The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Yes, it’s true, those notorious No-Goodniks from Pottsylvania, Boris Badenov (Jason Alexander) and Natasha Fatale (Rene Russo) are back, and as usual are up to no good. This time they have managed to break the secret code and make the leap from their cartoon existence into the real world. Led by the criminal mastermind Fearless Leader (Robert De Niro), Boris and Natasha have devised a plot to take over the world…and while they’re at it, get rid of moose and squirrel.

Those villainous spies have fought tirelessly to rid the world of their longtime foes from Frostbite Falls, better known to millions of adoring fans around the world as Rocky and Bullwinkle, but the dim-witted duo have managed to escape the clutches of Boris and Natasha through sheer tenacity and cunning intuition—okay, so maybe they just got lucky. But back to the story…Teaming up with a rookie F.B.I. agent, Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo), our eponymous heroes will once again come face to face…or face to snout with their dreaded nemeses.

But first Rocky and Bullwinkle must blend into the real world—hardly an easy task for a 400-pound talking moose and a squirrel who thinks he can fly (no offense guys).

Now it is up to them to foil Fearless Leader’s evil plot to unseat the President of the United States, President Signoff (James Rebhorn), through the creation of a new, omniscient, mindless TV network, RBTV (no, not Rocky & Bullwinkle Television, but Really Bad Television), which will hypnotize the entire population by election day (what can we say, this is Hollywood).

Yes, Rocky & Bullwinkle, our hapless heroes are back at it again, only this time the stakes are much higher. Has evil finally met its match? Well, at least it has met its moose.

Universal Pictures presents, in association with Capella/KC Medien, a Tribeca Production of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a live-action/animated extravaganza directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff (The Who’s Tommy) and starring Rene Russo (The Thomas Crown Affair), Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Randy Quaid (National Lampoon’s Vacation), Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson (Nickelodeon’s Good Burger), screen newcomer Piper Perabo and Robert De Niro. Kenneth Lonergan’s (You Can Count on Me) original screenplay was inspired by the classic television series developed by Jay Ward. Tribeca partners Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal produced the film, with Tiffany Ward and David Nicksay serving as executive producers.

Legendary cartoon vocalist June Foray, who originated the voice of Rocky in all 326 TV episodes, is the voice of Rocky and Australian comedian-mimic Keith Scott voices both Bullwinkle and the film’s omnipresent, wry Narrator.

The behind-the-scenes crew for The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle includes: cinematographer Thomas Ackerman, A.S.C. (George of the Jungle); production designer Gavin Bocquet (Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace); OscarÒ -nominated film editor Dennis Virkler (Batman Forever); composer Mark Mothersbaugh (Rushmore); and costume designer Marlene Stewart (Space Jam).

Rocky and Bullwinkle, grace the screen through the pioneering wizardry of the Academy AwardÒ -winning Industrial Light & Magic with David Andrews (Mars Attacks!) as animation supervisor and Roger Gyuett (Saving Private Ryan) as visual effects supervisor.

The film also features: John Goodman (The Flintstones) as a highway patrolman who temporarily disrupts FBI agent Sympathy’s quest; Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost) as Judge Cameo, who presides over a trial at which Bullwinkle acts as defense council; Billy Crystal (Analyze This) as a Chicago mattress salesman; and Janeane Garofalo (Mystery Men) as Phony Pictures Studio executive Minnie Mogul, who accidentally brings the trio of villains from the reel world into the real world.

In addition, a number of notable performers make cameo appearances, including: Carl Reiner (The Dick Van Dyke Show) as Mogul’s boss, P.G. Biggershot; David Alan Grier (In Living Color) as Measures, the President’s campaign manager; and Jonathan Winters (The Andy Williams Show) in a trio of roles that includes an old-time farmer who helps moose and squirrel escape from the inept Pottsylvanian spies.

A CARTOON LEGACY

The characters of Rocky and Bullwinkle and their bumbling, ineffectual adversaries, Boris and Natasha, first appeared in Jay Ward’s series Rocky and His Friends on ABC-TV’s afternoon lineup on November 19, 1959. In 1961, the program (renamed The Bullwinkle Show), moved to NBC’s primetime Sunday schedule, and finally landed on NBC’s Saturday morning slot before the new shows ended in 1964. The series returned to ABC in reruns from 1964-73, and since that time has remained a television staple in syndicated or cable reruns. The original episodes currently air on The Cartoon Network.

In addition to the adventures of the plucky squirrel and the droll moose, Ward’s half-hour program (326 episodes in all) also included such popular segments as Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop’s Fables, Peabody’s Improbable History, The Adventures of Dudley Do-Right and Bullwinkle’s Corner. Each 30-minute program was book-ended with a 3 1/2-minute installment featuring the antics of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

"My father’s animation was really a comic strip brought to life," daughter Tiffany Ward and one of the film’s executive producers observes. "In creating the first cartoon ever for television, Crusader Rabbit, Jay Ward and a childhood friend, Alex Anderson, came up with this concept of taking a comic strip, keeping the backgrounds kind of the same and having very limited (character) movement. They subscribed to the concept that the animation could be very simplistic, and that the writing was the most important thing."

"The key to Rocky & Bullwinkle was that sharp, witty writing," Ward continues. "You had to pay attention to the words in the script to get it all. As my dad always envisioned it, the adults would get all the jokes, and the kids would get the joy of seeing a moose and a squirrel with those incredible voices. He also said he was writing for adults and the kids would get it. He didn't believe in talking down to children. He thought you should put intelligence out there and have the kids reach to grasp it."

June Foray, the incomparable vocal talent who originated the boyish, chipper voice of our heroic squirrel (as well as other Ward characters like Natasha, Dudley Do-Right’s girlfriend Nell and Ursula of George of the Jungle), echoes Ward, saying, "It was an adult series that really wasn’t intended for children. But, there was no condescension to children. They loved it because of the funny situations, the strange voices, and because Boris and Natasha always got their comeuppance. Kids also wondered why their parents laughed when they weren’t laughing. The parents got the jokes and the puns."

Ward is overwhelmed by the amount of fan support for Rocky & Bullwinkle, which borders on cult status. Last year the series celebrated its 40th anniversary on American television, a landmark in itself, and a fitting tribute for an American classic.

"I once heard a statistic that 93 percent of Americans knew who Bullwinkle was," Ward says. "What a great honor for my father to have as a legacy...to have created and developed something that so many people know."

Upon Ward’s death in 1989, his only daughter (who grew up in the house that Moose and Squirrel built), assumed the duties of preserving the legacy of Jay Ward, along with her mother, Ramona Ward. She decided, as a tribute to her father, to bring the characters into a realm that he had never taken them. When Ward’s daughter first met producers Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro in 1992, they pitched her on a feature film based on the original cartoon series. Rosenthal, who has been partnered with the two-time OscarÒ -winning actor De Niro (Raging Bull, The Godfather Part II) in Tribeca Productions since 1988, first had the idea to pursue a feature adaptation after receiving a boxed-set of Rocky & Bullwinkle videos from her husband.

"I watched the show as a kid, and from a child’s perspective, I just enjoyed the little squirrel and the big dumb moose," Rosenthal remarks. "But when I saw the videos again, I realized how incredibly smart and sophisticated the satire was in each episode, which you missed completely as a kid."

Rosenthal continues, "It’s charming, topical, savvy and funny, and after doing movies with gangsters, serial killers and such, we finally found something that we could do for our kids. That’s what convinced us to try this as a feature."

