. . . buckaroo Boris informs. Bullwinkle J. Moose, dressed in the guise of LITTLE BO PEEP, during the antler-bedecked.character's namesake corner. Bullwinkle seems to have a special affinity for sheep. Later during Season Three of his television show, he dons a suit of thick wool himself throughout the infamous Corner chat, MORRIE HAD A LITTLE LAMB. This would be the egregious series entry during which he and sidekick Rocket J. Squirrel attempt to convince America's school kids that the insecticide D. D. T. Is their friend, and that they should run out into their street whenever the poison-cloud spray trucks are traversing their neighborhoods to bathe in the toxic fumes. This probably resulted in more dire consequences than Boris' attempt to encourage dangerous gunplay during LITTLE BO PEEP.
Reviews
1,318 Reviews
This episode includes a not-so-humorous spoof of . . .
15 May 2024
. . . one of the biggest boondoggles in American History during Mr. Know-It-All's segment, HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL MEMBER OF THE U. S. PEACE CORPS. My dad considered applying for this pernicious program way back in the 1900's. He said the application illustrated how this House of Cards was set up as a rickety pyramid scheme, requiring naive young applicants to obtain testimonials from dozens of past classmates, teachers, principals, bus drivers, neighbors, cousins, maiden aunts thrice removed, ministers, rabbis, priests, pediatricians, dentists, store clerks, umpires, referees, coaches: basically, everyone they had ever met in their brief lives. Pops recognized a scam when he saw one, and avoided being dropped off in some swamp, desert or jungle on an impossible, counter-productive and thankless task.
Released on the 32nd anniversary of Black Tuesday . . .
15 May 2024
. . . the main date associated with the onset of the world's Great Depression, leading to World War Two, this Bullwinkel's Corner spin on MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB ranks as an equally important October 29 red letter date. Environmentalists generally cite the malicious mutterings of a moose and squirrel, as they heap praise upon the bald eagle-killing insecticide D. D. T., as the initial inspiration for Today's Environmental Movement. Within weeks of LAMB's screening, Rachel Carson dashed off her SILENT SPRING expose to rebut the malarkey promoting Big Business and Corporate Cataclysm on The Bullwinkle Show, highlighting how seldom-tested modern chemicals were endangering every aspect of Life on Planet Earth. Therefore, Rocky and Bullwinkle deserve a back-handed compliment for Saving the World.
Always keeping a finger on the pulse of . . .
11 May 2024
. . . America, Bullwinkle's Corner: FAN CLUB #9 deals with the decline and fall of American Journalism, the sprouts of which were already evident in 1961 when the Lazy Jay Ranch episodes of The Bullwinkle Show first began. It was around this time that news periodicals, particularly daily or weekly "papers," began devolving into increasingly narrow "niche" publications, appealing only to smaller and smaller pieces of America's swiftly fragmenting current-events consuming pie. Compounding this problem, management began putting the bean counters in charge of everything, sacrificing journalistic integrity to the almighty bottom line. All of these trends and more are thoroughly explored in FAN CLUB #9.
The Color Purple
(2023)
This film is sort of timeless.
8 May 2024
THE COLOR PURPLE is not really anchored in a particular group of decades or on a specific planet. Certainly, it would be naive to characterize PURPLE as taking place in the 1900's within these United States, despite the various date and place title cards occasionally appearing on-screen. Allegedly spanning the era of World War I, the Great Depression and World War II, PURPLE takes little if any notice of these Real-Life events which shaped the milieu for nearly every actual American living through this notable epoch. Furthermore, PURPLE is especially blind to the facts of life when it comes to the particular U. S. cohort upon which the story is focused. PURPLE may be a color, but the shade presented here is barely visible to the mind's eye.
Peddling stuff door-to-door is a tough proposition . . .
4 May 2024
. . . as Mr. Know-It-All learns during HOW TO SELL SOAP, a segment of the Season 3, Episode 15 Bullwinkle Show. Even a moose would be hard-pressed for success as an itinerant piano seller, since lugging a wide selection of such wares would be hard on the back. In an earlier episode, the much-maligned moose threw out a disc as he toted around a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which he tried to hawk door-to-door. In an attempt to save his spine, Bullwinkle down-sizes to laundry detergent in the current foray. Unfortunately, he again has Bad-Enough for a potential customer, which constitutes slim pickings. Watch the film for yourself to find out who gets agitated.
It should go without saying that the most problematic . . .
4 May 2024
. . . portion of The Bullwinkle Show, Season 3, Episode 24 is Bullwinkle's Corner. The actual title of the obscene poem being recited here is unprintable on a family website. The fact that this portion is a lazy repeat salvaged or scavenged from an earlier Bullwinkle episode makes viewers question the sanity of producer J. Ward. It's bad enough that he got away with peddling such sleaze the first time around, but what could have possibly induced him to take a chance on fielding a second helping of the massive mountain of complaints sure to be elicited by highlighting such purple prose during an alleged children's program?
