Cold War Television Invades Children's Programming: Rocky and Bullwinkle as Cold Warriors

          As the first “television war,” television broadcasts undoubtedly would have had an impact on the viewing public.  In light of this, it is easy to argue that the television was a factor in shifting the public from support to protest.  However, the shaping of a pro-war America occurred well before the news began covering Vietnam on a daily basis.   Early programming disguised as entertainment was mostly pro-war or, at the very least, anti-Communist. For years prior to the escalation in Vietnam, television programming conditioned Americans to feel it is America’s duty to stop Communism everywhere. Shows such as CBS” The Defenders which aired from 1961 to 1965 often involved story lines that revealed America’s duty to spread good throughout the world, which coincides with the justification of our involvement in Vietnam.  Americans were programmed to dutifully rid the world of the evils of Communism, the perceived motive for involving American troops in the warfare in Vietnam.

          The Defenders was not alone.  The constant inundation of Cold War dramas reinforced the image of America as the defender of democracy.  But, again, the programs were not limited to the dramas such as The Defenders, Mission Impossible, and The Twilight Zone, but persuasive television was disguised in animated cartoons such as Rocky and His Friends.  This children’s show was promoting the annihilation of evil Communist spies.  The premise for the show included spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale touting Eastern European accents and under the direction of the Fearless Leader attempted to carry out their sinister plots only to be foiled by Rocky, a loveable flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle, his dim-witted moose cohort. The series ran from 1959 until 1961 and continues even today in syndication.   The message was clear: “Russian men and women were evil, and they were out to destroy the American way of life” and could only be stopped by two all-American types.  In reality, even the children’s television programming fortified the view that it was the duty of noble America to stamp out evil Communism feeding Cold War fears and priming Americans to support anti-Communist efforts in Southeast Asia.

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Sources

Thomas Doherty, Cold War, Cool Medium.

Peter C. Rollins, “The Vietnam War: Perceptions Through Literature, Film, and Television,” American Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3 (1984), 429. February 3, 2011.  JSTOR.

J. Fred McDonald, “Television and the Red Menace.”