Rosenthal, a successful production executive at several studios and networks prior to co-founding Tribeca, was determined to land the movie rights to the enterprise when she visited Los Angeles on business in 1992. She landed at LAX and immediately visited the Dudley Do-Right Emporium on Sunset Boulevard. Opened by Jay Ward in 1971, it was the first character-oriented retail outlet outside of Disneyland.

"I walked into the Dudley Do-Right Emporium and it was then that I knew Rocky & Bullwinkle could be a live-action/animated movie," Rosenthal recalls. "I really didn't have a story idea other than taking these characters from the ‘60s into the contemporary world."

Fortunately for Rosenthal, Ward and her family had been exploring the possibilities of a movie for the lovable cartoon characters since 1991 when they first began their association with Universal Studios (where Rocky and Bullwinkle can be seen roaming the grounds of the studio’s hugely popular theme park and CityWalk attraction in Los Angeles). In bringing these cartoon characters from the small screen into movie theaters, Rosenthal and Ward first approached some of the show’s original writers for story ideas.

"The old writers really couldn't see this as a live-action movie, just didn't get the concept," Ward remembers. "I also had a number of concerns, particularly regarding Boris and Natasha now that the Cold War was over, and how were we going to bring Rocky and Bullwinkle from the ‘60s into the ‘90s?"

Last seen in 1964, what had these beloved characters been doing the last 35 years? The possibilities were endless, and Rosenthal recruited New York playwright Kenneth Lonergan for the daunting task. The screenwriter responsible for such box office hits as Analyze This and award-winning plays like This Is Our Youth and The Lobby, Lonergan set out to pen his first draft, hoping to echo the voice of Ward’s original shows.

"My audition for the writing job was to come up with an idea for the movie version of the TV show," Lonergan relates. "Jane and I both pitched it to Tiffany and Universal and they liked it, and now five years later here we are."

In writing his script, Lonergan managed to capture the flavor and spirit of Rocky & Bullwinkle, peppering the script with ubiquitous puns while satirizing such sacred institutions as the U.S. Presidency, higher education, movie executives and television.

"I watched the show when I was little and looked at several episodes to at least imitate it," he relates. "I tried to do what Ward did...and tried to be faithful to certain aspects of the show. Hopefully I got some of that in the movie."

Guiding the entire enterprise was another stage veteran, two-time Tony Award-winning director McAnuff, one of the theatre’s most honored talents over the past two decades. The film marks his second behind the cameras following his feature debut on the 1998 black comedy Cousin Bette. And, McAnuff, whose second big screen effort improbably took him from Balzac to Bullwinkle, is no stranger to reinventing icons, having been honored with Tonys for his memorable stagings of the Huck Finn-inspired musical Big River and his distinctive reincarnation of The Who’s famous rock opera Tommy.

"I’ve always had a real penchant for pop culture and rock-and-roll," the Canadian-born talent explains. "And, while The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle isn't exactly rock-and-roll, there’s some kind of cartoon parallel. We parachute these two pop icons from the Cold War into our own age."

McAnuff continues, saying, "As with the old series, there’s many levels of satire and irony that have to do with current events and how much the world has changed in 35 years."

McAnuff loved Rocky and Bullwinkle as a child, as many people did, so it was important to him that the script honored Ward’s creations.

"I was very enthusiastic about Kenny’s writing, as it was a very smart script," he says. "It combined different kinds of comedy, from farce to satire to the very broad comedies of manners, and Jay Ward’s aesthetic was to combine a lot of those layers. That’s what most interested me."
BRINGING A CARTOON TO LIFE

Now the question on everyone’s minds was who could possibly embody the former Miss Transylvania Natasha Fatale and fellow No-Goodnik Boris Badenov on the big screen?

Rosenthal admits, "In terms of Natasha, there were some obvious choices, but Rene wasn’t the most obvious. When Kenny and I were working on the script, we had always envisioned Rene in some way, so we were thrilled to find out she was interested."

"At the table reading, I was so nervous," Russo recalls. "I walked in the door and there was June Foray. She did the original voice of Natasha and I thought, ‘Oh good, they have June here to make me look like an idiot. I asked June if she could read a couple of lines for me, and she did, she was so gracious. So I got the accent down, the Russian accent, for which I lowered my voice."

And there were just a handful of people who could emulate Boris in a real specific way," continues Rosenthal, "but when we looked around, Jason was our first and only choice."

As the resident villain, "the world’s greatest No-Goodnik," who has never quite been able to rid the world of Moose and Squirrel (poor schnooknik!), the role of Badenov presented Alexander with quite a challenge.

"It was very hard to work with Rene. She’s very tall, and I find that difficult," jokes Alexander, who may have been born to play the bumbling European rogue. "Actually, we were like two little kids. It was very similar to working with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Seinfeld, the difference being that Julia and I had nine years of rapport. Rene and I had about nine weeks!"

Russo compares their pairing to, "a classic comedy team. Jason’s just so easy to work with, so responsive. If I did something improvised, he was right there. He’s great with improvisation. When we started the first day, I realized we were good together, that we played it well together, and that was fun!"

Alexander continues, "It was a very nice, easy, loose, fun relationship. And, thank God, because we we’re joined at the hip for the entire film."

The role of the demonic dictator—one of the nastiest villains in the history of children’s television—whose plan for world domination hinges on the elimination of Rocky and Bullwinkle and the creation of a TV network so awful, that its programming will vegetate viewers, was not an obvious choice for De Niro.

"When we developed the project, I always told Bob, ‘You can be Fearless Leader,’ just thinking that it could be a role that he could have fun with," Rosenthal admits. "Remember, a number of actors had done the Batman movies and Dick Tracy, and Bob always thought it would have been fun to do those kinds of characters, cartoon-like roles. So, I guess we always had him in mind.

Like his fellow actors, De Niro had limited interaction opposite his invisible co-stars. "Actually, Boris and Natasha were pretty fortunate in that we didn't have too much exchange with Rocky and Bullwinkle," Alexander submits. "You know, stage training kind of prepares you for that. If you’re doing monologues, talking to people that aren’t really there, it’s not that daunting."

"I’ve had some experience with material like this," Alexander continues. "I don’t know that Bob ever has, so for him, it was a whole new world and maybe required more effort for him to be silly. I can be silly at the drop of a hat. And, my reputation was not on the line. His was, so I think he was a little "verklempt" as we say. But we had a really fun time with him. He did become a rather imposing Fearless Leader."

Adds Russo, "I was fortunate because I got to do most of my work with Jason and Robert. I think the harder work was for Piper, probably because she had most of the work to do with Rocky and Bullwinkle."

Piper Perabo, who plays idealistic FBI agent Karen Sympathy, had the daunting task, in her first starring role, of not only performing opposite the film’s animated stars who would not be added to the frame until the film’s post-production period, but sharing the screen with another legend, OscarÒ -winner De Niro.

The New Jersey native had, up to this juncture, appeared in only one other movie, the comedy White Boys. "After I auditioned, I asked who else was involved," Perabo recalls. "And I heard De Niro, and I thought I’d never get it. When I did, I just freaked. To be a young actor and work with Bob was incredible...to talk to him about how he prepares and breaks down a scene was amazing!"

Regarding her scenes opposite her unseen co-stars, she explains, "First, we went to the storyboard, then we (rehearsed) with puppets. A lot of the time, the ILM guys would stand in for Rocky and Bullwinkle and act the scene out with me, especially if Rocky and Bullwinkle were off-camera for a scene. They would rehearse with me, walking around like Bullwinkle and even talking like him. Once we did it a bunch of times, we just took everything away and did (the scene) with nothing there."

