Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends: The Complete Season 1 (Box Set)

Here is what's on the DVD.

The legendary, and hereto Long Lost complete Jet Fuel Formula saga, a titanic 40 episode opus. R & B fly to the moon, meeting spacemen Gidney and Cloyd, This saga has been trunicated elsewhere in collections, and it's be nice to have it all here. This is the longest storyline in the show's history, and introduces most of the recurring characters. Somehow the spacemen end up on earth, and with the help of the moose and squirrel, flunk their citizenship test and are deported back to the moon. Truely brilliant problem solving!

Next is the Box Top Robbery (12 segments). Bullwinkle owns the worlds largest collection of Box Tops. Naturally, these are the backbone of the world economy, and he's set for life, until it's discovered that counterfeits are flooding the market...

Those are the first two story-arcs, and the actual content of the DVD may be shorter or longer, depending. Regardless, this will surely be a jam-packed DVD set, which absolutely everyone should own.

There's a few special features, such as a VERY rare glimpse of the Bullwinkle puppet giving advice to the lovelorn, in a segment called 'Dear Bullwinkle', along with lots of bumpers from bygone days.

It's a super package, as a SUPER price. [A low price] for 4 discs, can't beat that with a pointed stick. It should be noted that it also includes the full original title sequence, AND the Peabody & Sherman, Aesop and Son, Dudley Do-Right, and Fractured Fairy Tales as they appeared, including the first ever episode of Peabody, wherein he adopts Sherman! Not to be missed.

The quality of the prints is impeccable, cleaned up and remastered to crystal clarity, probably a better picture than when originally broadcast. The episodes are shown uncut, in the original broadcast order, featuring the original intros and original show's openings and closings, unseen by most people who grew up watching the syndicated version of the show, with the Broadway style intro. Special features includes footage of the legendary Bullwinkle puppet, several bumpers from the NBC era of the show, and a host of others.

BUT (you knew there had to be a but) the collections have a few odd choices made on them. For one thing, the music has been replaced by the music used on the second season of the series. According to Jay's daughter, this was Jay's music of choice, but it means that the Bullwinkle theme we all grew up with is nowhere to be seen. Also, the B&R intros, as well as the show openings, have been slightly altered. The original series was known as "Rocky and his Friends" (and the B&R episodes as "The Adventures of Rocky") but they're been changed so the new "Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends" logo is seen. There's also a very slight edit to the opening (I believe by Keith Scott, the new official voice of Bullwinkle and no relation to Bill) referring to the "new" title of the show.

While I don't consider these changes a dealbreaker, I would like to see unedited copies of the intros (with the well-known music) in the special features on a later collection. Not to mention the plethora of other R&B footage from the original shows; the General Mills commercials featuring the cast, for example.

I look forward to the rest of the editions, and if there's a just and righteous god in Heaven, a Hoppity Hooper collection, Crusader Rabbit, George of the Jungle, and maybe even a disc of the Quaker Cap'n Crunch (et al) commercials (I defy anyone to remember Professor Goody and the Waffle Whiffer)

(*) "That's three words" "I'm a heavy tipper"