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That's All Folks: Chuck Jones RIP
Whamo writes: "Legendary animator, Chuck Jones, creator of classic cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Road Runner, & Pepe Le Pew has died (cnn) aged 89 years. When you were a kid was there ever a better baby-sitter than several hours of Looney Tunes & Merry Melodies? Thank you, Mr. Jones for all the great memories and, respectfully, That's All Folks...." CT: I just
wanted to mention that Chuck actually read Slashdot. We
had a poll once where he was an option, and he was
flattered that he was winning it.
I spent 4-5 hours the other night talking about what makes a good cartoon and Chuck Jones was the name we brought up the most. Good slapstick fun that entertains the young ones. More advanced humor for those out of gradeschool, but yet still have the slapstick appealing. Then, working your cartoon with the music directors, etc.
Genuis, no doubt
If anything, his death should prompt cartoon network to run a lot of chuck jones - the silver lining my friends
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One of those times when a headline pops up that just makes you groan.
All-Time Favourite: "Duck Amuck"
"Who's responsible for this????!!!"
RIP Chuck.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Now we will never know if the Coyote ever catches the Road Runner.
R.I.P., Mr. Jones, and thanks for sharing your talents.
Sadly, after his death, a mega corporation continues to profit from his works, and with copyrights getting perpetually extended, control will never be relinquished. Would he had wanted the public to have access to his works after he passed away? Personally, I would like everything that I create to eventually find the greatest possible use after I'm gone. After all you can't take it with you. There's no better way than for the work to end up in the public domain. Yet, our laws and a few greedy individuals are going to prevent this from occurring. Something has to get done.
Bugs: "Do you want to shoot me now or wait till you get home?" Daffy: "SHOOT HIM NOW! SHOOT HIM NOW!" Bugs: "You keep outta this; he doesn't have to shoot you now." Daffy: "Oh, yeah? Well, I say he DOES have to shoot me now! So SHOOT ME NOW!" --BANG!-- Daffy: "Let's try that again..." Bugs (shrugging): "Okay; do you want to shoot me now or wait till you get home?" (in a flat, actor read-through voice) Daffy: "Shoot him now; shoot him now." (Ditto) Bugs: "You keep outta this; he doesn't have to shoot you now." Daffy: "AH HA! (aside to the audience)Pronoun trouble. It's not he doesn't have to shoot you now, he doesn't have to shoot me now. Well, I say he DOES have to shoot me now! SO SHOOT ME NOW!" --BANG!--
Pardon me, yes, pardon me, but this is the first thing that came to my mind when I heard of his death in the 11pm news.
I have a lot of fond memories from all the Merry Melodies in my youth. I love animation in all forms, and loved his work, but, somehow, I imagined he disappeared a long time ago.
I am afraid the crazy gags and wild imagination from people such as him and Tex Avery have not waited his death to disappear. Nowadays, in the specific field of crazy cartoons, it seems they just reuse the old tricks over and over. I want new, ten-gags per second, Tex Avery's!
and now the creator of the characters themselves. *sigh* May your collective works live on for many more generations, even if AOLTW keeps making money on it.
The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone, including the poster.
Slashdot has its share of math-oriented readers. I will always recall the greatness of "The Dot and the Line" (1965), which earned Jones an Academy Award.
Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens -- A life in animationwas a great documentary I caught a couple of years back. Among some of the fans giving there insights were Whoopi Goldberg, THE SIMPSONS creator Matt Groening, Ron Howard, TOY STORY director John Lasseter, Steven Spielberg, and Robin Williams.
But what kept bugging me while watching these people give praise to his work and what joy it gave to them, I couldn't help but think what a shame it is that a lot of the original works are cut or not shown in their entirety or not at all. Here in Canada, the only looney toons is the road runner show shown three times a week. Most kids growing up in Canada right now probably only have seen a fraction of the great classics. I understand it's much better in the U.S. with cartoon network but here viewings of the originals are practically nil.
http://www.chuckjones.com/entry.html
I'm just a yungin' (20), but I always preferred older cartoons to the stuff that comes out these days. My all-time favorite short cartoon is Duck Amuck.
Apparently, Chuck Jones did a lot of cool stuff besides Bugs Bunny & Co. His biography says he directed another of my favorite cartoons, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Interestingly enough, my interest in science came from one of his cartoons. You know, the one with the mad scientist and his gigantic red hairy monster. Bugs Bunny outwitted them both, of course. But I was so impressed with the gadgetry that I declared to my folks that I would be a Mad Scientist when I grew up. I would even find empty bottles, "mix" their contents, and drink the "potion." In my head I was Jekyll and Hyde. But now I'm way OT...*Reminiscing for a moment*
[rant]
How come they didn't advertise this when he was still alive? Why all this list of achievements after I can't write him a letter to thank him? I know the answers, 1) The info is already out there and 2) Dead people make more news. But still, he'll never know how much I appreciated his work. Chuck Jones taught me what humor is. 1337 skillz are nice, but laughter is priceless.
