Product Review

In order to steal a priceless collection of art masterpieces from a Paris museum, archvillains Boris and Natasha fold the unframed paintings up, put them in a small package, and mail them to a certain moose in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota--figuring that only Bullwinkle would be stupid enough to sell them the paintings back. Ah, the classic world of Jay Ward animation! The compilation Painting Theft demonstrates what makes Rocky & Bullwinkle unique among cartoons: their elaborate, episodic storytelling. Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera cartoons relied almost exclusively on single situations and freewheeling slapstick, but Rocky & Bullwinkle stories stretched on and on, with snaky, absurd twists. Not only did this allow the animators to come up with a wide variety of jokes and puns (terrible, terrible puns), but it also let them delight in the sheer joys of storytelling--how rapidly and deliriously they could gallop from one silly circumstance to the next. Even the shorter cartoons (Dudley Do-Right, Peabody's Improbable History, and Fractured Fairy Tales) are packed with wild reversals and ridiculous turns. Plus, they used some superb voice talent (including Edward Everett Horton, a great character actor best known for supporting roles in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals), and had an eye for sneaky satire of the adult world--as can be seen when Bullwinkle's whitewashed canvases spark an insane bidding war in the art world. Rocky & Bullwinkle are a consistent pleasure. --Bret Fetzer