Perabo’s character also has a relationship with the audience, in that she talks to the camera and they go through the journey with her.

"Befriending the audience is a lot of what Karen’s about," she says. "She’s also a real person, not a cartoon like Boris and Natasha. But that kind of cartoon was in the air, and it was fun to be a person who felt the zaniness around her."

But how do Boris and Natasha actually get out of the cartoon and into the live-action?

According to Alexander, "We as cartoon characters entice a movie executive into the notion that we could take over the world and that she would have the exclusive films rights to us doing that. We have to sign a contract. When she pushes the contract through the television screen, we grab it, and as she pulls it out, we come flying out with it, in the flesh."

Once Aleaxander, Russo, De Niro and Perabo had signed on, it gave the production "a seal of approval," as Rosenthal says, and a number of actors clammored to become involved.

The talented ensemble who signed on included: by Randy Quaid as the hard-nosed FBI Director ‘Cappy’ von Trappment, who is determined to undermine Fearless Leader’s dastardly plan; and Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson as Martin and Lewis, students at Bullwinkle’s alma mater Wossamotta U, who come to the aid of the FBI, the squirrel and the moose.
WALKING THE WALK AND TALKING THE TALK

Director McAnuff enlisted a longtime colleague, dialect coach Tim Monich, to accentuate the Pottsylvanian speech that Ward’s vocal cast created for the original cartoon villains. It was a unique sound which McAnuff hoped to echo in his big screen adaptation, and one that voice actor Keith Scott says, "was never really spoken on the show. The Pottsylvanian speech was kind of a broken mock Russian."

As the producers expected, Russo turned out to be very funny on camera, as well as

a very good dialectician. Even with acclaimed comedic roles in Get Shorty and Tin Cup, McAnuff declares, "I’d never seen Rene do anything quite like this. We all fell madly in love with her on the set because she’s so gracious and so gorgeous, just stunningly beautiful. She’s all arms and legs, which was perfect for Natasha."

"The script’s clever, an intelligent comedy and I loved that," Russo states. "The first thing I thought about was Natasha and her clothes, the hair and make-up. I just thought it was a great opportunity to do a different look. And that look was really important for the movie...a little contemporary without losing (the character). I think she looks exactly like she does in the animated world. We copied her identically."

Russo reunited with the veteran fashion make-up/hair stylists Shane Paish and Enzo Angileri with whom she worked on The Thomas Crown Affair, to transform the big screen beauty into the lovable European seductress. Like De Niro, Russo endured a daily three-hour application to become the Transylvanian temptress, a design the popular actress calls "my drag queen look."

"I thought the character should have a little bit of a fashion edge to her," Russo observes, "so I asked for Enzo and Shane. They were the best team for her look since they’re used to doing a lot of fashion and runway work. And Marlene Stewart is so talented. She came in and showed me her designs which were just spectacular."

"Rene used to be a model, so she knew how to work everything," contends Stewart, who has dressed everyone from Madonna to Cher to Bette Midler. "With models, you can put them in a paper bag and they work it. She had a great sense of clothing and shape and design and fashion, so she played with some of our ideas. She had a lot to pull off with the gloves, the hats, the bags and the wigs."

"Natasha was always quite the fashion maven," the costumer continues. "Her basic outfit was one particular dress, that purple dress. We spent months dyeing fabrics before we decided on the correct shade. We went through about 50 shades of purple, and the right shade also had to fit into the production design. Another logistical challenge was to get that dress to look different in every scene. For each scene I had to design a humorous interpretation of her basic uniform dress."

Don Corleone. Jake LaMotta. Travis Bickle. Max Cady. Fearless Leader? To create one of his most original portrayals in an unforgettable gallery of great characters, De Niro once again worked with longtime associate, make-up artist Ilona Herman. The veteran makeup magician, who has collaborated with De Niro for over a decade, once again spun her magic on the performing purist, spending between 3-4 hours daily to physically transform him into the Pottsylvanian despot.

"Bob was very, very, very involved," Stewart enthuses about her collaboration with De Niro. "He’s a real detailed actor which is quite a wonderful thing for a costume designer. Bob feels that costumes help discover the character and it was a great opportunity to work with him on that level."

Stewart’s designs for the character encompassed Fearless Leader’s imperial uniform as well as a series of snazzy suits that the costumer compares to "something you might have seen Clark Gable wear in the ‘30s. They had a very elegant gangster look, very stylized, but a bit more dark and mysterious. And, everything was monogrammed."

While Lonergan’s storyline gave Stewart the opportunity to design clothes that were unique to the movie, she also created a uniform that was close to the cartoon cels.

"In my research, I created a visual library by printing out frames of the cartoon series and studying them. I tried to figure out what the animators were thinking. I did this with each character and got a sense of the cartoon world they were in."

Stewart also worked closely with the hair and make-up departments because, "Bob was trying his prosthetics while sampling my costume designs. In the cartoon he was bald, and for the film we wound up with what I describe as a Valentino mohawk. The military hat fit completely over it, giving the appearance of baldness."

Ward reflects, "As we moved into the live-action portion of the shoot, we tried our best to keep the characters completely true to the originals, and they looked almost identical. Natasha was always wearing the purple dress. Here, it was accessorized with layers of scarves or sunglasses."
FROM CEL TO CELLULOID

In launching their search for the right movie magicians to animate the top-billed characters, producers Rosenthal and Ward looked to the industry’s finest special effects experts, Industrial Light & Magic, to conceive the TV icons in an entirely new realm.

"This was a key element to me as to how Rocky and Bullwinkle were going to look now that there’s all this new technology," Ward states. "We’ve always seen them as 2-D characters. We wanted them to look very much like they did in the animated show, but we wanted to give them dimension."

The contributions of visual stylists David Andrews (animation supervisor) and Roger Guyett (visual effects supervisor) transcended the original show’s somewhat crude drawings. Both movie magicians began their contributions to the project during pre-production, with each joining the shooting crew for its entire 15-week live-action schedule. Once principal photography concluded in late May, the partners returned to ILM’s San Francisco base to begin their lengthy computer animation production.

According to Guyett, "We had about a year’s worth of work when we finally wrapped."

Andrews, a five-year ILM vet who supervised the animation on Small Soldiers and Mars Attacks! and was a computer graphics animator on Jumanji and Casper says, "You can’t have limited animation like the original show. It just won’t hold up to the live-action plate. You could compare this film to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but that still looks like a drawing, too. This will have more of a 3-D form to it."

Guyett adds, "People are used to looking at much more complex kinds of animation these days. The original was fairly limited animation with a particular look to it...two-dimensional animation that was hand-drawn or painted. With 3-D, you have a virtual camera inside the (computer) system that matches the camera used to shoot the actual photography. When they move around, the characters have much more of a sense of dimension, and are able to interact with objects or people within the scenes."

"Animation is composing a picture and getting a performance in that picture," Andrews conveys about his collaboration with his ILM colleague Guyett, who most recently completed similar chores on the Academy AwardÒ -winning Saving Private Ryan. "The visual effects aspect of the plate shoot is the layout for putting the animation in the frame. To be succinct, Roger is like the digital cinematographer and I’m the digital performer," Andrews adds.

While Andrews focused on creating personalities for the digitally-enhanced heroes, Guyett concentrated on the more logistical elements necessary to marry the live-action plate to the computerized characters.

"My job entailed integrating Rocky and Bullwinkle into the shots, what sorts of shadows they cast and how they would interact with the world around them," says Guyett.

Andrews and Guyett also supervised the key plate shots on the set which served as the background element, or layout, in terms of the animation.

