The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is the revival of the 60's series. It premiered on May 11, 2018 on Prime Video and is DreamWorks Animation's first series for that platform.
Not to be confused with the original 1959-64 segments, or the 2000 film of the same name.
This series contains examples of:
- Adaptational Dumbass:
- Rocky, while still the smarter and more down-to-earth of the titular duo, grabs the Idiot Ball far more often than in the original series. He swings between Only Sane Man and straight-up Cloudcuckoolander depending on what's funnier at the moment.
- Boris too seems to have lost a couple of IQ points. He was always prone to Bond Villain Stupidity, but here he gets a lot more moments where he's an out-and-out Ditz. It gets to the point where one of Natasha's recognized Catchphrases is "Idiot Boris!"
- Adaptational Modesty: Natasha's dress is no longer strapless.
- As Himself: Gordon Ramsay, Mario Lopez, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Mark Hamill play themselves.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: Rocky does this at the end of "Stink of Fear," amazed that Bullwinkle managed to get together an entire funeral when Rocky was only gone for about five minutes.
- Black Boss Lady: Director Peachfuzz, due to a combination Race Lift and Gender Flip.
- Book Ends: Not counting the How We Got Here intro, "Stink of Fear" begins and ends with Rocky and Bullwinkle playing video games, which segues into an amiable physical fight.
- Chained Heat: Boris and Natasha are handcuffed together after their prison escape in "Stink of Fear", which forces them to cooperate and helps their partnership develop from Teeth-Clenched Teamwork to Platonic Life-Partners.Fearless Leader: What, are you two joined at the hip?
Boris: No, at the wrist. - Character Blog: Rocky got a Twitter account, "@squirrelyrocket", in tandem with the series.
- Chekhov's Gun: "Jump Like A Frog Does" gets this thrice over. Once when Rocky and Bullwinkle are faced with an army of people dressed like Cloyd and play the song so they can get the real Cloyd to dance to it. Towards the end of the arc Fearless Leader beams it through a satellite forcing everyone on earth to dance to it. In the midst of this, the rap section of the song is played, which is essentially telling the heroes how to save the world.
- Continuity Nod: Bullwinkle's education at Wossamotta U is mentioned, and R&B attend a class reunion in "Dark Side of the Moose".
- Creator Cameo: The late Jay Ward is acknowledged through a bust of his likeness in "Moosebumps".
- Duck!: In "Stink of Fear":Rocky: Bullwinkle, duck!
Bullwinkle: Duck? I don't see any ducks, Rock. All I see is a—BRIDGE!!! - Either/Or Title: In grand Rocky and Bullwinkle tradition, most episodes close on one of these.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "Moosebumps", when Fearless Leader decides to buy a haunted house, you can see an ad reading "See what they look like now!" Guess who's on that ad?
- Grossout Show: A few moments here and there, but the show (thankfully) doesn't go all-in with this.
- How We Got Here: The Cold Open of "Stink of Fear" has Rocky and Bullwinkle carrying a molten pie through Prague, then accidentally launching it to the moon, apparently killing Rocky in the process. After the intro, the story leading up to that moment begins.
- If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Rocky and Bullwinkle drink cans of Beast Blast, which they spit out.
- Imagine the Audience Naked: Bullwinkle misinterprets the old stage-fright cure of picturing the audience in their underwear as "have the audience picture you in your underwear".
- Interactive Narrator: Again, a tradition carried over from the classic series.
- I Work Alone: Natasha and Boris both claim this in part one of "Stink of Fear". Played for laughs in Boris' case because he is the leader of a gang. He even shoos a few of his gang members out of Fearless Leader's office after making the claim.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gordon Ramsay, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Though he's a little toned down compared his regular persona (no swearing, for one), he's still very hard to please, quick to insult, and has an ego a mile wide... but he's also very understanding about others' personal issues like Rocky's stage fright and Boris's problems with his self-esteem. Though in the latter case he may just have been Trolling Boris who was hoping to get some creative insults out of him.
