Chuck Jones and Bugs

[Birdy]

Wasn't the Chuck Jones doc. exceptionally well done? I cried at the pain he suffered in his childhood, but thank God his resilience and creativity have brought us so much laughter. When I was in junior high, The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show was on at 7 a.m. and we would set alarms and get up to watch because that was the cool thing to do. Then we'd all call each other and talk about the funny lines. Yes, we were dorks.

Anyone have a favorite? Mine would have to be all Pepe episodes. "Let us make beautiful music together..."
B

[movieman1957]

I'm getting ready to watch it and looking forward to it. Every Saturday morning from kid to adult I was watching or looking for these cartoons. Bugs, Pepe, Foghorn, Road Runner. They were all great. I made tapes for my kids when they were little and have lots of them still.

[Ollie]

After getting the Looney Tunes collections, I discovered that some of my favorites weren't Bugs or Daffy at all, but some of those "no names" ones, like the scientist who invents the portable hole. Squirt it out, and it becomes a hole to jump, fall or walk thru. A bank-robber steals it and uses it. The scientist gets it back and while getting yet another scolding from his shrew-of-a-wife, he uses it on the floor in her path, and poof, no more shrew-of-a-wife.

Or the chipmunks-groundhog-squirrels - whatever those two "You first/No YOU first" critters are. The episode where the field harvest is taken and they chase it down to some huge automaton-factory where one of them gets 'canned' and the other one has to open every single one.

Those collections have huge donations from non-Chuck Jones participants, too, some not so great, some boring, but most are pretty outsianding. The constant use of music and singing (and GOOD singing - perfect harmonies, great chorals) is a refreshing change to today's name-calling, taunt-filled 'jokes' and even cussing.

In the early '90s, the AMC Theater chain got 60-odd WBs to return to their big-screens and that lasted for two years, expanding into some 200 cartoons. Those were years that I went to nothing but AMC theaters for those cartoons alone. After they dropped them, well, I started going to any other chain at times. I'd go back to exclusivity if one chain would give me cartoons in the previews instead of TV advertisements. (I really HATE buying theater tix and seeing TV advertisements. When will they start breaking the films and inserting TV ads like standard commercials? And STILL expect us to pay those ridiculous tix and concession prices?)

[TikiSoo]

I didn't think the Chuck Jones doc was great, but it was ok. It had some touches I really liked, as in the animation illustrating Chuck's voiceover, but using Jones's Looney Tunes clips seemed rather cheesy and jolted the earlier soft moods. But at least his last interview is preserved in a creative sort of way, Chuck would have loved that.

What I really liked was the parade of cartoon shorts shown on prime time TV. And including rarely seen MGM shorts along with commonly seen (but stellar examples) with Robert Osborne commenting was a milestone. Remember, any adult who watched & enjoyed cartoons in the 70's & 80's was viewed with puzzlement & ridicule, I know. When cartoons started being recognized as "art" (thank you Leonard Maltin) it felt a little more legitimized, but TCM airing them on prime time vindicates.

Great things happen when artists are given money to create then left alone, and Termite Terrace is a testament to that. I was lucky enough to see Chuck Jones speak at the Eastman House several years ago with several Looney Tunes screened on 35mm. Beautiful!

[ChiO]

I, too, found the documentary underwhelming...but, oh, those cartoons!

No matter how many times I watch Duck Amuck, it just keeps getting better. Dadaist, surrealist, film noir...with the greatest performer in film history, the incredible Daffy Duck (the Timothy Carey of animation).

[MikeBSG]

I liked the documentary. I might have liked more on his career, but I thought it was well put together, and I didn't mind the use of clips from the cartoons.

I wish they had shown "The Dover Boys" last night. That really was Chuck Jones' breakthrough cartoon. Before that, as I understand it, some people at Warners weren't sure Jones had a sense of humor. He was given the super-patriotic cartoon "Old Glory," in 1939, because they were confident he couldn't slip any jokes in that one.

"Duck Amuck," "One Froggy Evening" and "What's Opera, Doc?" remain wonderful no matter how many times I have seen them.

And Robert Osborne's comments were terrific and right on the money as well.

[Ollie]

Any time TCM cares to fill an 8-minute hole in their timetable, I'd vote for a WB cartoon. I wonder if, in the '30s, any of that music was considered low-brow or 'bad' in the way rock-n-roll was viewed as 'bad' or sinful by the older generation. I know one of the reasons for the heavy use of music in the early '30s cartoons was to minimize timed-dialog - that was (IS) a difficult element to accomplish, whereas music with a steady beat can be timed out and drawn much more quickly.

Then, it comes down to Choice Of Music and who makes that decision, why it's made ("We have the rights, it's the right beat, the right time length...") and then I wonder if social concerns or pressures were involved. "No hoochie-koochie music!"

[ChiO]

Ollie wondered:

I wonder if, in the '30s, any of that music was considered low-brow or 'bad' in the way rock-n-roll was viewed as 'bad' or sinful by the older generation.

In 1995 (a mere 14 years ago), I bought a guide to "alternative" music. On page 374, there is this introductory sentence to a musical artist:

Not the Sex Pistols, not the Velvets, not the Beatles, not the Stones, not even the King himself...: the first renegade music to violate the subconscious of most of the artists in this book was probably made by Carl Stalling.

Hadn't thought of it that way, but it is probably true for most of us.

[TikiSoo]

The cartoon music stands on it's own. The first CD released in 1990 The Carl Stalling Project is unbelieveably interesting with sections of false starts in rehersals. The follow up Pt 2 CD is rather disappointing. A friend allowed me to dupe his 2 disc set of Looney Tunes music released maybe 5 years ago because I could not locate a copy ANYWHERE, so I don't know the actual title. It's an interesting grouping.
There's a quite rare 1993 CD of Tex Avery cartoon soundtracks by Scott Bradley that's woefully short, but absolutely worth it. It includes all the dialogue in Little Johnny Jet.

Whenever friends are confused as to how I can so easily ID cartoons or music, I play these CDs. The differences between the WB/MGM orchestras and tempo/pace of the cartoons they illustrate are glaringly apparent.

I applaud the Looney Tunes Golden Collections for offering some of the cartoons to be viewed "soundtrack only".