Rocky and Bullwinkle, 1961 (restored 2014)

Plaster, fiberglass, paint and steel

Original artist unknown, Restored by Ric Scozzari

Donated by the Ward Family for City of West Hollywood’s Urban Art Collection

Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose were the stars of Jay Ward Productions' most popular cartoon, "The Bullwinkle Show." In 1961, on the day of the 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 14-foot, 700-pound monument 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 statue was being restored by artist Ric Scozzari with funding from DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox. Later in 2014, the restored statue was unveiled as the center piece of “The Jay Ward Legacy Exhibit” at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

In 2015, the Jay Ward Family gifted the Rocky and Bullwinkle statue to the City of West Hollywood for exhibition on the Sunset Strip. For a short time, the art work was exhibited in the lobby of City Hall before finding its permanent home at the intersection of Sunset and Holloway as an engaging historic and cultural monument. The statue is now a part of the City’s Urban Art collection.

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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.