According to a press release, Dreamworks will bring Mr. Peabody & Sherman to the big screen.
I’d like to say this is great news, but after the thudding disappointment that was Rocky & Bullwinkle…
Although the characters were charming, I’ve always found Peabody’s Improbably History to be one of the weaker segments of The Bullwinkle Show. For one thing, it’s a “formula cartoon-” every episode sticks to the same formula (Peabody and Sherman travel through time to meet a famous person. Famous person’s personality is extremely different from what it’s supposed to be. P&S help famous person discover and/or do whatever that person is supposed to be famous for. Peabody makes bad pun. The end). For another thing, the film would seem to fall into the same trap all big-screen TV adaptations do- it’s one thing to tell a story in seven minutes. How are you going to tell one in more than an hour based on such a thin premise?
I don’t seen why Hollywood has a need to make a movie out of every Jay Ward cartoon, but one thing that this has going for it is they might be able to do some interesting historical figures. (The series usually stuck to famous foreigners because the sponsors were nervous people might be offended by comedic depictions of George Washington and other well-known Americans.)
It’s been years since I saw that, but I thought that that film was a good tribute to the cartoon. And besides, you’ve got to love that Pottslyvanian TV show Three Wacky Spies and Their Horse Who Will Also Be A Spy.
I loved these guys. I really liked the episode where Mr. Peabody adopts Sherman.
When the judge OKs the adoption Sherman yells “Father!”
Peabody responds,
You will call me Mr. Peabody or sir or in less formal circumstances simply Peabody.
Then because boys need running room and they live in a Manhattan apartment Mr. Peabody invents the Wayback machine.
I enjoyed the movie, but it definitely lacked the nonstop zing of insanity that I loved from the original. The movie should have been paced like a Zucker film.
Or like George of the Jungle, which somehow got it right. I’m working my way through the season 2 DVD set, and Mr. Peabody is not as funny as I remembered. When the main cartoons hit their stride, sometime around show 9, they’re even funnier than I remember.
Okay, maybe you can answer this: I remember the Argonne Forest pun, but was there another pun that went ‘Oily to bed and oily to rise…’?