"Back home, we did our animation layouts of the characters themselves, all the poses they would do," Andrews elaborates. "We composited them together with that background plate. After that, we put our computer graphics model, a virtual three-dimensional puppet, in there. Then we did a kind of stop-motion animation, a key frame animation technique, to bring them to life."

"We tried to find a way of updating the look of Rocky and Bullwinkle without losing the charm of the old ‘50s and ‘60s cartoon," Guyett continues. "Also, in the original cartoon, their screen time was limited. Now, we had to sustain the look and appeal of the characters across a much longer piece of work. It was really a fine balance...to bring them into the real world. We wanted to make it much more sophisticated than the original Jay Ward cartoon. But, sophistication doesn't necessarily mean that you lose the essence or charm of the original characters."

"Rocky and Bullwinkle are conglomerates of various artists," McAnuff offers, "almost like a multiple personality. Obviously, I’m involved. The writer was critically involved. There’s the actual animators at ILM. In terms of getting these performances, I worked closely with Dave Andrews."

McAnuff continues, "As the animation director, Dave often physicalized Bullwinkle on the set for us. There was Keith Scott, the voice of Bullwinkle, and June Foray, the voice of Rocky. All that effort is what gave us the opportunity to develop these characters."
HITTING THE ROAD

"The story of Rocky and Bullwinkle goes right back to the tradition of old Hollywood movies, road comedies like those of Hope and Crosby," notes McAnuff, in discussing the film company’s trek across the map during much of the production’s 15-week shooting schedule. "Rocky and Bullwinkle take this long and arduous journey from California to Oklahoma, through Monument Valley to the Midwest, and finally the Big Apple, New York City, where RBTV is located at Rockefeller Center."

Before hitting the road, McAnuff guided the first several weeks of filming on five sound stages at Universal Studios. The filmmaker worked closely with seasoned cinematographer Tom Ackerman, who is widely hailed as one of Hollywood’s foremost comedy cameramen. Ackerman’s credits, many of which involve lighting for CGI imagery, include Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, Joe Johnston’s imaginative Jumanji and another Ward-inspired live-action feature, George of the Jungle.

McAnuff also collaborated with production designer Gavin Bocquet, who most recently created the spectacular worlds for George Lucas’ hit prequel, Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace, and followed this project by reuniting with Lucas in Australia for the prequel’s second chapter.

One of the Brit’s inventive designs for this film was the RBTV Studios where Fearless Leader unleashes his plans for global domination. Occupying the entire perimeter of Universal’s Stage 16, the spectacular set included a wall of Toshiba video monitors, 48 in all, which became a huge video playback screen where Fearless Leader addresses the nation on Election Day.

Once filming concluded on the stage sets, the company began a nine-week, nine-county sojourn throughout southern, central and northern California. Although their travels didn't include a stopover in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, sites in the Golden State doubled for such far off places as Oklahoma, Illinois, Washington D.C. and (on the Universal backlot) the Big Apple. The company also went from an ‘Apple’ to an ‘Orange’—that is, the City of Orange, where the filmmakers spent eight days at Chapman College, a small liberal arts school that portrayed Bullwinkle’s alma mater of Wossamotta U. in the film.

According to veteran location manager Murray Miller (The Negotiator), "Chapman had the right architectural style, a quaint, small, Midwestern look. Wossamotta U. is supposed to be in Illinois. There’s a whole slew of four-year liberal arts colleges scattered around the Midwest like in Galesburg, Illinois and Beloit, Wisconsin. Chapman certainly had that sense to it. We were trying to recreate a Jay Wardesque kind of world." In keeping with that motif, Bocquet’s art department renamed all the campus buildings after Ward and some of his classic characters, like Peabody Hall, Aesop’s Library and "J" Ward Infirmary.

Another key location that figured into the production was the coastal town of Guadalupe in California’s Santa Ynez Valley, where some of the world’s best wine is produced. The filmmakers chose the site for its vintage movie theatre, the Royal, after looking at dozens of other small-town cinemas dotting the California landscape.

The Warner Bros.’ lot became Phony Pictures Studios after the art department redecorated the historic backlot with some signage and a front gate, and the production also shot for three days at Warner’s sister studio, Warner-Hollywood. The old Samuel Goldwyn Studios in West Hollywood is where Bocquet’s crew designed the infamous lighthouse so FBI agent Sympathy could ‘greenlight’ the project.

According to Alexander, "When my kids came to the set, they thought I looked very funny, a step in the right direction. We had these big three-dimensional cut-outs of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and they found them very appealing. The puns and double entendres ought to play for a grown-up audience while the kids sit there and go, ‘Oh, gosh, there’s a moose and a squirrel running around and these weird cartoon characters are now people’. It should deliver on both those levels."

"I don’t think there was a scene in the old cartoons that lasted more than 40 seconds," Alexander continues. "I’m pretty sure that’s the same here. I think it would be nigh impossible to keep the Rocky & Bullwinkle humor going for 90 minutes. But, there’s other stuff going on. I can’t anticipate it ever running out of steam. Kenny (Lonergan) did an amazing job finding a way to adapt that pace and style into a full-length piece. I’ll be sitting there on opening day with my popcorn and diet cola."

For the voice of the narrator, Keith Scott, who also works with Ward Productions as their historian and archivist (and has penned a comprehensive biography of the company, entitled The Moose That Roared, as well as assist in the mammoth restoration of the Bullwinkle film library), the project was a labor of love.

"This has become a real full-circle thing for me to end up doing this movie," he enthuses. "It’s kind of a dream come true that somebody from Australia is doing this moose in a Hollywood movie."

And Scott perhaps sums up the production best by saying, "It’s gonna be Rocky & Bullwinkle times 100, full of surprises and special effects...while staying true to the spirit of the original."
ABOUT THE CAST

RANDY QUAID’s (‘Cappy’ von Trappment) film career spans almost 30 years and over 40 features. His versatility is on display in a wide array of genres. He’s done comedy (Quick Change, three National Lampoon Vacation movies, the Farrelly Bros.’ Kingpin, The Debtors); drama (his OscarÒ -nominated role in The Last Detail, Bound for Glory, Midnight Express); westerns (The Long Riders, Missouri Breaks); and horror/sci-fi (Independence Day, Parents).

Not bad for a performer who began as a clown at Houston’s AstroWorld. The Texas native got his big break when director Peter Bogdanovich spotted him while a student at the University of Houston. Quaid won the role—his film debut—of Lester Marlow, the geek who escorts the ravishing Cybill Shepherd to a nude swimming party, in the OscarÒ -nominated The Last Picture Show. Quaid reprised the role in Bogdanovich’s 1990 sequel, Texasville, and also co-starred twice more for the director in Paper Moon and What’s Up, Doc?

His other film credits encompass Hard Rain, Bye, Bye Love, The Paper, Days of Thunder, Martians Go Home, Heartbeeps, The Choirboys, Breakout, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Bloodhounds of Broadway and Out Cold. His portrayal of kleptomaniac sailor Larry Meadows opposite Jack Nicholson in Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail earned Quaid an Academy AwardÒ nomination as Best Supporting Actor. He most recently starred in The Debtors, which marks the directorial debut of his wife, Evi Quaid.

On television, Quaid created a memorable portrait of President Lyndon Johnson in the NBC miniseries, LBJ: The Early Years, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. He collected a second Emmy nomination for his performance in ABC’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Other miniseries and telefilms include Frankenstein, Inside the Third Reich, Niagara, The Guyana Tragedy, Starkweather: Murder in the Heartland, Roommates, Showtimes’ Next Door and Of Mice and Men. Quaid also appeared as a series regular on Saturday Night Live and starred opposite Jonathan Winters in the sitcom, Davis Rules.

