Dear splendid readers,
If the hardworking staff has told you once, we’ve told you one time that the name of Rocket J. Squirrel’s sidekick is Bullwinkle T. Moose.
The death of the great June Foray, who voiced Rocky, has resurfaced the issue. Before we get to that, though, respeck for the First Lady of Animated Voicing, via her New York Times obituary.
Often compared to Mel Blanc, the cartoon virtuoso who supplied the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, Ms. Foray cackled, chirped, meowed and sometimes sang her way through nearly 300 animated productions, often playing several parts at once with quick shifts of accent, dialect and personality. Her work, unlike that of Mr. Blanc, was often uncredited, particularly in her early years . . .
“June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc,” said Chuck Jones, the legendary animator who proposed her star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. “Mel Blanc was the male June Foray.”
Unfortunately, Ms. Foray’s Associated Press obit (which ran in both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald) included this paragraph.
“Rocky and His Friends” ran on ABC weekday afternoons from 1959 through 1961, and then “The Bullwinkle Show” was on NBC from 1961 to 1964, first in prime-time and later in daytime.
Besides Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel, the show featured such sequences as “Fractured Fairy Tales”; “Peabody’s Improbable History”; “Aesop and Son”; and “Adventures of Dudley Do- Right.”
No.
We say emphatically he was Bullwinkle T. Moose.
You, of course, have questions.
Question #1: Can 400,000 Google results and Wikipedia be wrong?
Answer: Absolutely.
Question #2: How can you be so sure?
Answer: First, it’s impossible to believe that the brilliant Jay Ward and Bill Scott would give two characters the same middle initial. Second, we can still hear – five decades later – Bullwinkle saying, T is for The(e).
Bonus visual evidence:
Trust us, folks: It’s Bullwinkle T. Moose.
Campaign Outsider 
It’s such a shame when people forget their shared history!
Ain’t it though.
It such a shame when people forget, or is that never got a chance to see, one of the best cartoon shows ever produced.
Amen, Mudge.
LOVE this (about Bullwinkle T. moose)! Well researched, totally enjoyable and, well–provable facts! A welcome break from the White House circus.
Thanks, D – hope your summer’s going well.
Boris (on the phone): It’s me, Fearless Leader, Boris Badenov.
F.L.: That’s impossible, Badenov was executed. It was in the paper. . . . Oh wait, that was tomorrow’s paper, my mistake . . .
That dialog was in the show. Did someone at the Harvard Law School Directory remember it?
Nothing would surprise me now, Robert.
During the 1990’s, we had a Siamese
Cat named Rocky. The rescued alley cat was named Bullwinkle. No middle names or initials. Rocky was the star. Bully lived up to his
name. I think that you are correct about the T.
As Bartles & Jaymes would say, thank you for your support.
Absolutely!! Bullwinkle T Moose!! His middle name is The!!
Thank you, Vinny
The “J” middle initial was NOT carelessness!
It was an intentional homage to Jay Ward, the creative genius of all the stories, to give both Rocky and Bullwinkle “J” as their middle initial!
Thanks for reading, Geneva C, but with all due respect: 1) I’m pushing 75 hard enough to break a wrist, to borrow from Raymond Chandler; 2) consequently, I was present at the creation of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends; and 3) I stand by my unalterable contention that it was Bullwinkle T. [“T – stands for thee’] Moose.
Very sorry, but you’ll see at the 5’20” mark here that he is indeed Bullwinkle J. Moose. His mailbox also has “BJM.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDCiWo1Lzvs
Thanks, William. I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree – see 15:58 of that video for Bullwinkle The Moose. (5:20 has a Fractured Fairy Tale, but the mailbox with B.J.M.does appear at 17:37.) Is it possible we’re both right?