TV Show Review: Rocky and Bullwinkle - Season 5

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: 33 more pun filled episodes

Cons: The bonus segments are repeats

The Bottom Line: 

Plenty of great puns

As we watch Moose and Squirrel

Outsmart the badnicks

The Pun Stops Here

It is a bitter-sweet day for pun lovers everywhere.  Season 5 of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends has finally come out on DVD.  Since I got season 1 years ago, I've been waiting for a long time.  However, this also is the final season of the show filled with more groan worthy puns than you can even begin to count.  (And I'm an accountant, so I should know.)

As always, each of the 33 episodes included in this set features multiple features.  But the opening and closing segments are always devoted to Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose.  These two friends always find themselves in deadly situations no matter what they set out to do, usually at the hands of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.  On these discs you'll find the following stories:

Bumbling Brothers Circus - Boris has trained a lion to kill Bullwinkle on command, only Bullwinkle seems to have a knack for lion taming by playing - the comb?

Mucho Loma-Much Mud - Rocky and Bullwinkle must stop the masked bandit Zero or face 99 years in a Mexican jail.  (Boris and Natasha don't factor into this story).

Pottsylvania Creeper - Boris gives a desperate Bullwinkle a seed to enter in a flower show.  Unfortunately, the plant seems to like to eat people.  (Shades of Little Shop of Horrors anyone?)

Moosylvania - Bullwinkle gains trouble when he enters Boris' contest, "I like evil because."  Of course, Bullwinkle thought it was "I like weevils because."

Ruby Yacht - Bullwinkle's toy boat is actually a good luck piece from a Middle Eastern country, and they will stop at nothing to get it back.  (Again, Boris and Natasha sit this one out.)

Bull's Testimonial Dinner - Bullwinkle is going to be recognized at a formal dinner, so he tries to get his shirt cleaned in time - by sending it to China to the laundry that Boris is trying to use to smuggle a bomb out of the country.

The Weather Lady - Rocky and Bullwinkle's home town finally gets a reliable way to predict the weather - a fortune telling machine that plays four of a kind.  Naturally, Boris thinks this is a great way to make money and steals it to use in poker games.

Louse on Ninety-Second Street - Bullwinkle becomes the only living person who can testify against a mobster who just happens to be Boris' hero.

Wossamotta U - Bullwinkle's arm wins him a football scholarship to college.  Things are going well until Boris decides to fix something - a game.

Moosylvania Saved - Boris sets out to replenish the Pottsylvania treasury by sinking Moosylvania.

Since Boris and Natasha are obvious soviet spies, some of the references are a bit dated.  However, the puns are still funny, and that's what I love about this series.  They manage to turn just about anything into a pun, and every cliffhanger gives us two great puns based on what is happening.  If you're a punny person, you'll absolutely love it.

And I have to give a shout out to Wossamotta U, probably my favorite storyline of the entire series.  It's the earliest story I remember watching when I caught some rerun on TV.  But what I love about it is that is foresaw political correctness by introducing a secondary character who corrects anyone who refers to The Civil War as anything but The War Between the States.  Heck, you can't even talk about a civil discussion with him around.

The other segments in each episode are filled in with the usual suspects.  There's a Fractured Fairy Tale or Aesop and Son, Bullwinkle's Corner or Mr. Know-It-All, and Dudley Do-Right or Peabody's Improbable History.  Some of these segments seemed familiar to me, and I found confirmation on-line.  The only things new in season five of the show were the Rocky and Bullwinkle stories.  Everything else had aired in previous seasons.  While disappointing, at least the discs aren't missing new material.  Honestly, I didn't remember most of them, so I still got to laugh at the antics.

The animation is fitting for TV of the 50's and 60's.  It's enough to get the job done, but it's not outstanding by today's standards.  When I sit down to watch, it's not long before I am lost in the puns and not even noticing the animation quality.

All 33 episodes are here on 4 discs.  The final disc has some outtakes from the voice recording of "Goof Gas Attack," one of the stories from the last season.  That's all you get in the way of extras, and its not that great.

But the episodes themselves are still fun all these years later.  If you love groaning at puns, you need to check out Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends.  Season 5, just like any season of the show, will have you laughing before you know what hit you.