His stage credits include the New York and Los Angeles productions of Sam Shepard’s True West (opposite brother Dennis Quaid) and the Shakespeare-in-the-Park staging of The Golem at New York’s Delacorte Theatre.

KEL MITCHELL (Martin) hails from Chicago, where he received his training from the ETA Creative Arts Foundation in the areas of drama, dance and voice. Gaining much of his acting experience in local theatre productions, he made his television debut as a cast member of Nickelodeon’s children’s sketch comedy series, All That. On the show, he developed such characters as Ed, the ‘Good Burger’ guy, Coach Kreeton, Okrah and, with castmate Kenan Thompson, the elderly pair of Mavis and Clavis.

The 18-year-old talent also co-stars in The Kenan and Kel Show, the popular spin-off series about two best friends chasing after your normal teenage dreams. For his accomplishments, he won the 1997 CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, with the show itself garnering Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Award for Favorite Show. Also an aspiring rap artist, he can be seen in the video as Ed, the Good Burger guy on Immature’s single, Watch Me Do My Thing. He has also performed and composed the song, We’re All Dudes for the Good Burger soundtrack, and with Coolio on Aw, Here It Goes.

Mitchell made his movie debut in the Paramount comedy Good Burger (reprising the role of Ed) and co-starred as Invisible Boy, a role he created for Universal’s superhero comedy, Mystery Men, which also starred Geoffrey Rush, Ben Stiller and Greg Kinnear. He has also guest-starred on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and The Steve Harvey Show.

A native of Atlanta, 20-year-old KENAN THOMPSON (Lewis) began his acting career at the age of five playing the Gingerbread Man in a school play. From his kindergarten classroom to the silver screen, Thompson’s acting career has skyrocketed with roles such as Russ Tyler in D2: The Mighty Ducks, Heavy Weights with Ben Stiller and Good Burger with Nickelodeon partner, Kel Mitchell.

On Nickelodeon’s popular all-kid sketch comedy program, All That, Thompson has created such memorable characters as the Good Burger guy Dexter, Super Dude, Pierre Escargot, Ishboo, and, with fellow cast member Kel Mitchell, Mavis and Clavis. Thompson also stars in The Kenan and Kel Show, the successful spin-off series about two best friends chasing after your normal teenage dreams. The program received Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Award for Favorite Show.

Thompson’s other television credits include reporting for CNN’s Real News for Kids, co-hosting the ABC specials Night Crawlers and the Emmy-winning T-Rex.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle marks PIPER PERABO’s (Karen Sympathy) second big screen outing, following her feature debut in the Fox Searchlight comedy White Boys.

Next, Perabo will be top lining Jerry Bruckheimer’s Coyote Ugly. She portrays Violet, a girl who moves to New York to pursue a singing career and at night works at the legendary Coyote Ugly bar.

Perabo hails from Toms River, New Jersey. She studied her craft at the famous LaMama Theatre in New York City and at Ohio University, where she graduated in 1998 with a B.F.A. degree in acting. Her stage credits include Arms and the Man, Trinity, Antigone, Fool for Love, Our Town and Kindertransport.

JUNE FORAY (Voice of Rocky) gives rebirth to the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, the endearing cartoon hero created by Jay Ward. The legendary vocal talent originated the "honest, trustworthy, kind, gentle and good" voice of Rocky in 326 episodes of the network animated series upon its debut in 1959.

Widely regarded as one of the all-time great voice artists in the field of animation, Foray subscribes to the adage that "it’s better to be heard and not seen." Her versatile vocals have launched a thousand characters for such legendary animators as Walt Disney, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Walter Lantz, Bob McKimson and Ward. Hank Grant of the Hollywood Reporter called her "the first lady of off-camera voice actors."

In addition to bringing Rocky (and the squirrel’s feminine nemesis, Natasha Fatale) to life, Foray’s cast-of-character creations, encyclopedic in length, also includes Dudley Do-Right’s girlfriend, Nell, Ursula in George of the Jungle, Jokey Smurf of The Smurfs, Grammi Gummi in Gummi Bear Adventures, Magica De Spell and Ma Beagle in Duck Tales, the Fairy Queen in Thumbelina, Lena Hyena in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Grandma Howard in Teen Wolf, Mrs. Wilson in the new Dennis the Menace, Cindy Lou Who in The Grinch That Stole Christmas, Mavis the Witch in the 1999 Disney short Goofy’s Campfire Tales, several voices for the premiere episode of The Simpsons and, more recently, Grandmother Fa, the spunky kindred spirit, in Mulan. For the latter, she received a Grammy nomination for her work on the Read Through story recording for the film.

Not bad for someone who did not set out to specialize in voices. The Springfield, Massachusetts, native relocated with her family to Los Angeles in the 1930s. She first found work on radio programs such as Sherlock Holmes and Lux Radio Theatre, then onstage, in television and film, before her foray into voice recording almost a half-century ago. Capitol Records capitalized on her talents, hiring her to do children’s albums and comedy records with Stan Freberg. This led to her doing voices on movie soundtracks for Hollywood cartoons.

That exposure attracted the attention of Walt Disney, who soon signed her to play Lucifer the Cat in Cinderella, the Indian Squaw in Peter Pan and characters in innumerable shorts. Warner Bros. also employed her talents on dozens of shorts, including Witch Hazel, Tweety’s Granny, Yosemite Sam’s wife and Alice in The Honeymousers.

Her longtime collaboration with Ward continues to bring her much recognition, including a recent tribute at New York’s Museum of Television and Radio. Her global speaking engagements on the art of animation took her to Belgium in 1990, where she was honored with the Pegboard International Award from the A.S.I.F.A.

Not solely resting on her vocal laurels, Foray is a published writer, and recently signed a contract with Helion Records to write and narrate audio cassettes of her series of original children’s stories entitled Tall and Small Tales. She also wrote, produced and narrated the award-winning animated short film, You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks.

Foray has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1977 where she chaired the Short Films branch for 16 years and is still chairman of the Student Academy Awards. She is a past board member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, on the faculty of USC and the advisory board of the Cartoon Network. Currently she is on the International Board of Women in Animation.

KEITH SCOTT (Voice of Bullwinkle and the Narrator) is one of the world’s most accomplished voice mimics, with a repertoire of over 500 impersonations. The Australian native, enchanted since childhood with all the cartoon characters created by Jay Ward, first demonstrated his uncanny ability to duplicate the voice of Bullwinkle for Ward (and co-creator Bill Scott, no relation) back in 1973.

In the ensuing years, following the deaths of both Scott (in 1985) and Ward (in 1989), Keith Scott was welcomed into the Ward fold, and signed on as the new voice for many of these cartoon characters. Since his affiliation with Ward Productions (and product licensee, Universal Studios), Scott has recreated the voices of Bullwinkle, Boris Badenov and Dudley Do-Right for a variety of U.S. projects, both entertainment and corporate. These include EverReady Batteries, Taco Bell and Cheerios, the Bullwinkle sound effects library, and the vocal introductions to the newly repackaged Rocky & Bullwinkle and Friends TV package, among others. He also played the Narrator in Disney’s live-action adaptation of Ward’s George of the Jungle.

Scott also works with Ward Productions as their historian and archivist. His intimate knowledge of all the original cartoon episodes and historical recording sessions allows him to fine-tune any new projects to maintain the originals’ comic integrity and characterization. He has also penned a comprehensive biography of the company, entitled The Moose That Roared, which hits bookstores in 2000, and assisted in the mammoth restoration of the Bullwinkle film library.