Monkey Man
(2024)
Because India is a nefarious backwater . . .
4 May 2024
. . . which is willing to go to any length to discourage Progressive People from visiting, it is not surprising to see them churn out yet another flick likely to deter anyone with a mind from venturing within 50,000 miles of this self-proclaimed Pocket of Perdition. MONKEY MAN depicts an India befouled beyond any possibility of repair, rife with corruption and writhing in the grip of false prophets proclaiming allegiance to out-of-date belief systems thoroughly discredited for thousands of years. It's not even safe to visit what passes for the loo in India, as those seeking relief are as likely to fall prey to extreme violence as they are to find empty paper rolls. Bottom line: Never put India on any bucket list, unless it is marked "Slop."
Film historians often cite this episode as the one . . .
3 May 2024
. . . containing the moment which would soon be referred to as The Bullwinkle Show "jumping the shark." The said infamous outrage is pinpointed, of course, with the egregious repeat of Bullwinkle's Corner: PAT-A-CAKE, which was one of the more maligned entries in said series of one-minute films. PAT-A-CAKE is NOT authored by Edgar Allan Poe, or even that old standby, Bob Lou Stevenson. It kind of sounds like something Gertrude Stein may have said, if she had been born 400 years earlier and came done with an even worse case of dementia. This terse verse is too juvenile for Louisa Mae Alcott to feature during LITTLE WOMEN. Its best use would be as cannon fodder.
One of the more confusing aspects of . . .
3 May 2024
. . . MR. KNOW-IT-ALL: FALLING ASLEEP ON THE JOB CAN LEAD TO A RUDE AWAKENING is when Bullwinkle J. Moose says that he is standing sentry duty as an admiral in the Army. As anyone who has attended the Army/Navy fall football game well knows, Navy has admirals, but NOT the Army! The latter service refers to its Admiral-level officers as "generals." Furthermore, whether a high-ranking military honcho is in the Army or the Navy, he would seldom if ever be called upon to stand sentry duty. This would be tantamount to requiring him to.peel potatoes on kitchen patrol or K P., which he may well take as a gross insult.
Certainly the most revealing aspect of this Bullwinkle . . .
28 April 2024
. . . Show episode is its expose on swimwear of the 1960's. During the Mr. Know-It-All segment--HOW TO TEACH A MEAN BULLY A LESSON AT THE BEACH--Fatal Natasha is clad in a modest one-piece bathing suit, which nevertheless reveals that she has had bosom reduction surgery since Seasons #1 and #2. America's favorite moose, on the other hand, sports a pink and white horizontally striped singlet-style swimsuit that would put any sort of Speed-Oh sea-front attire to shame. These are definitely not the racy sort of decadent beach duds plaguing Mankind during the 1950's. Bikinis, monocle-keen-knees and bare mammalian paraphernalia are nowhere in sight here.
Scotland's Cunnngham Clan were family friends to . . .
25 April 2024
. . . Scotch poet Robert Burns, famed author of the New Year's Eve song "Old Lasagna," and Allan Cunningham even edited a collection of Burn's rhymes. However, this episode of Bullwinkle's Corner spotlights one of Allan's own poignant poems, A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA. As veteran urologists well know, Scotsmen rank first in the world when it comes to adult incontinence. This is what the term "Gaelic Gusher" denotes. Allan Cunningham addresses the Heartbreak of Damp Bedding in a metaphorical manner, calling upon nautical imagery to "sanitize" the Scourge of the Scots. Bullwinkle follows Allan's lead here, at least until his final remark to Rocket J. Squirrel.
It would be very difficult to understand . . .
25 April 2024
, , , Bullwinkle's Corner here, aka GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK, without being well-versed in the lives and times of both Henry Clay Work, who wrote My Grandfather's Clock in the 1800's, and John Cameron Sway-Z, whom Bullwinkle's ancestor references by name, America's first television news anchor. In Work's poem, it says 15 or 20 times, "Tick, Talk, Tick, Talk, but it stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died." As the voice of Timex watches, John Cameron voiced a polar opposite view of time pieces: "It takes a licking, but keeps on ticking." So, when it comes to ticking time bots, is Bullwinkle on the side of Henry Clay or John Cameron? If you watch GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK, you may decide for yourself.
It turns out that the Austen family used to stop at a dive . . .