[/rant]
Fred Quimby, Mel Blanc, Charles Schultz and now Chuck Jones.
We are at the closing of an Age.
I'm hoping when they get to Heaven, someone hands them an anvil and they tumble back to Earth.
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
There used to be a Warner Brothers store near me, and they had hanging on one wall a large image of a number of classic characters standing in the shadows, the spotlight on a microphone with nobody there to use it. It was a memorial to Mel Blanc, and even now when I think of it, I get a little misty-eyed. In an odd way, I look forward to the tribute that will be paid to Chuck Jones.
What I find saddest, though, is a conversation I recently had with a friend's kids. They're 8 and 6, and they know who the Rugrats and Spongebob Squarepants (that one scares me) are, but they barely know who Bugs Bunny is, thought they knew Daffy and Elmer, recognized Yosemite Sam, but had no clue who the Tazmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, or Sylvester are. (Oddly enough, the younger of the two knew of Marvin's dog, and described him enough to convince me. Weird.) Even the youngest are being pulled so far into the "NEW NEW NEW" mentality pervading media culture that they have no clue what led to the current generation. Some of them don't even know about Mickey and Minnie, but they know everything about the Little Mermaid or the Lion King.
My children will know the classics. Oh, yes. They will know.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Chuck Jones took the overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville and, with Carl Stalling's virtuoso arrangement, created an absolute cinematic masterwork.
Music videos today are just a jumble of images assembled nearly at random. Chuck Jones rose to the challenge and gave Rabbit of Seville an actual plot, while still remaining almost perfectly true to Rossini's original score. Not only that, but Stalling's spirited orchestration makes you want to go out and track down Rossini's other works. (The overtures to Semiramide and The Thieving Magpie are just begging for cartoons of their own.)
It's a damn shame it doesn't get broadcast much anymore.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I know there are hundreds of episodes I haven't seen ... as a history buff I'm looking to see the anti-Nazi/Japanese propaganda WB cartoon made during the height of the second world war.
The Simpsons first episode is out on DVD, along with numerous other cartoons and television shows. Are the great works of Chuck Jones and company available on a format that I can watch over and over?
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
actually I think it would be a rare person indeed that could capture my attention, my imagination, and even my affection, as greatly as the looney tunes did.
and I believe it represents american culture. sorry its not quite benny hill, we have our own way of doin things =)
I ate my sig.
How appropriate . . . finding out early on a Saturday morning.
My parents always hated how I would cheerfully get up at 6:45 a.m. on a Sataurday to watch Bugs & Daffy, but had to be dragged out of bed kicking and screaming on school days.
I miss the explosive (sometimes literally) creativity of those early years of studio animation. Chuck Jones was at the heart of it.
They say you're old when your childhood icons begin to die. This morning, I feel a lot older.
Have fun rescripting the afterlife, Mr. Jones. I'm sure heaven will never be =quite= the same.
... He did quite a few of those cartoons, too. My kid likes them.
Although I can't state for certain which cartoons were or were not directed or animated by Chuck Jones, I've found that most of the greats were:
.Wile Eeee Coyoteeeeee suuuuuuper geeeenius..."
Daffy Duck as Robin Hood "ho ha-ha guard turn parry" especially the part where Porky Pig makes Daffy laugh after he falls into the river
"Whoa Camel, whoaaaa camel, awww come on whoa?? When I say whoa, I mean WHOA!!"
Bugs Bunny as the Conductor with the tenor who he makes hold the high note until the auditorium collapses. (The tuba scene at the beginning is priceless)
"DUCK DODGER IN THE 24TH AND A HALF CENTURYYYYYY!!!"
Bugs Bunny vs the Gas House Gorillas and the conga line around the bases with the 93 1/2 year old pitcher
Bugs, the huge red monster and the mad scientist in the castle with the neon sign flashing "Mad Scientist, Boo"
"Wile E. Coyote.. super genius... I like the way that rolls out..
Of course, there are too many to list, but these are some that I'm reminded of immediately. Chuck Jones: An absolute genius.
Chuck Jones had an excellent wit, which you can experience in his two hilarious and informative biographies, Chuck Amuck and Chuck Reducks . His writing is dry and Mark-Twainish, with personal touches that never get *too* personal.
His recent work (he was creating Shockwave cartoons of "Thomas Timberwolf" up to this month!) is available linked from his own website.
Anyway, enough karmawhoring, I am writing this with tears in my eyes. So long and that's all folks to my last American hero.
--Bugs Bunny, What's Opera, Doc?Reminds me of something Billy Conolly said in an interview once. He said he wanted to have really tiny writing on his gravestone so that people would have to stand on his grave to read it. Then a pre-recorded voice would say "You're standing on my balls!". So damn funny!
Seems to me people wth a good sense of humour are still planning to make people laugh when they're gone. I guess Chuck falls into this category too. We'll still be laughing at his cartoons many years from now.