In addition to his work with Ward Productions, Scott also represented Warner Bros. animation from 1990-96. Paying homage to another legendary vocal talent, Mel Blanc, Scott served as the official voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other Looney Tunes characters for the company in the Asia-Pacific market.

Scott began doing voice impersonations while a high school student in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. After winning a local movie trivia contest as a teenager, his prize included a trip to Hollywood. Taking the opportunity to meet his heroes, (in addition to Ward and Scott, such legendary vocal performers as Daws Butler and Paul Frees), he began a long-standing association with the R&B cartoonists upon his maiden voyage to the States. He briefly studied law at the University of Sydney, but eventually dropped the curriculum to turn his talents to his first love—animation. In addition to his 25 years as a voice-over artist in his homeland, Scott is also a published writer, and contributes to such genre publications as Animato and others.

JAMES REBHORN (President Signoff) has an impressive list of feature film credits, including: Snow Falling On Cedars, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Independence Day, Up Close and Personal, The Game, 8 Seconds, I Love Trouble, Carlito’s Way, Scent of A Woman, Lorenzo’s Oil, Guarding Tess, Regarding Henry, My Cousin Vinny, White Squall, If Lucy Fell, Basic Instinct, Silkwood, My Fellow Americans and Blank Check. He most recently completed filming roles in Pluto Nash, Meet The Parents, Scotland, PA and Last Ball.

On television, Rebhorn has had recurring roles on on Third Watch and Law & Order, and guest starred on the last episode of Seinfeld. He also appeared in Tom Hanks’ From the Earth to the Moon, HBO’s A Bright Shining Lie and Mistrial, and Sarah, Plain and Tall. He appeared as a series regular on the pilots Hopewell, Overseas and Under Fire.

The Philadelphia native, with a B.A. degree from Wittenberg University and an M.F.A. from Columbia, earned acclaim from the New York critics for his role as Doc Gibbs in the Tony Award-winning revival of Our Town. He was most recently seen in A.R. Gurney’s Far East and Ancestreal Voices, both at Lincoln Center. Other theater credits include Oblivion Postponed. Other theater credits include I’m Not Rappaport, Isn’t It Romantic, Life During Wartime and Nebraska, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

DES McANUFF (Director) is a two-time Tony Award-winner (Big River, The Who’s Tommy) who made his feature film directorial debut on the 1998 Fox Searchlight black comedy, Cousin Bette, starring Jessica Lange, Elisabeth Shue and Bob Hoskins.

A native of Toronto, Canada, McAnuff cut his teeth in the theatre as both a playwright and director. He first garnered acclaim for his play, Leave It to Beaver Is Dead, written while he was a student at Ryerson College. The original work won the Factory Lab Theatre Award for best play by a university student in 1973. Two years later, it received a full-blown theatrical staging at Toronto’s Theatre Second Floor before legendary producer Joseph Papp brought it to New York. The new version, directed by McAnuff for Papp’s N.Y. Shakespeare Festival, collected the SoHo Arts Award for best off-Broadway play for the 1978-79 season.

McAnuff relocated to New York City, where his career skyrocketed. He directed the Obie Award-winning production of The Crazy Locomotive at the Chelsea Theatre Center, where he became Associate Director and Literary Manager. In 1978, he co-founded the Dodger Theatre at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and directed the company’s first production, Gimme Shelter, for which he won the SoHo Arts Award as Best Director. For the Dodger troupe, he also staged Holeville, How It All Began and Mary Stuart, the latter two for Papp’s Public Theatre.

Continuing his affiliation with Papp, he directed Henry IV, Part One in Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre and was awarded a Rockefeller grant for his original play, The Death of Von Richthofen As Witnessed from Earth, which he staged at the Public and earned a SoHo Villager prize as Best Director.

In 1983, McAnuff moved west to become artistic director of the famed La Jolla Playhouse, where he remained until 1994. During his tenure there, the company won more than 200 awards for excellence including the 1993 Tony for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Committed to both the classics and new plays and musicals, McAnuff directed for the playhouse such projects as Romeo and Juliet, A Mad World, My Masters, As You Like It, The Seagull, Shout Up A Morning (also at the Kennedy Center), Gillette, The Matchmaker, A Walk in the Woods (also on Broadway), Two Rooms, 80 Days, Down the Road, Macbeth, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Elmer Gantry, Twelfth Night, Three Sisters, Fortinbras, and Much Ado About Nothing. He also executive produced the Broadway-bound Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman musical, Harmony, which premiered at La Jolla in 1997.

At La Jolla, he developed the original musical Big River, and took the Roger Miller show to Broadway, where it won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical and another for his direction. Working with composer Pete Townsend, he also developed, co-wrote a new book and directed the acclaimed adaptation of The Who’s Tommy, also taking it to the Great White Way, where it won five Tonys. For his work on the bold musical, McAnuff won his second Tony as well as the Drama Desk and Outer Circle Critics Awards. He also staged the musical in London, collecting an Olivier Award as Best Director, and in Toronto, where it won five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, including Best Director. His most recent Broadway triumph was the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really trying, for which star Matthew Broderick won a Tony Award.

McAnuff has directed for the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard, Yale Rep and the Stratford Festival of Canada. He continues as Director-in-Residence at La Jolla and is a former faculty member of the Juilliard School and the University of California, San Diego.

Before making his feature debut on Cousin Bette, McAnuff directed a 30-minute short entitled, Bad Dates, which starred Nancy Travis as a kindergarten teacher who stops eating and the impact her act has on her students. He also produced last year’s critically-acclaimed animated feature The Iron Giant.

KENNETH LONERGAN (Screenwriter) is a New York-based playwright whose works have been performed at such distinguished companies as Naked Angels, H.B. Playwright’s Foundation, Atlantic Theatre Company, Manhattan Punchline, The Royal Court Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the annual Young Playwright’s Festival at Circle Rep. His play The Rennings Children won the first Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1982.

His 1996 autobiographical dark comedy, This Is Our Youth, is currently running at off-Broadway’s Douglas Fairbanks Theatre. Produced by The New Group, the play has been nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Best Play. He is also under commission by Playwrights Horizon for an original stage work and recently completed the play The Lobby for an off-Broadway run this fall.

Lonergan’s motion picture work includes Tribeca’s hit comedy, Analyze This, directed by Harold Ramis and starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. He has also written The Lost Army, which Martin Scorsese will executive produce for Walt Disney Studios. He will compose the big screen adaptation of Sherman and Peabody, also based on Jay Ward’s classic cartoon. And, he made his feature film directorial debut on another of his original scripts, You Can Count on Me, with Matthew Broderick. The film, which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, garnered a Best Feature Award and the Waldo Salt screenplay honor for Lonergan.

Lonergan, the son of a doctor and psychiatrist, grew up in Manhattan. He graduated from the prestigious Walden School before attending Wesleyan University. While working for the Shubert Organization, one of New York’s premiere theatrical producers, he took playwriting classes at Herbert Berghof’s HB Studio in Greenwich Village, and, later, graduated from New York University’s drama writing program.

JANE ROSENTHAL (Producer) has been partnered with Robert De Niro in Tribeca Productions and the Tribeca Film Center in New York since 1988. She oversees all aspects of project development and serves as producer with De Niro.

