of apparent squirrel habitation under the hood. I have named it Rocky and should have it back next week. (He sent a video of all the lights working).
“I pity those fools who fail to attempt to connect every possible aspect of human life to automobiles.”
Oddly enough, I seem to attempt to connect as many possible aspects of human life to song lyrics.
My musical formative years were from 1983 to now, so there’s a lot of chances to connect life to a song lyric.
For example:
When you write “Those poor bastards.“, I think of Primus.
When you write “Sleep in peace“, I think of Megadeth.
When you write “Predictably,“, I think of KoЯn.
When you write “And all thanks to cars!“, I think of Gary Numan or Fear Factory.
Well, now we all know your taste in music too!
I like a lot of music, but tend to lean more towards rock and metal. Those were just the examples I was able to come up with from the limited text in Torch’s article.
I like both kinds. Country, and Western!
Blues Brothers!
Awesome!
It’s a little-known fact, based on the Bullwinkel dealership notice reproduced above, that Bullwinkel’s predecessor, Les C. Firestine, left the dealership to chase his misguided dream of a tire manufacturing empire.
This is fantastic. What a world. What an excuse to make a based-on-a-true-story road movie.
Eenie, meenie, chili beanie.
“…plotting BEEG trouble for moose and squirrel…” – Boris Badenov
“Hey Rocky, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?”
“Not again!”
(ROAR)
“Oops, wrong hat!”
—
Good times. Throw in “Peabody and Mr. Sherman” and “Fractured Fairytales” and you had an hour of TV gold.
Don’t forget Dudley Do-Right.
Oh gosh, how could I have left him out?!
Snidely and Muttley FTW. Loved those cartoons!
Wasn’t Tennessee Tuxedo part of they too?
I named my cat Mr. Peabody. He’s an amazing companion. He’s stealing my computer chair, right now.
As I recall, most of the jokes on Bullwinkle were not aimed at children.
Back in my early 20’s a buddy and I went to a Bullwinkle film festival at a local theater. On the way there we stopped to drop something off to a friend and spent a few minutes chatting with his mom. She asked us what we were up to that night and when we told her she asked, somewhat surprised since we usually did everything together, “And you’re not taking [her son]?” When we told her that he was invited but didn’t want to go she just shook her head and exclaimed” I buy that kid books and he just chews on the covers.”
I need to remember the “chews on the covers” thing. It applies soooooo.
That’s some funny stuff!
Did Bullwinkel sell Apperson Jackrabbits? or an Oscill-ate?
I don’t see Frostbite Falls on that map
I thought Frostbite Falls was on the US – Canada border (like its inspiration, International Falls, MN), but I could be wrong.
Either way, Moosylvania Forever!!!
The humble people of Forgottonia send thoughts of solidarity to our half brothers in sarcasm of Moosylvania. We only have the squirrel half, no mooses down here unfortunately. Beware the hushaboom!
What? No hat tip for the reference to Jay Ward and the Bullwinkle show the other day in the comments on your piece about a Honda S600, Japanese tennis racket manufacturer and their steering wheels?
And I quote:
“What a fun brochure!
Some of the illustrations have a Jay Ward Productions/Bullwinkle and Rocky vibe to them. I see a little Boris Badenov in the guy getting a neck massage in possibly the nicest way. Although Natasha Fatale is certainly more attractive.”
And suddenly this article pops up. Coincidence? I think not.
You’re welcome.
hey! this actually came from a different place, because I found one of the few laserdiscs I own, a Rocky and Bullwinkle one. that said, i still appreciate your comment!
Actually, I can believe that. I admire how your brain works. The things that intrigue it and the way it strings words together. Sorry. Reading that, it feels weird to refer to your mind in the third person. Keep up the great work!
Does your Laserdisc player still work? I have a 1995 Fat Mac that appears to have blown yet another power supply. I tried to boot it up a few weeks ago from a similarly ancient 20 MB hard drive and got no satisfaction.
What’s a fat Mac?
An Apple Macintosh with 512K of RAM (memory) instead of the 128K that the original model had.
They both came with an internal 400 KB disk drive. You could get a second 400 KB external drive so that you could boot and then run a program or save a file without swapping out the boot disk.
The 20 MB hard drive was about $500 in 1986 dollars and would be about $1500 now. For 20 MB.
Now, you can buy a 1 TB thumb drive from Best Buy for $100!
I just never heard the term before.
