Today in 1959, the premiere of the show we know today as Rocky and Bullwinkle.
It was a wild, wacky and extremely irreverent show, especially for its time.
And that’s why one of the jokes ended up getting the producers in trouble.
Let’s first explain the concept for those who, unlike me, didn’t spend a great deal of their childhoods watching this animated classic.
The show is mostly about two talking animals: Rocky, a high-flying and somewhat high-strung squirrel, and Bullwinkle, an amiable moose who usually wasn’t too wise but loved to crack wise.
For some reason, they were regularly and unwittingly at the center of some kind of geopolitical intrigue, so Rocky and Bullwinkle were often the targets of two foreign spies, Boris and Natasha.
Hijinks would ensue and laughs would be had, and then the narrator would tell you to stick around for another exciting episode with a couple of punny titles.
It was an early version of a cartoon that both kids and grown-ups could love… with the exception of one episode of the show.
In some of the early episodes, there was a puppet version of Bullwinkle the moose.
He would introduce that week’s cartoons, and then return at the end to wrap up the show and remind everyone to come back again next time.
In one of these bumpers, voice actor and writer Bill Scott had Bullwinkle make an unusual request of all the kids watching at home.
“Why not pull off the knob that changes the channel?” he asked. “It’s loads of fun, and that way you’ll be sure to be with us next week.”
It was very much in line with the irreverent tone of the show, but see, when a TV character asks people at home to do something, some of them do it.
NBC reportedly got 20,000 angry letters from parents whose kids had done what Bullwinkle said and pulled the knobs off TVs!
The next week, puppet Bullwinkle made a different request of his young viewers: glue the TV knob in place, so it wouldn’t ever come off again.
Not long after that, the show stopped using the puppet intros and outros and stuck to animation.
Another show I watched a lot as a kid in Chicagoland was “Sneak Previews,” the movie show hosted by critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
This Saturday, the city is celebrating 50 years since the start of that duo, with an anniversary event that’s going to be structured just like an episode of “Sneak Previews.”
And I bet the audience will give it two thumbs up.
Watch the Banned Bullwinkle Bumper That Had Kids Ripping Off TV Knobs & Parents Furious (Movieweb)
Siskel & Ebert at 50 (Choose Chicago)