The company’s motion picture productions include Michael Apted’s Thunderheart, Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, Irwin Winkler’s Night and the City, the screen adaptation of Scott McPherson’s award-winning play, Marvin’s Room starring Meryl Street and Diane Keaton, Barry Levinson’s Oscar-nominated comedy, Wag the Dog starring Dustin Hoffman, De Niro and Anne Heche, and De Niro’s directorial debut, A Bronx Tale. Most recently, Rosenthal produced (with Paula Weinstein) the Harold Ramis comedy, Analyze This, which stars De Niro and Billy Crystal. Upcoming releases include Joel Schumacher’s drama, Flawless, with De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Ian Softly’s About A Boy.

For television, Tribeca has produced the NBC miniseries, Witness to the Mob and the critically-acclaimed FOX-TV series, Tribeca.

Considered one of the industry’s most dynamic executives, Rosenthal embraced movies and television as a child growing up in Providence, Rhode Island. After briefly attending Brown University, she relocated to New York and N.Y.U.’s highly-praised film school, where she graduated in 1977.

Her first job, as a researcher for CBS Sports in New York, was complemented with her involvement at the Actors Studio at night. Her interests in acting and producing flourished, and she subsequently supervised some of the studio’s workshops, including that of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Moving to Los Angeles following graduation, Rosenthal joined CBS to work on their in-house movie productions. During her five-year tenure, Rosenthal supervised production on such acclaimed telefilms as Gideon’s Trumpet starring Henry Fonda and Louis Gossett, Jr., Silences of the Heart, Thursday’s Child, Memorial Day, The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck and The Burning Bed.

She next spent a year at Universal Pictures as vice president of feature production before joining Walt Disney Studios as vice president of motion pictures and television. Her credits at Disney include The Good Mother with Diane Keaton, Chris Columbus’ directorial debut, Adventures in Babysitting and Scorsese’s The Color of Money.

Her collaboration with Scorsese on that 1986 Oscar-winner led to an introduction to De Niro, who was looking for a partner to help create and operate a Manhattan-based film center. Prior to founding Tribeca, Rosenthal worked at Warner Bros. as vice president of movies and miniseries.

JAY WARD (Producer of Rocky & Bullwinkle -- 1920-1989), developed the original animated TV series Rocky and His Friends for ABC television in 1959. The program, renamed The Bullwinkle Show, moved to prime time on NBC in 1961. The new shows ended in 1964, then returned to ABC from 1964-73 in reruns. The have remained a television staple in reruns in syndication or on cable since 1973.

Ward was one of the pioneers of animation produced expressly for television. He began his cartoon career with Crusader Rabbit in 1949, the first cartoon made for the new medium. In 1959, Ward and Bill Scott partnered in producing Rocky and His Friends. Lacking the visual lushness of big screen animation, Ward supplemented his shows with scripts peppered with clever puns, subversive humor and political and social satire. In addition to the animated antics of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and his antlered sidekick, Bullwinkle the Moose, Ward’s 163 half-hour shows also featured such segments as Aesop’s and Son, Fractured Fairy Tales, Peabody’s Improbable History, Bullwinkle’s Corner, Mr. Know-It-All and the adventures of the heroic mountie, Dudley Do-Right.

Ward’s other cartoon creations include Hoppity Hooper, (1964-65, ABC) and George of the Jungle (which Disney made into a hit film of the same name, starring Brendan Fraser), Tom Slick and Superchicken (1967-68, ABC). He also produced the live-action show, Fractured Flickers, and two feature film documentaries, The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy and The Golden Age of Buster Keaton.

Ward was born in Berkeley and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley before earning his M.B.A. at Harvard. After serving in the U.S. Army during WWII, he began a career in real estate in 1947. While recuperating from severe injuries suffered in a freak trucking accident, he turned his focus to a new emerging medium, television, and animation. He sold Crusader Rabbit to television in 1949. He later formed Jay Ward Productions, Inc., in Los Angeles in 1958, where lifesize statues of Rocky and Bullwinkle still stand on Sunset Blvd.

TIFFANY WARD (Executive Producer) grew up in the house that Moose and Squirrel built as the middle child and only daughter of Jay Ward. Born in Berkeley, California, she moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1959 when Rocky and His Friends debuted on ABC. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCLA with a B.A. degree and earned her graduate diploma from Chapman College in southern California.

Prior to her father’s death in 1989, Ward was a housewife and full-time mother. She then assisted her mother, Ramona Ward, with the family business before becoming managing director of Ward Productions in 1990. Under her guidance, the company entered into a six division licensing arrangement with Universal Studios for the characters in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Friends. Universal just completed filming on the live-action adaptation of Ward’s cartoon creation, Dudley Do-Right, starring Brendan Fraser, on which Ward served as a consultant.

Ward Productions also developed a partnership with the Walt Disney Company, resulting in the production and release of the hit 1997 live-action feature, George of the Jungle, which also starred Fraser and on which she also served as a consultant. Tiffany Ward also oversees three studio properties in Hollywood, Dudley Do-Right’s Emporium (founded in 1971) and Original Scene cel animation distribution. She also manages the rights to several other Ward properties, including the characterizations of Tom Slick, Hoppity Hooper, Superchicken and Fractured Flickers.

DAVID NICKSAY (Executive Producer) has served in a variety of production capacities, including independent producer, studio production exec and executive producer, in his two-plus decades in the entertainment arena.

A native of Massachusetts, Nicksay graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, where he was a performing arts major. Following an affiliation with one of America’s oldest entertainment institutions, Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, he began his career in Hollywood as part of the Director’s Guild of America training program. He honed his production skills on such projects as Raid on Entebbe, Rich Man, Poor Man, Oh, God!, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training and How the West Was Won, among others, and quickly moved up from assistant director to unit production manager to film producer.

In 1986, Nicksay joined Paramount Pictures as Vice President of Production, moving up to Senior V.P. the next year. During his tenure at Paramount, he oversaw a diverse slate of films, including Scrooged, Coming to America, Ghost, The Two Jakes, The Untouchables and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Three years later, he joined Morgan Creek Productions as President and Head of Production, departing the company three years later to return to the freelance production ranks. His affiliation with Morgan Creek resulted in executive producer duties on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton, Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith, Young Guns II, Freejack, Stay Tuned and White Sands.

On the big screen, Nicksay produced the 1986 coming-of-age film, Lucas the 1996 drama, Up Close and Personal, starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the true-life drama, Mrs. Soffel starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. As an executive producer, his credits include such hit films as the comedy sequel, The Addams Family Values, the Robin Williams’ hit comedy, Flubber, and the highly-acclaimed thriller, The Negotiator, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. He most recently served in the same capacity on the sequel, Jumanji 2.

THOMAS ACKERMAN, A.S.C. (Director of Photography) grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his father worked as a movie projectionist. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in speech and dramatic arts before joining the U.S. Air Force as an officer assigned to the motion picture detail, where he honed his craft on training films and combat documentaries.

Upon his discharge, he worked for Charles Guggenheim in Washington, D.C., shooting and editing corporate films, documentaries and political pieces for the Democratic Party, including the George McGovern presidential campaign film in 1972.

A subsequent move to Los Angeles landed him work on low-budget features and music videos (for such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Pat Benetar, Heart and Stevie Nicks). He worked as a camera operator for acclaimed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on several occasions, including Francis Coppola’s One from the Heart, before moving up the ranks on such early projects as Roadhouse 66, Back to School and Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Widely hailed as one of the industry’s foremost comedy cinematographers, Ackerman has guided the camera work on such hit comedies as Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, George of the Jungle, Jumanji, My Favorite Martian and Dennis the Menace. He most recently collaborated with director Albert Brooks on The Muse and also counts among his feature credits Baby’s Day Out, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Burton’s directorial debut, Frankenweenie.

