Roger Ramjet

Animaniacs is in my opinion the best cartoon ever made, but Roger Ramjet comes right behind it. The animation is not smooth and continuous like most cartoons; it is stop-action animation that makes it seem like the animators weren't any good. But it was done that way on purpose. This form of animation adds a lot to the cartoon's humor. All the characters are well done and have good voices. I love the way some of the dialogue and narrative just come up as words on the screen (and sometimes some misspellings done on purpose). You should definitely check out the DVDs. Roger Ramjet should be every kid's hero.

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.

It was only a matter of time before ROGER RAMJET was released on DVD, just like most every classic TV show that ever existed (MY MOTHER THE CAR, anyone?). The bad animation and goofy dialog(much of which appeared in words on screen- often misspelled on purpose)add to the appeal of this lost classic cartoon series. I can more fully appreciate the humor now than when I was eight years old and took cartoons more seriously. I would highly recommend this series to anyone who feels the same way I do-believe me, it's that much better 40 years later.

You won't escape the awful fate of proton's mighty fury! Rating: ***** out of *****

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.

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.