“Mr. Peabody and Sherman,’’ out today, is the fourth feature film derived from a half-hour cartoon show originally called “Rocky and His Friends’’ when it debuted on ABC in 1959.
Here’s a brief history of the program and its often-unfortunate history of big-screen adaptations:
‘Rocky and His Friends’ (1960)
The highest-rated daytime show when it originally aired Tuesdays and Thursdays after “American Bandstand’’ in the late afternoon, “Rocky and His Friends’’ was originally in black-and-white.
Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose were the hosts and delivered commercials for sponsor Cheerios, as well as starring in running adventures that spoofed movie serials. Bullwinkle also delivered poetry.
Their perennial nemeses were “Pottsylvanian’’ Cold War spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
As seen in these clips, there was also a segment titled “Peabody’s Improbable History’’ with a time-traveling beagle and his adopted human son, as well as “Fractured Fairy Tales,’’ starring Aesop and his son. The latter has not yet been adapted for the movies.
‘The Bullwinkle Show’ (1961)
The format remained much the same when the show moved to NBC, initially running early Sunday evening as a lead-in to “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.’’
Previously in black-and-white, the show was now in color, as seen in this clip from another regular segment, “Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties,’’ a spoof on old-time melodramas and Canadians.
‘Boris and Natasha’ (1992)
Canceled in 1964 by NBC after bouncing around the weekend schedule, what was later known mostly as “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show’’ ran for decades in various iterations in syndication and acquired such a devoted following that a live-action feature was attempted.
Unfortunately, the rights to the Rocky and Bullwinkle characters weren’t available, so Boris and Natasha appeared without them in their planned big-screen debut. It didn’t help that the Cold War was over, or that “SCTV’’ star Dave Thomas and Sally Kellerman stepped into the leads of this flop when original choices Danny DeVito and Anjelica Huston were unavailable.
After the demise of distributor Orion Pictures, this pitiful film went straight to cable. Though it’s available on DVD, there are no clips or trailers online.
‘Dudley Do-Right’ (1992)
Universal sponsored this unfortunate live-action adaptation of another “Rocky’’ segment starring Brendan Fraser as the inept Mountie, Sarah Jessica Parker as his damsel-in-distress Nell Fenwick, and Eric Idle as the villainous Snidely Whiplash.
‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle’ (2000)
Our heroes finally turned up on the big screen 35 years after their TV debut, a computer-animated flying squirrel and moose who come out of retirement to foil the live-action plotting of Boris (Jason Alexander), Natasha (Rene Russo) and Fearless Leader (a wildly hammy Robert De Niro, who also produced).
With a total US gross of $35 million on a reported budget of $76 million, a planned franchise didn’t materialize from this fiasco.
‘Mr. Peabody and Sherman’ (2014)
Fourteen years later, Dreamworks Animation controls the rights to the “Rocky’’ characters and decided to start with “Peabody’s Improbable History.’’ They finally got it right this time.