Ackerman is also a prominent TV commercial director-cinematographer for accounts including Chevrolet, BMW, Coca-Cola, Revlon, Anheuser-Busch, Jordache, McDonald’s, Hertz and many others.

GAVIN BOCQUET (Production Designer) designed the eagerly awaited Star Wars prequel entitled Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace, reuniting with filmmaker George Lucas. Prior to his most recent credit, he collaborated with Lucas as production designer on his 1994 production, Radioland Murders and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction for his designs on Lucas’ acclaimed television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He reunited with Lucas immediate following his duties on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle for the next epsiode of the Star Wars saga.

Bocquet’s career in art direction began not long after studying design at Newcastle Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art in London. The English native commenced his career as an art department draftsman on such feature films as David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and, again with Lucas, Return of the Jedi. Four years later, he graduated to assistant art director on Return to Oz and Barry Levinson’s Young Sherlock Holmes. He next collaborated with his mentor, Stuart Craig, on Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom.

He worked with Norman Reynolds in 1987 on Steven Spielberg’s epic, Empire of the Sun, then reteamed with Craig the next year on Dangerous Liaisons, for which Craig won the Oscar for Best Art Direction. He also served as art director on Erik the Viking before earning his first credit as production designer on the English television series, Yellowthread Street. His first feature credit was Steven Soderbergh’s drama, Kafka.

DENNIS VIRKLER, A.C.E. (Film Editor) received Academy AwardÒ nominations for his work on The Hunt for Red October in 1990 and Andrew Davis' The Fugitive in 1993. More recently, Virkler edited The Devil's Own, starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, and Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman & Robin before reuniting with Davis on his hit thriller, A Perfect Murder.

His first motion-picture editing credit was the 1976 horror film Burnt Offerings. Since then, he has edited such films as Michael Apted’s Continental Divide and Gorky Park, The River Rat, Davis’ action hit, Under Siege, Freejack, Secret Admirer, Airplane II and others. His television credits include a dozen telefilms and a pair of episodes of the HBO anthology series, Tales from the Crypt.

Virkler was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Santa Monica, California. After working as a studio guard and teamster at 20th Century Fox, he entered the apprenticeship program of the editor’s union. Before cutting film, Virkler worked as a music and sound effects editor at Fox.

Most recently MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) worked on her designs for Gone in 60 Seconds while also overseeing the vast costuming of Jerry Bruckheimer’s Coyote Ugly. She also worked for the producer last year on his hit film Enemy of the State.

Stewart has also designed the costumes for The X-Files, The Saint, The Phantom, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, True Lies, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The River Wild, Falling Down, JFK, The Doors, Truth or Dare, Siesta and others.

Before turning to entertainment, Stewart designed contemporary women’s clothing for her own label, which sold in the United States and abroad. During this time, she met and began an association with singer/songwriter Madonna, collaborating with her to create a look that would inspire an entire generation. She worked on 11 of her music videos, including Vogue, Express Yourself, Like A Prayer and Material Girl, and on four of her concert tours.

Stewart has also helped to create many of the influential looks that marked the beginning of the fashion and music video movement, designing costumes for live shows by Cher, as well as videos for Smashing Pumpkins, Mick Jagger, Bette Midler, Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Debbie Harry and The Eurythmics, among others.

Born in Boston, Stewart graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in European history. After living in Europe for several years, she returned to New York and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she studied pattern making, but soon transferred to the Los Angeles Fashion Institute before starting her own business.

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH (Composer) made his first impact on mass consciousness as singer/keyboardist/conceptualist for DEVO, generating many hit songs and albums and providing inspiration for much of the electronic music to emerge in its' wake. He has also lent his talents to commercial sound design, providing music for over 300 television commercials and winning a Clio Award, and scoring for television, most memorably for Pee Wee's Playhouse and MTV's Liquid Television.

Four years ago, Mothersbaugh began to focus his musical energies on scoring for feature films, and his credits in this realm include the #1 hit Rugrats: The Movie; Rushmore, All The Rage, Bottle Rocket, The Last Supper, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Happy Gilmore.

Founded in 1975 by George Lucas, INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC (Animation & Special Visual Effects) is the leading effects facility in the world, serving the motion picture, commercial production and attraction industries. For over two decades, ILM has set the standard for visual effects, creating some of the most stunning images in the history of film. Now at the forefront of the digital revolution, ILM continues to break new ground in visual effects.

ILM has created visual effects for over 100 feature films, including Saving Private Ryan, Small Soldiers, Deep Impact, Men in Black, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Twister, Mission: Impossible, Dragonheart, Jumanji, Casper, Forrest Gump, The Mask, Jurassic Park, Death Becomes Her, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, the Star Wars trilogy and such recent releases as The Mummy, The Wild, Wild West and Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace.

ILM has played a role in six of the top ten boxoffice hits of all time, winning 14 Academy AwardsÒ for Best Visual Effects and 14 Technical Achievement Awards. The company is currently working on The Mummy Returns and Pearl Harbor.

With its many technical and creative innovations, ILM has helped drive the evolution of visual effects. The company pioneered the development of motion control cameras, optical compositing and other advances in effects technology. Since the 1980s, ILM has led the way in the use of computer graphics and digital imaging in feature films, developing breakthrough software techniques such as Morfing, enveloping and film input scanning.

Today, ILM features the largest and most advanced digital effects system in the entertainment industry. ILM is constantly expanding the possibilities of digital imagery. Their ability to merge photo-realistic digital images with live-action footage is unmatched in the film industry.

DAVID ANDREWS (Animation Supervisor) was born in Sarnia, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1982 with a B.A. in English and a minor in film studies. Shortly thereafter, Andrews saw the film Tron and decided he wanted to go to Sheridan College in Toronto to study computer graphics. While enrolled in Sheridan’s Classical Animation Program, Andrews made a student film Trouble With Joe, for which he won the Kodak Award.

In 1987, Andrews began a six-year period of freelance commercial animation, including positions as assistant director to Derek Lamb of the National Film Board and assistant director of a Saturday morning show for WDR-TV in Cologne, Germany. In 1992, he went back to Sheridan for the computer animation program, and in 1993 he moved to California to accept a position at Industrial Light & Magic. In March of 1998, Andrews completed work on his first film Tweet Tweet Sludge, a traditionally animated cartoon about birds and frogs living in an oil refinery. His additional film credits as an animator include: Small Soldiers (animation supervisor); Mars Attacks! (animation supervisor); Jumanji (computer graphics animator); Casper (computer graphics animator); and The Flintstones (computer graphics animator).

ROGER GUYETT (Visual Effects Supervisor) joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1994 to work on the groundbreaking computer animation in the film Casper. As a senior technical director, Guyett was a key member of the team that produced over 40 minutes of 3D character animation, marking the first time in cinematic history that a leading role was played by an entirely synthetic actor.

Guyett, born and raised in England, worked in the video and film post production industry for eight years. He supervised numerous award-winning commercial, television, and film projects for clients such a Ridley Scott and Amblin Entertainment. In 1993, Guyett moved to the United States when he was recruited by Pacific Data Images for his leadership and expertise in the animation and visual effects industry.

His additional film credits include: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (co-visual effects supervisor); October Sky (visual effects supervisor); Small Soldiers (plate photography supervisor); Saving Private Ryan (co-visual effects supervisor); Reach the Rock (visual effects supervisor); Speed 2: Cruise Control (associate visual effects supervisor); Mars Attacks! (digital effects supervisor); Twister (digital effects supervisor); and Dragonheart (senior technical director.

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