Rocky and Bullwinkle, 1961 (restored 2014)

Original artist unknown, Restored by Ric Scozzari

Permanent collection

Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose were the stars of animator Jay Ward Productions' most popular cartoon, "The Bullwinkle Show." In 1961, on the day of the animation’s premier, a colorful statue of the two stars was erected outside the Jay Ward Productions' offices on the Sunset Strip at 8218 Sunset Boulevard. The sculpture was built to parody a statue directly across the street -- a bikini-clad, spinning showgirl on a billboard advertising the Sahara Casino in Las Vegas.

Their long run ended on July 22, 2013, when the statue was unexpectedly removed by a crane. Fans feared that Rocky and Bullwinkle had been lost forever.  In fact, the sculpture was being restored by artist Ric Scozzari with funding from DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox as part of an exhibit at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, “The Jay Ward Legacy Exhibit.”

With the exhibit ending, the Jay C. Ward Family looked for a new home for the sculpture. They approached the City of West Hollywood about their respective interests in receiving the work and Staff immediately saw this as a wonderful opportunity to bring back a formerly faded icon to the City and site it along Sunset Boulevard as an engaging historic and cultural monument. 

The sculpture is now a part of the City’s Urban Art collection and is temporarily in storage. Rocky and Bullwinkle will move to its permanent location on the Sunset Strip soon!

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For questions, contact Rebecca Ehemann, Public Art Coordinator at (323) 848-6846 or rehemann@weho.org. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, please call, TTY: (323) 848-6496. To learn more information about the City of West Hollywood and its arts programs visit www.weho.org/arts.