Roger Ramjet

Roger Ramjet was created in 1965 by Ken Snyder and brought to cel life by director Fred Crippen and voice actor Gary Owens. And, even if the animation was so static it became the butt of jokes to this very day, Roger´s adventures still owe more to the anarchy of Jay Ward and Bob Clampett than, say, Sam Singer. Roger Ramjet, the `Daredevil, Flying Fool and All-Around Good Guy' is an obvious parody of super-hero antics AND patriotism itself, including the cold war paranoia. At first glance, it´s pure formula: our hero is assigned to some mission, always gets in trouble so the kids from the American Eagle Squadron can rescue him, and ends up kicking the villains´ badly animated behinds by ingesting the Proton Energy Pill, that grants him the power of twenty atom bombs for twenty seconds. But the similarities end here, cause RR is filled with clever puns, cultural references, Hollywood in-jokes and a LOT of adult-aimed dialogue which often went over kids´ heads. I´ll give you only one example, and that will be enough to lure you into the zany, adorable world of Roger. Let´s take the `The Shaft' episode from `Hero of Our Nation'. It´s about Roger creating a super-rocket that´s more powerful than… uh, anything else. Problem is, the rocket backfires and burrows a hole through the Earth. The ENTIRE darn planet. What we Earthlings do? Oh, not much. Just watch were we walk, to avoid falling in the hole and getting a free trip to China. Aye, we can live on a donut-shaped planet, no problem sir. The ONLY thing that bugs people is when winds runs through the hole, creating an annoying whistle. THEN the nations decide to join forces to fix the problem! See what I mean?

I get the feeling that some people do not realize that this is a put on. It is a parody of a cartoon about a super hero. I mean, Roger is voiced by Gary Owens - the announcer from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, for crying out loud! The theme song is hokey on purpose. Roger's jokes are groaners because he is a moron who stops criminals by sort of stumbling upon them, not through his great brilliance. His super powers came from a pill that gave him the strength of "twenty atom bombs for a period of twenty seconds"! Come on, that is obviously a joke! I don't remember Roger's name being misspelled on the screen as another reviewer suggests (maybe it was just a funny looking "g" that looked kind of like a "j"), but IF it was, it had to be part of the joke. Among Roger's enemies were the "solonoid robots" (spelling?) who said "mmm" between words. ("We-mmm-are-mmm-here-mmm-to...") They were certainly not to be taken seriously. If you are looking for a super hero cartoon, look elsewhere. If you are looking for campy fun, I think you may enjoy this. I know I do.

The above is part of the Roger Ramjet theme song. Roger Ramjet was a buffoon, a clown, an idiot, and a fool. In short, he was a do- gooder. His groupies were four awe-struck kids named Yank,

Doodle, Dan, and Dee. RR was a member of the American Eagle Squadron. His strength came from his proton energy pill which

gave him the power of twenty atom bombs for twenty seconds. I

used to watch it when I was a kid New Hampshire. My favorite RR episode was the Christmas one where RR was hypnotized by an evil magician and made to think that he was a little kid. Gary

Owens of Laugh In was the voice of Roger Ramjet. He was also

the voice of Space Ghost. Both are good classic cartoons.

Roger Ramjet aired in 1965, and back then a lot of cartoons were said to have bad animation. (Of course, none of them compare to Japanimation.) Roger Ramjet actually had good animation, but the trouble was that the STYLE of the cartoon was bad. The beginning "credits" have a children's chorus singing a Roger salute to the tune of "Yankee Doodle", and a picture of Roger surrounded by a ring of stars. That part isn't so bad, but when the actual cartoon comes come, whenever the narrator says "Roger Ramjet" it shows a similar star-surrounded picture of Roger. If not that, Roger's name is displayed incorrectly in big letters on the screen (it says "Rojer Ramjet".) Also, for some reason when the narrator speaks (which is whenever the scene changes), the words he says come on the screen. In short, Roger Ramjet is the most generic cartoon I've ever seen.

Very interesting that the author of the commentary at the very top of the page (at least at the top of the page as of late December 2002) is from the same city as I! Equally interesting that none of the commentaries go back any earlier than 2001 or 2002.

As far as what this author from my hometown said about Rocky and Bullwinkle and Jay Ward----Roger Ramjet was not produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott who put together Rocky and Bullwinkle. This was produced by Patomime Pictures, headed up by Fred Crippen. I am reading the "bible" of Jay Ward cartoons right now, "The Moose That Roared" and this book clearly states which cartoons were and were not part of Jay Ward (and this one was not). I also took a gander at the cast of voices. None of them were used on Rocky and Bullwinkle.

I do not remember this cartoon extremely well. I caught it in re-runs one to three years after it debuted. I think that by 1968 or 1969, it just totally disappeared from the viewing area where I grew up (Southeastern Pennsylvania; not far from Philadelphia).

I do recall really loving the animation. Perhaps part of this was because it reminded me of the animation for Jay Ward cartoons (which I always liked). It is possible that some of the artists who worked for Jay Ward also worked for Pantomime Pictures (I know that some of Ward's artists had worked for Total Television Cartoons---which brought us Tennessee Tuxedo and Underdog).

Since I was under 10 years old (when Roger Ramjet re-runs were apparently permanently banished from my area), it is possible that some of the folks, with the more negative reviews, may be correct. All I know, however, is that I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this cartoon at the time. I loved the voices and I remember really relishing the story lines back then. For a long time it came on late afternoons Monday through Friday. Eventually it was moved to Sunday mornings. It was a welcome, very pleasant diversion for me, right before I was whisked off to church by my parents.

I just could not believe, for the rest of my life, that I could never find it anywhere on TV again. Over the last few decades I have thought, many times, that I would love to see Roger Ramjet at least one more time. Perhaps it appears on cable, occasionally, but I have not had cable in years.