25 April 2024
. . . called "Ted's Trailer" on their way home from church in the early 1700's. Therefore, a young Jane seized the opportunity to make the locally notable Singing Waiter of Ted's greasy spoon world famous with her first best-selling hunk of literature, LITTLE TOMMY TUCKER. Bullwinkle J. Moose reenacts Tommy's short-lived career, taking the title role upon himself in this Corner presentation. Music people are seldom appreciated in their original stomping grounds. Michael Jackson was driven from the Motor City to his Hotel California doom. Madonna was expelled from nearby Rochester to not-so-Great Britain and beyond. Even Charles Mar-Cues, the singing hot dog vendor of Detroit, was fired for telling customers that "there's no ketchup in baseball." So, Bullwinkle, Tommy Tucker and Janie Austen all are in good company.
Bullwinkle's Corner jumps the shark . . .
24 April 2024
. . . in this episode, as the obtuse moose leaves out too much of OLD MOTHER HUBBARD's backstory. As recounted by her busybody neighbor Sarah Martin (1768 - 1826), Phoebe Hubbard was the bane of her Devon neighborhood in Yea-limp-ton. Phoebe was a notorious penny-pincher, washing toothpicks, reusing paper cups and recycling Halloween candy from one Devil's Night to the next All Hallows. Even though she insisted upon being as addressed as "Mother" or "Mrs." Hubbard, no one ever saw any sign of her spouse or children. Rumor had it that they were the secret ingredient in the pies that she sold out of her home business. If so, she got away with murder.
As A CHRISTMAS CAROL instructs us . . .
20 April 2024
. . . "Stocks break Society, and stock brokers break it completely." MR. KNOW-IT-ALL: HOW TO BE A TOP FLIGHT STOCK SALESMAN epitomizes all that's wrong with stock tickers, stock tips and stock exchanges, particularly when done American Style. Bullwinkle is depicted as a typical myopic broker, so entranced by his narrow mercenary personal agenda that he cannot even be bothered to take "Yes" for an answer from potential clients. With visions of fat sugar plum commissions dancing in his head, me-first broker Bullwinkle is fully insulated from the consequences of his own ill-considered folly by a corrupt system. Sadly, his clients are not so fortunate.
Back in the 1700's, school children had to . . .
17 April 2024
. . . memorize all 346 of Robert Louis Stevenson's Poems for Young People. When youth of that day saw something such as THE CHERRY TREE during Bullwinkle's Corner, they'd instantly shout at their TV sets that the ACTUAL title of this piece is FOREIGN LANDS. Though America's wisest moose covers most of this poetic expedition's first stanza, as well as some of the third concerning Mr. Dusty Rhodes, he leaves the second, fourth and final fifth quatrains of Stevenson's work virtually untouched. Some might say that Bob should be pleased that Bullwinkle already has disemboweled 21 of his verse collections, while only covering one rhyme by Edgar A. Poe and none by John Milton. Others would call this "Poetic Justice."
The First Omen
(2024)
This picture is so controversial because . . .
17 April 2024
. . . it comes off as more of a documentary depicting Real Life events ripped from Today's headlines than a run-of-the-hill horror flick in an existing film franchise. As veterans of THE SPOTLIGHT or AGNES OF GOD well know, America currently is being mismanaged by a nefarious ancient sect's cult, controlling every aspect of our increasingly Medieval Life from Dark Ages medical care to a ludicrous Kangaroo High Court. At the rate things are going, orders may come down from the Satanic Sect spotlit during THE FIRST OMEN disallowing women from voting or owning any property in our U. S. Homeland. OMEN also shows none's running amok during their Rumple-Springer season, engaging in notoriously randy debauchery designed to activate their demon sprouts to destroy Life as we've known it. Be afraid of women in the outfits of Antarctic avian waddling birds. Be very afraid.
The Dudley Do-Right Show: Elevenworth Prison/Saw Mill/Mountie Without a Horse
(1959)
Just as one cannot fathom a "Chip" without a . . .
Season 1, Episode 7
12 April 2024
. . . cycle, it's hard to wrap your mind around a MOUNTIE WITHOUT A HORSE. But if anyone can accomplish this feat, it is sure to be Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties. Just the other day I was out West in Detroit, and spotted a couple of Mounted Police. Their lassos were readily to hand for a quick draw, as the Motor City cops are famed for always getting their man. Later this month the NFL Draft will take place in Motown, which is sure to be swarming with mounted police then. Their focal point is bound to be Captain Martian, where Marvin tends to hang out with the rest of his rustler gang. However, it's unlikely that Dudley will be summoned across the river from the Windsor Post to provide back-up. As they say in South Detroit, too many pony boys spoil the broth.
The Bullwinkle Show: A Whale of a Tale or Thar She Blows Up/Fast and Moose or Charley's Antlers
(1961)
Now that baseball season is finally here again . . .
