ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS (1959) Premier reconstruction

I was seven years old when I saw the premier of the over-the-top ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS that ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays on ABC at 4:30 in the afternoon. The first serialized adventure was a topical subject associated with The Cold War, coming two years after Russia launched Sputnik, which pushed the United States into the "Space Race." While I was a kid at the time, a lot of emphasis was place on rockets and missiles, as the U.S. government create NASA with a goal to reach the Moon and beat out The Soviet Union in this "contest." This was the basis of the premier adventure of ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS with the story line, "The Jet Rocket Fuel" story, which was the longest running series of episodes.
It is interesting to see the evolution of the characters as the art style and character designed changed after the fifth or sixth entry. Bullwinkle's design changed the most, while Rockys' remained the same until 1960. It is these details about the character design and art style that identify the original; 1959 material from the later.
The original film elements have been rearranged and recycled countless times over the past 63 years. New audiences have not seen them in their original form and further confusion has resulted with changes in the main and intermission titles in both visual and musical elements.
Originally, Frank Comstock was the composer for the theme song for ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS, along with the opening and closing themes for each cartoon segment, FRACTURED FAIRLY TALES and PEABODY'S IMPROBABLE HISTORY. These cues were changed to new ones composed by Fred Steiner when the show was repackaged as THE BULLWINKLE SHOW for NBC in 1962. It is these versions that have largely been in circulation in syndication and cable since the 1980s. Interestingly, ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS went into first run syndication in 1962, and the first four shows contained the original laugh tracks imposed by the network. Fortunately they were dropped and all reissues sine as without the laugh tracks.
Another interesting alteration note is that in the beginning, Paul Frees was the Narrator. But as more characters were assigned to him, he was replaced by Bill Conrad. Later reissues have Conrad's voice dubbed, replacing Freese in the first entries of THE JET ROCKET FORMULA story.
So here is my reconstruction of the premier episode with the addition of color which was not available when originally aired on ABC. The color footage made available on the DVD release has the General Mills reference removed. I have filled that in with footage from one of the syndication prints and taken every effort to match up as much as possible considering some differences of 10 frames in some places that were removed in the DVD version.
Proper credit should be made to fellow KZbin posters who have made the original commercials available. They include Adpocalypse, Good old TV Commercials, The Projectionist, The AVTB Archives, Toon Tracker, and Poisoned Dragon 1964.
#rockyandhisfriends
#jayward
#billscott
#frankcomstock
#juneforay
#paulfress
#williamconrad
#thebullwinkleshow
#adventuresofrockyandbullwinkle
#hisoryoftelevision
#coldwar

[@ZakWolf]

Very nice reconstruction! The bit at 2:25 where you can briefly see a snippet of the original animation of Rocky about to grab the flag was still there in the revised 1961 version of that opening, with the still shot of the flag reading "The Adventures of BULLWINKLE AND ROCKY" (replaced with the newer series logo for this remaster, later episodes would actually cut that brief snippet of animation to make it less obvious).

[@elbandito7504]

Looks great! Thanks.

[@RaccoonFoot]

I sure wish I could find copies of all the episodes with everything intact and unedited. This is a good start tho!

[@kevinwollenweber340]

Oh, this is a wonderful memory. This is about as accurate as I’ve seen such re-creations. Thank you for this. I remember seeing this one first premiered. I definitely did not want to miss an installment each week.

[@Michael-lm2yg]

Someone else uploaded this episode from The Bullwinkle Show version that still has the original laugh tracks. Jay Ward got them to quit using laugh tracks after the first few episodes.

[@RayPointerChannel]

If I had access to that I'd have used it, provided the audio quality was good. Originally Paul Frrees was the Narrator, and was replaced by William Conrad. Also, the original Frank Comstock Music Cues had been removed in later issues. I put the originals back in and also added the original sound effects as close as possible. So many making posts of this nature have been lead to think that the forms are the originals because the soundtracks have been altered for rebroadcast and home video due to music rights issues.

[@SM7609]

Really excellent job! I was literally just trying to do the same thing!

[@RayPointerChannel]

Thank you. I was going to do the same thing with HUCKLEBERRY HOUND and that's already been done. I reconstructed the first RUFF N' REDDY broadcast in a sense. This sort of thing could be of interest now.

[@SM7609]

@@RayPointerChannel I would love to check them out! Using your basic template, I am editing a few more of these early R&B episodes :-)

[@RayPointerChannel]

@@SM7609 Maybe we should get together on this?

[@SM7609]

@@RayPointerChannel I am 1000% in! I’m pretty sure I can share with you what I’ve done so far!

[@InfinityFunnies]

This looks great! The first segment of the Rocket Fuel story had real good audio somehow for being made in the late 50s. I hope Dreamworks or Universal does a proper restoration of this show someday. Where did you get the instrumental music track?

[@arqivist2077]

Unfortunately, the Bullwinkle's Corner bit still has the Fred Steiner music on it. Here's a copy of it which includes the original Frank Comstock score: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnuliKelrpJgiaM

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

True, if only the Comstock music got to be used on the restored versions.

[@RayPointerChannel]

Yeah, I'm aware of it. I could, find it at the time I put this together. The music and sound effects for the interstitial had to be recreated. If I had access to the Comstock cue for The Swing BELIEVE ME, I'd have used it. After all, I saw these when they originally aired, and saw the originals rerun many times before they were altered for The Bullwinkle Show.

[@andresbravo2003]

Something that a Premiere might’ve been good in a Color Restoration.

[@RayPointerChannel]

Thank goodness the majority of the cartoons were in color. It would have been nice to have the entire General Mills openings an closings in color. So I had to insert those sections from a mediocre black and white source.

[@mattheweskender7781]

Bullwinkle: Another away from me again! 24:42

[@alanslattery7602]

Why is it that when Rocky would fly around the flag. They were just cut it off. Same thing he was diving off the diving board. Did they have to remove the animation?