'Now here's something you'll really like!'

In February of 1958, writer/producer Jay Ward and his partner Bill Scott began work on an animated pilot called Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Told in the cliffhanger style of old movie serials, the show follows the adventures of Rocket J. ("Rocky") Squirrel and his pal, Bullwinkle J. Moose. The two natives of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota are the best of friends, but they make an odd pair. Rocky is the brain of the duo, zipping from place to place to solve any problems that might come up. Many of the problems are caused by the not-so-bright Bullwinkle. His mere presence guarantees that trouble is just around the corner.

The duo's main adversaries are Pottsylvanian spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Rocky and Bullwinkle always unwittingly stumble into situations that attract the interest of these spies. Boris is a master of disguise, but even the Cold War's best spy training cannot protect him from Bullwinkle's inept bumbling, which often saves the lumbering moose and his squirrel friend from danger.

It took the pair eight months to drum up interest from the networks and advertisers, with General Mills finally coming aboard as the show's sponsor. The show, now re-titled Rocky and His Friends, joined ABC's weekday afternoon lineup in the fall of 1959. The series ran in that timeslot for two seasons before jumping networks and joining NBC's primetime schedule. This move saw another title change - The Bullwinkle Show. After a year in primetime, Bullwinkle moved to NBC's Sunday afternoon lineup. Over the next decade, reruns of the series jumped back and forth between ABC and NBC, running as late as 1981 on the latter network.

Rocky and Bullwinkle face two main adventures in their first season. The first, "Jet Fuel Formula," unfolds in a whopping forty segments over twenty episodes. While trying out his grandma's secret recipe for fudge cake, Bullwinkle accidentally creates a fuel powerful enough to take man to the moon. Boris and Natasha, the U.S. government, and moon-men Cloyd and Gidney want the secret formula. The problem is that the recipe was partially destroyed in Bullwinkle's kitchen fiasco. The measurements remain, but the ingredients have been burned away, and of course the forgetful moose cannot remember what he put into the cake.

Their second adventure, "Box Top Robbery," is told in twelve segments over six episodes. This hard-hitting tale dares to tell the truth about global economy. Gold and silver are meaningless - box tops are the real basis of our currency. Rocky and Bullwinkle are charged with stopping nogoodnik Boris' box top counterfeiting ring.

Each episode of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends opens and closes with a serialized cliffhanger segment of the main Rocky & Bullwinkle adventure. The remaining portion of the episode consists of two or three rotating regular segments. "Peabody's Improbable History" is hosted by Mr. Peabody, the world's smartest dog. After graduating from college at age three, Mr. Peabody retired to his lab to use his doggie logic to solve scientific problems that confounded mere men. He grew lonely, however, and decided that what he needed was a pet boy, so he adopted red-headed Sherman. Knowing that an apartment is no place to raise a boy (boys need plenty of room to run around), Mr. Peabody built the Waybac machine, a time machine that allows he and his charge to visit historical figures like Napoleon, King Arthur, P.T. Barnum, and Alfred Nobel. Sherman gets his exercise, learns about history, and helps Mr. Peabody nudge history in the right direction.

"Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties" follows the adventures of the titular Canadian law enforcer as he ineptly battles the evil Snidley Whiplash. One particularly amusing segment has Do-Right pitted against "Stokey the Bear," a former anti-fire spokesman turned weenie-roasting firebug under Whiplash's tutelage.

"Fractured Fairy Tales" takes a cracked look at classic (and not so classic) fairy tales, while "Aesop and Son" relates cautionary tales that lead to pun-filled morals. Bullwinkle himself hosts several stand-alone segments, including the poetry romp "Bullwinkle's Corner" and the dubiously useful how-to of "Mr. Know-It All."