Season 2, Episode 52
11 April 2024
. . . and, to quote the late Ernie Harwell, "the partridge is singing in the pear tree," the "Mr. Know-It-All" segment of this Bullwinkle Show episode is particularly timely. HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL BASEBALL UMPIRE documents why these officials refereeing America's Favorite Pastime wear the protective gear with which they're decked out. As depicted here in BASEBALL, the mortality rate for Major League Baseball umps was quite high prior to their adoption of head-to-toe P. P. G. Now that they're swaddled two or three times more securely than NHL hockey goalies, the umpires stand a fighting chance of surviving a doubleheader., no matter how many bats irate players splinter on their noggins.
Immaculate
(2024)
This film does a great job of exposing . . .
10 April 2024
, , , the crazed sects cult which has initiated America's fifth and final Civil War. Michigan's Cecilia Jones is the unwitting patsy whom cult leaders choose to victimize here. Michigan, of course, is where the American Communist Party was founded a few years before the onset of the third U. S. Civil War. Just yesterday the words of a judge appointed by early Red leader Abe Lincoln were invoked to take away the Freedom of all Arizona women between the ages of 8 and 60. As IMMACULATE illustrates, this ancient cult has been nefariously working in the shadows for centuries in underground tunnels, walled compounds and pernicious laboratories to promote every Evil under the sun, all in the hypocritical guise of being the "Good Guys." Be afraid of wolves in sheep's clothing. Be very afraid.
The Bullwinkle Show: Follow the Swallow or The Inside Story/Playtime for Rollo or Rest in Pieces
(1961)
Perhaps the most depressing segment of this entry . . .
Season 2, Episode 51
8 April 2024
. . . in The Bullwinkle Show universe is called MR. KNOW IT ALL: HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND BE INFLUENTIAL WITH PEOPLE. When Grandpa was toiling in sales during the 1900's, he was ordered to attend out-of-state sessions of the Dale Carnegie course which this program segment clearly is intended to spoof. However, Bullwinkle never has to march up the hill with the Duke of York and his 10,000 men. Furthermore, the beleaguered moose is not tasked with any memory builders, nor is he brainwashed to reply "Terrific!!" when anyone inquires how he's doing at a particular moment. Grand Pop described these tortuous exercises in Group Therapy as AA meetings, minus the coffee and donuts.
The Bullwinkle Show: Defective Story or A Muffled Report/Leaky Lyrics or Bullwinkle Plugs a Song
(1961)
Doubtless the most nostalgic part of this episode . . .
Season 2, Episode 50
7 April 2024
. . . is the segment titled BULLWINKLE'S CORNER: FAN CLUBV #8. It features an event depicting Natasha Fatale and Captain Peter "Wrong-way" Peach-fuzz competing within potato sacks--with the Naval Hero's loaded down with 100 pounds of said root vegetables! --while Bullwinkle J. Moose and Boris Bad-Enough are both sporting flour bags. Rocket J. Squirrel is serving as the starter for this event. It all brings to mind stories my grandpa told me about Life in the 1900's, particularly Fourth of July picnics at the Sunday Lake VFW Post. Sack races were staples of these celebrations, along with greased pole climbs, oiled pig chases, ladies' shoe-kicking competition, long-range egg-throwing--a couples' activity and parachutists plunging into the copper-red lake. Regarding sack races, Grand Pops always said that the key to winning was knowing how to operate the equipment.
The Bullwinkle Show: Terror on the Seas or We've Only Begun to Fright/Blank Night or The Age of Nothing
(1961)
There's a segment of this program dealing with . . .
Season 2, Episode 49
5 April 2024
. . . the dire dichotomy between Good and Evil. Self-proclaimed wrong doer Boris Bad-Enough distorts Bullwinkle J. Moose's Pledge of Allegiance to his organization aimed at young children, by objecting to the promise to be "Honest, Clean, Brave, Loyal and Trustworthy." Boris says that it is necessary to be unfair and unbalanced by giving equal attention to foul play. Unfortunately, America did not heed this warning when it was issued in 1961. Instead, one side of the equation was allowed to get worse and worse, until the United States reached the miserable conditions prevailing Today. FAN CLUB #7 highlights how everybody got off on the wrong track.
The Bullwinkle Show: Underwater Eyeball or The Deep Blue See/Underwater Moose or The Aqua-lunk
(1961)
Telethons usually involve murky accounting practices . . .
Season 2, Episode 48
2 April 2024
. . . and the fund-raiser under way amid Bullwinkle's Corner: FAN CLUB #6 proves to be no exception to this exercise in lower math. The first problem here is that none of the characters state explicitly for what allegedly worthy cause clams are being raised. Secondly, only a single dame--Natasha--is on hand to man the phone bank. Thirdly, all of the incoming calls involve Chinese take-out orders and sports betting then illegal. Finally, the telethon participants are caught on-camera discussing the overhead costs of the supposedly philanthropic event itself, right down to the dime that Boris Bad-Enough has "borrowed" from an imaginary kitty to pay for his parking!
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