Vintage 1990s Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Pull Chain Set NOS in Box - Moose Squirrel Ceiling Fan Pulls, Universal Licensed Jay Ward Cartoon Collectible 🥫

Size: Approx. 6 inches overall length with chain; figures about 2 1/2 inches tall each ~ New old stock, never installed, in the original box with its bubble wrap. They vary a little one to the next.

A Moose on the Fan Chain: Rocky & Bullwinkle Fan Pulls, Still in Their Box 🦌

Reach up for the ceiling fan chain and find Bullwinkle J. Moose on the end of it — arms folded, antlers up, looking as baffled as ever. His partner Rocky the Flying Squirrel hangs on the other chain in his aviator cap. The moose took his name from a sign on a Berkeley car lot. The man who made him once chased a statehood petition for an imaginary state called Moosylvania all the way to the White House gates and was ordered off at gunpoint. And the box these two came in carries its own clue to its age, printed in the fine print on the back.

🦌 What Is in the Box

This is an unused set of two figural ceiling fan pulls: Bullwinkle in orange with yellow antlers, white cuffs on his folded arms and his wide-eyed, slightly lost expression; and Rocky in gray, arms flung out mid-flight, wearing his light blue flying cap. Each figure hangs from its own gold-tone ball-bead chain, the style used on ceiling fans and pull-chain lamps. Each pull measures 6 inches from the top of the chain loop to the tip of the figure, and the figure itself stands about 2 1/2 inches tall. The pair is new old stock, never installed, and comes with its original box and the bubble wrap it was packed in.

The box is printed on every side. The front panel is yellow and blue, with "Fan Pulls" in red inside a blue oval, "Set of 2," Rocky flying down a bead chain and Bullwinkle standing below him, framed with snowflakes and swirls. One side carries the show logo, "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends," over a giant Bullwinkle nose and antler, with www.universalstudios.com along the bottom. The back shows Rocky in flight above the words "Fan Pulls Set of 2" and a block of fine print that begins, exactly as printed: "This is decrative item-It is not a toy." It goes on to say the characters are trademarks and copyrights of Ward Productions, Inc., "Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing, Inc."

📅 How the Fine Print Dates the Box

That licensing line is the clock. Universal's parent company was MCA — the Music Corporation of America, formed in 1924 by Jules Stein and William R. Goodheart Jr., incorporated as MCA Inc. on November 10, 1958. In 1995 the Seagram company acquired 80 percent of MCA from Matsushita, and on December 9, 1996, the new owners dropped the MCA name and the company became Universal Studios Inc. Universal had actually picked up the merchandising, promotional, TV and film rights to the Rocky and Bullwinkle characters from Jay Ward Productions back in 1991-92, rights it later used for the Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls ride at its Orlando park in 1999 and the live-action film in 2000. By 2002, though, Jay Ward Productions had formed its own joint venture, Bullwinkle Studios, with Classic Media, and the license moved on from Universal. A box carrying "Universal Studios Licensing, Inc." and a universalstudios.com web address sits in that window — 1997 at the earliest, and probably no later than about 2002.

The logo agrees. That "and Friends" blanket title was never used while the show was on television; it was imposed later for home video and the characters' long licensed afterlife.

📺 Jay Ward and the Moose From Frostbite Falls

Jay Ward was born in San Francisco on September 20, 1920, and raised in Berkeley. In 1947 he opened a real estate office, and a runaway truck crashed through the building and pinned him. While he recovered he turned toward animation, and his first series, Crusader Rabbit, hit the air in 1950 after a 1948 test run.

Ward, Alex Anderson and Bill Scott built the new show out of Anderson's original idea, "The Frostbite Falls Revue." Rocky and His Friends premiered on ABC on November 19, 1959, and ran there until July 10, 1961; as The Bullwinkle Show it ran on NBC from September 24, 1961, to June 27, 1964. General Mills sponsored it, and the animation was farmed out to Gamma Productions in Mexico. June Foray voiced Rocky, Bill Scott voiced Bullwinkle, Paul Frees was Boris Badenov and William Conrad narrated. Thanks to Scott and the writers, the puns came often and shamelessly. Jay Ward Productions also designed the trademark characters for Cap'n Crunch, Quisp and Quake cereals and made the TV commercials for them.

🏔️ The Real Frostbite Falls: International Falls, Minnesota

Rocky and Bullwinkle's hometown of Frostbite Falls was a spoof of International Falls, Minnesota — the show even put it in the same Koochiching County. The real town sits on the south bank of the Rainy River, directly across from Fort Frances, Ontario, with a population of 5,802 at the 2020 census.

International Falls has called itself the "Icebox of the Nation" since 1948, and it had to fight to keep the name. Fraser, Colorado, claimed the slogan too; in 1986 International Falls paid Fraser $2,000 to drop its claim. Then in 1996 International Falls let its federal trademark lapse, and Fraser filed for it. The Minnesota town answered with a photograph of its 1955 Pee Wee hockey team traveling to Boston under the slogan, and on January 29, 2008, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registered "Icebox of the Nation" to International Falls.

📜 Lore: Bullwinkel Motors and the 51st State of Moosylvania

Bullwinkle's name came off a sign. Bullwinkel Motors was a car dealership in Berkeley, California, and Alex Anderson borrowed the name, swapping its final letters.

The best Jay Ward story is Moosylvania. In 1962, Ward set his sights on a small island on the Minnesota-Canada border, renamed it after the show's fictional Moosylvania, and set out collecting signatures on a petition to make it the 51st state. As the story goes, he reached the White House with that petition on the morning the Cuban Missile Crisis was breaking — and was ordered at gunpoint to drive off.

👥 Who Made the Moose

For decades the characters were copyrighted in Jay Ward's name alone. Alex Anderson, who had drawn the first versions, pressed his claim after Ward's death in West Hollywood on October 12, 1989, and received a financial settlement and a court order acknowledging him as the "creator of the first version of the characters of Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Dudley."

🌍 The Legacy on Sunset Boulevard

A 16-foot rotating fiberglass Bullwinkle stood outside Ward's offices on Sunset Boulevard, a landmark of the Strip; the studio's Dudley Do-Right Emporium souvenir shop on Sunset closed in July 2004. DreamWorks Animation removed the statue in 2013, and on February 28, 2020, it finally received a permanent home at Sunset Boulevard and Holloway Drive.

On June 21, 2000, Ward was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard. Nine days later, on June 30, Universal Pictures released its live-action Rocky & Bullwinkle feature, directed by Des McAnuff, with Robert De Niro as Fearless Leader, Rene Russo as Natasha, Jason Alexander as Boris — and June Foray back as the voice of Rocky. It cost $76 million and took in $35.1 million worldwide. Over the years the rights have moved among Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, Classic Media and, since a 2022 deal, WildBrain. Through every owner, the moose and squirrel kept turning up on home video, licensed goods and, here, a ceiling fan.

🌀 Still Good for the Job

I like that these were built to actually be used — one chain for the fan, one for the light — not just to sit in a case. Decades in a box hasn't changed that; they're ready for a ceiling fan or a pull-chain lamp the day they leave here.