Rumpelstiltskin and a Car Dealer

When you think of stunning animation, you don’t think of Rocky and Bullwinkle. But who cares? They’re among the funniest shows—including live action—ever put on TV.

The odd thing about it is a number of people who worked on “Rocky” and other Jay Ward shows had been employed at UPA, where it seems the prevailing attitude was “laughter is gauche” (except when it came to an old blind guy; UPA thought that was comic). It was all about design. So it’s only natural some interesting bits of design crept into the Ward cartoons, especially ones that weren’t animated in Mexico.

I like this little bit of animation in the Fractured Fairy Tale “Rumpelstiltskin.” The title character pops onto the screen after some squiggles. They’re animated on twos.



Daws Butler uses his Phil Silvers voice for the title character while June Foray is Gladys, the miller’s daughter.

Since we’re on the subject of Bullwinkle, Alex Anderson explained in Keith Scott’s book The Moose That Roared that Bullwinkle was named for Clarence Bullwinkel, who managed a Ford dealership that was once on College Avenue between Alcatraz and Claremont Avenues in Oakland. Clarence Ahrens Bullwinkel was born on May 10, 1893 in San Francisco to German immigrants John and Catherine Ahrens Bullwinkel; his father was a liquor dealer. The Berkeley Gazette of December 7, 1940 reveals he was going to enter the University of California College of Dentistry but was convinced by a friend in 1912 to accept a job in the stock and tool room of a Ford operation. He lived for a time in Portland, Oregon where his only son Bob was born. The Ford plant in Richmond, California opened in 1930 and Bullwinkel was soon the manager of it. He bought a Ford franchise in the Oakland area in fall of 1940. Bullwinkel was civic-minded; he was appointed director of the Berkeley-Albany Red Cross War Fund campaign in December 1942 and was the president of the Berkeley YMCA and Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. His grandson Daniel Bullwinkel told a Berkeley, Calif. news web site:

Clarence and Jay were friends at Rotary club and the Berkeley Breakfast club. From what Clarence told me, at Breakfast club of Berkeley, Jay asked him if he could use his last name for a cartoon he was creating. Jay said he would reverse the last two letters of our name not to upset the family.

Bullwinkel the Citizen died in Contra Costa on June 12, 1984. Bullwinkle the Moose lives on.