I was looking on Amazon and I saw there is a dvd set titled The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends: The Complete Series (which I will call RB1 in this thread). There is also a dvd set titled Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Series (which I will call RB2).
RB1 was released in 2019. It says it has eighteen discs and a runtime of 61 hours and 49 minutes.
RB2 was released in 2011. It says it has thirteen discs and a runtime of 13 hours and 10 minutes.
Both are region one (US) releases.
So it appears RB1 has significantly more content than RB2. But what’s surprising is RB2 is selling for a significantly higher price. RB1 sells for $29.96 and RB2 sells for $102.99.
What am I missing? Why would anybody pay a lot more money for what appears to be the lesser product?
RB2 was released first, and even though it’s less complete, quite possibly came out at a high price originally, back when widespread streaming options weren’t available (and, thus, DVD sales were still strong).
Years later, yes, no one would buy RB2 at that price if they were aware that RB1 is available at a much lower price, with much more content.
I might guess that neither RB1 nor RB2 have been reprinted or re-released in recent years (maybe not since the original releases), and the stock that Amazon has sitting in a warehouse is years old at this point.
Wikipedia tells me there were 163 episodes at 23 minutes each. I’m not a math whiz, but I’m pretty sure you can’t pack all that into 13 hours and ten minutes. Maybe the advertised runtime for RB2 is a typo?
There was only one series, which was produced from 1959 to 1964, though it aired under several different names, both during its original run, and when it ran on TV in re-runs.
And, yeah, it had 163 episodes. So, either the runtime for RB2 in its listing isn’t correct, or it doesn’t contain every episode.
The running time in the Amazon description of RB2 is probably a typo, the picture of the box says 18 discs and a much longer running time than the description. Google AI says they contain the exact same episodes.
One of the sources Google AI cites says
There also are collectibles, including “Frostbite Falls Field Guide to a Moose, a Squirrel and a Royal Canadian Mountie” by Keith Scott and a “Loyal Viewer” award.
A couple of possibilities have occurred to me. The series contained segments with Rocky and Bullwinkle. But it also had segments with other characters, like Dudley Do-right, Peabody and Sherman, and Fractured Fairy Tales. RB2 might only include the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.
A second possibility is noting the titles. The series was originally broadcast as Rocky and His Friends for two seasons and then The Bullwinkle Show for three seasons. The episodes were then syndicated under various titles such as The Rocky Show, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky, etc. I don’t know if all of these syndicated packages contained all of the original episodes; some of them may have only been part of the overall series. So RB2, which is titled Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Series might be a box set of a partial syndication packages.
Or, as you note, it could be a simple typo. If you read the product description for RB2 it says the product requires one AAA battery, which I find unlikely.
Amazon has a bad review policy. They will crosspost reviews of one product in other similar products.
For example, if you buy a hardcover edition of a book and rave about what a great novel it is, they will cross post your review on the page for the paperback edition of the book. That’s semi-acceptable.
But this becomes a problem when they do it with videos. They will crosspost customer reviews of one edition of a video under another edition of that video, ignoring that the two editions might not have the same features. That could be the case here; the review they posted of RB2 might actually be a review from somebody who bought RB1.
Agreed. The fact that both products are, honestly, ancient by digital media standards probably complicates things, and maybe makes it more likely that wires got crossed.
The fact that the original Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons got repackaged so many times for various broadcast purposes, and were branded under so many different variations of the show names, is sadly consistent with the confusion and questions in your OP.
Jeez, I remember when Rocky debuted in 1959. I was four years old and eagerly awaiting the “exciting new cartoon series from the creators of Crusader Rabbit.” I watched the first episode, which introduced the Moon Men Gidney and Cloyd, and I thought “Hmmm … this is different.” Later that day, my dad did a double-take when I recited part of the poem Bullwinkle read (Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing”).
I now know that much of the show went over my head when I was a kid. I was astonished when I saw an episode at the age of 16 after a long hiatus. For the first time ever, I was actually understanding all of the jokes!
Same with Mr. Peabody. History jokes make much sense after you learn the history that’s being made fun of. Not to mention I had never heard of chicken cacciatore when the American Revolution episode ended with that pun.
The original episodes had commercial breaks. If you assume only 20 minutes of true content than that’s three to an hour and 61 times three is 183.
BTW, the Keith Scott mentioned above commenting on the DVD wrote the definitive book on Rocky and Bullwinkle, called The Moose That Roared.
I just checked my copy of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Book by Louis Chenovic. It lists 326 R&B episodes (that’s just Moose and Squirrell, not including Fractured Fairy Tales, Mr. Peabody, etc.) IIRC each show had two episodes of R&B, so a complete set should have 163 shows with two R&B episodes each.
Assuming a runtime of 23 minutes each, RB2 can’t possiibly have all the episodes. RB1 could. In fact, just the 326 3.5 minute R&B episodes would take 19-something hours to watch.
This all makes me wonder why it’s not available for streaming. Who actually owns the rights, and what’s stopping them from freeing it up? Is it something like the music rights, like with WKRP?