- Large Ham: The Narrator, who (once more in a tradition carried over from the classic series) seldom passes up a chance to Chew Some Scenery.
- Limited Animation: Intentionally invoked to keep in line with the original show's primitive animation (although it's still significantly more fluid than the original).
- Logo Joke: Bullwinkle does his magic trick and pulls Rocky out of a hat, who flies up to the DreamWorks Animation logo, seen here
. - Mythology Gag: The real-estate listing for the haunted mansion in "Moosebumps!" features an ad for a "See what they look like now!" article with R&B's classic character designs.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Eccentric billionaire Rafi Tusk, a send-up of Elon Musk.
- Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: When Rocky attends his own funeral (see the above trope), he tries to get Bullwinkle's attention, only to be met with this response from him.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: Naturally we get this a few times. One of the most notable versions is one where they are interrupted by a monster bursting out from behind the curtain. And as it is chasing Rocky and Bullwinkle around the stage, a rabbit actually pops out of the hat and waves at the audience.
- Race Lift: Captain Peachfuzz is race-lifted into Director Peachfuzz, a black woman.
- Raised by Wolves: In the first episode Boris is said to be this.
- Remembered I Could Fly: Rocky and Bullwinkle climb all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and the latter tells the former that he should've flown.
- Sequel Hook: Each arc ends with some sort of mention of the plot of the next arc.
- Shout-Out:
- From the first episode: "Hug time!"
- There's occasional homages to other Ward properties. For instance, the title characters are briefly shown jousting in the vein of Crusader Rabbit. Tom Slick from George of the Jungle appears in one episode, while Fred the Lion from GotJ's Super Chicken appears in another. Even Mr. Peabody and Sherman — as they appear in The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show, no less — show up for all of 10 seconds.
- In the second episode of the "Moosebumps" arc, after having arrived in London, Boris and Natasha disguise themselves respectively as "affable yet free-wheeling chimney-sweep" and "uptight nanny who always carries umbrella." They end up having to take care of the son and daughter of a "very busy businessman" and on the kids' insistence spend most of the episode doing things like flying with an umbrella and jumping into magical paintings.
- The same episode sees a monsterized Bullwinkle re-enacting the iconic "King Kong fighting planes on top of a skyscraper" scene, with Rocky taking the role of Ann Darrow, and the Big Ben tower standing in for the skyscraper. The narrator even comments that this reminds him an awful lot of a certain movie.
- Spanner in the Works: Well it wouldn't be Rocky and Bullwinkle without at least one moment of Bullwinkle thwarting the baddies' plans without even trying.
- Special Edition Title: Each arc has its own special intro.
- Story Arc: Six story arcs spread across 26 episodes, most arcs consist of four episodes, with two of them being made up of five episodes. Those arcs are:"Stink of Fear"
"The Dark Side of the Moose"
"Moosebumps"
"Almost Famoose"
"The Legends of the Power Gems"
"Amazamoose and Squirrel Wonder" - Straight Man: Rocky still has a tendency to play this role to Bullwinkle, though not to the extent of the original show; he's gained a few eccentric quirks of his own and is more likely to join in on the silliness.
- Vine Tentacles: The Creeper is a Man-Eating Plant that can grow at an astonishing pace, and nourishes itself by seizing victims in its tendrils, and thence devouring them. When sufficiently grown, these tendrils form a rocket that launches into the stratosphere and explodes, dispersing thousands of creeper seeds.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Along with Platonic Life-Partners, this is Boris and Natasha's dynamic in this show. In the first episode they are not happy about being asked to work together, and spend a lot of time arguing over which of them should be in charge, but by the end of the first story arc they have firmly been established as a duo who stick together, even if they still bicker and there's no real romantic overtones.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Rocky is briefly shown vomiting after being shown the chum buckets in "Stink of Fear".
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: "Dark Side of the Moose" ends on one of these.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: The narrator lampshades this at the end of episode 5.