I always wanted a 9500, and got one eventually modified for cgi and film work.
It has a massive video card and runs five scsi drives.
I thought you might be talking about one of those.
I recall the cassette drive for our Atari 800 taking so long to load Castle Wolfenstein that I would go make a sandwich. That game was the precursor to Wolfenstein 3D. You needed to use both joysticks (gamepads); 1 for movement and the other for aiming. That wasn’t easy.
Dad and I used to go to San Francisco to computer fairs in the 80s to buy new parts or machines. I miss that so much! Back then, we were “geeks”, it was very rare to own a home PC and it was epic.
I immediately thought of Aesop’s Fables, but when I googled it, it wasn’t as lyrical as the Honda cartoons. I know I’ve seen that artist somewhere though.
https://tenor.com/view/rocky-and-bullwinkle-cartoon-point-gif-2823434200223345882
I gotta admit I never got into Rocky and Bullwinkle as a kid. The only thing more annoying than that cartoon was Uncle Joey’s Bullwinkle impression on Full House.
The subject matter was much more for adults than kids. For example, probably kind of subversive to have a storyline on people addicted to television on your TV show.
The original Warner Bros./Bugs Bunny stuff had a fair amount of adult-targeted content as well. Which explains why it’s not easy to find on the internet these days.
I didn’t know about Tom Lehrer until I went off to college. It was very political, but in a witty, funny way.
Today’s “Bluey” seems to target adults with its humor. Some episodes touch on the surreal.
I love Bluey an irrational amount for someone whose kids are both almost a decade past the target audience.
Just such a brilliant show. Its popularity was long overdue.
Seen this one? Wernher Von Braun
duck://player/TjDEsGZLbio
Natzi Schmatzi said Werner Von Braun. I’ve probably seen them all.
There are a few songs that stick more strongly in my head.
Fight Fiercely, Harvard (“sliding down the razor blade of life”) was probably the darkest lyric I ever processed in my head. Or my butt.
I loved (and still do) The Elements, since I was going through freshman chemistry when I heard it. I already knew the table by then, but I thought it was pretty clever.
So long mom (a song for WW III) I hope it doesn’t come to pass, but it won’t be Huntley and Brinkley telling us about it.
And I can’t leave out the joyful Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.
I first heard them on the original couple of albums from the 50s or 60s.
I only heard von Braun fairly recently.
It seems fairly prescient.
From what I heard about Braun from JSC it’s an accurate description of his humour.
“More for adults than kids” makes me think of Peewee Herman’s Playhouse, which we watched religiously when it was on the air. In fact we saw him at Carnegie Hall!
OMG. I loved PHP! Hehehe! And I was butt hurt when I read about some /well really all/ the unsavory stuff he got arrested for. But I did enjoy watching that show with my son, when he was very young.
I wish Alanis had done a song about how annoying that was. Or at least a verse!
It’s like Dave Coulier on your wedding day.
*Bonus points: Alanis and Dave dated for a few years.
Yep, that was the reference 😉
Hey… Cut. It. Out! <Laugh Track>
And here I was thinking you were talking about the Alanis who contributes to this site. Lol.
Isn’t she iconic? Don’t you think?
Ha!
As any student of current events knows, Iceland is actually the 52nd state — after Canada, of course.
Greenland can just be New New Brunswick, Renewfoundland, or maybe just call it Baffled Island.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico and Guam are going “what about us?” Oh, and the District of “Taxation Without Representation.” Columbia.
American Samoa is tired of the fact that 93% of Americans think that’s where Girl Scout cookies are made.
Wait, are you saying it’s not?
The US Virgin Islands would like to say that “it’s just a name” and “the late Jeffery Epstein doesn’t own that island anymore”, thanks.
Harvey Epstein didn’t see the SNL sketch his name inspired until after the election (he won)
New York City Council Campaign – SNL – YouTube
He won by beating (Anthony) Weiner.
I think a lot of us would rather be the fourth, fifth and sixth Canadian territories.
Oh, the Province names could be fun.
We have (had?) tons of Canadians here in FL during the winter. I’d happily give up the state to Canada to make their lives easier.
Nah, you know who it’ll be named after.
Orangeland?
Whatever it’s called, it’s capitol will be Lilleliver.
It would be one big Province called “F*ckland.
I have not see Moose and Squirrel in a long time and now I am sad about that.
There was a retro channel showing them, among other Jay Ward stuff.
Incredible library. They seem silent at the moment.