He did the animated Christmas Special that we all grew up on. When you think about _that_ show: Dr. Seuss, Chuch Jones, Boris Karloff, and Therm Ravenscroft (the voice of Tony the Tiger who sang "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch") and you realize just what a classic that is (especially cf: the Grinch Movie with Opie Cunningham and Ace Ventura -- bleagh).
My father is a blogger.
Now where the hell am I going to get an Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator?!
My 2 year old son just started asking to see "bunny" on TV. I was so proud (and no, he was NOT saying Barney!)
I had always wondered why there were so few Tom & Jerry's I liked as a kid. Years later, I found out that it had a 1:1 correlation with a Chuck Jones directing credit.
Last free association: In "Chuck Amuck", his 1st book, he expained how Leo Schlesinger, the Looney Toons producer before WB bought him out, was so anal-retentive that every cartoon had to be exactly 6minXXsecs. As a result, the directors and animators timed everything down to the last frame. That's right: comic timing measured in 1/24 second increments.
He was a genius.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Somebody _please_ mod parent up? K? I damn near fell off my chair with the though picture of the greatest cartoonists ever falling back to earth, hanging onto an anvil. Leaving an anvil/cartoonist shaped hole in the clouds.
RIP Chuck, the universe is going to miss you. I know I certainly will. Luckily, we'll (hopefully) always be able to see your work.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
.....on your way up to heaven, don't forget to make the left turn at Albuquerque!
Or did someone else create him? He's by far my favorite.
creation science book
Makes me think of the old Mary Tyler Moore show episode when Chuckles the Clown bit the big one and Mary can't keep from laughing at the funeral.
I keep thinking of "The Rabbit of Seville", the great BB sendup of "The Barber of Seville".
Can you imagine a kid's short openly aping a classic opera? Doing it so well? Being so funny, even if you never heard a tenor go ten-ing?
I don't Chuck will rest in peace if he's laid to rest in a cemetary. If anyone can get a graveyard giggling, he's the man.
If I recall correctly, Mel Blanc, who was the voice actor for many of Chuck Jones' characters including Porky Pig has "That's All, Folks" on his tombstone.
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
Chuck was a rare one, gifted as an animator, voice artist, writer and producer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Folks,
I think with the passing of Chuck Jones it is not a time for mourning, but a time for celebration. The fact he even lived to a ripe old age of 89 meant he lived a truly full life, to say the least.
It is time for a celebration of an output of animation that is arguably unmatched. From his work in the early Tom & Jerry cartoons at MGM to the amazing opera parodies he did in the 1950's to everything else he did, he was probably the best embodiment of the zenith of cartoon short subject films during their heyday.
I will say "Thank you, and Godspeed," to truly one of the true giants in the entertainment industry.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Wah!
[ComicBookGuy]
Best math cartoon ever!
[/ComicBookGuy]
The passing of a legend is never an easy thing, but in the case of Chuck Jones his work will live on forever for others to enjoy.
It's a bummer that most people will never be able to enjoy what we did as kids. A good number of his cartoons have been "cleaned up" and the violence removed.
Over at the censored cartoon page (http://www.toonzone.net/looney/ltcuts/) they have a list of what cartoons have been cut as well as what was cut.
There is a link to a few uncensored cartoons that bring back many many great Saturday morning or after school memories (http://www.nonstick.com/wmovies/index.html)
And you can buy the uncensored cartoons if you look hard enough. This site gets you off to a great start. http://www.megalink.net/~cooke/looney/amazon.html
This article should be under "Science", not "Television". After all, wasn't Chuck Jones the discoverer of the cartoon laws of physics? ("Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation," etc.) These laws of nature are now common knowledge, probably even more so than laws from more stuffy, traditional branches of physics.
About ten years ago I saw Chuck Jones live at the QE Theatre in Vancouver. He brought all his best cartoons and stories with him. One of the stories he told was about a man named Ed Seltzer. Ed was one of the producers at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. According to Chuck, Ed was a very unfunny man and completely unqualified to produce cartoons. Apparently, Ed would go up the the artists and say things like "Use lots of purple! Purple's a funny color!"
After that story the next cartoon Chuck showed was the Bugs vs. the Opera Tenor (can't remember the name.). After Bugs delivers his line "You realize, of course, this means war", the scene cuts to the front of the opera house. The card by the front door reads: "Opera Tonight! Starring Giovanni Jones" or something like that, plus a list of guest stars.
However, after Chuck's story, one name name on the list stood out over the others:
"Eduardo Seltzeri"
The entire audience cracked up because we were now in on the joke.
Thanks Chuck.
== gossamer! better get it right, wouldn't want him stomping you with those big tennis shoes of his!
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
And I love The Simpsons. I just don't think it's appropriate for my 5 year olds. However, I've been putting in Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck videos for years.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Thanks Chuck for the many hours of enjoyable time and laughter you gave me. Thanks for teaching me the immutable laws of physics...things like you won't fall as long as you don't look down and a product from Acme can solve any situation. Thanks for teaching me that if my problem just keeps attacking me I need only dress up like a girl bunny and it'll buy me more time. Thanks for teaching me that rowdy guys like yosemite sam never win. Thanks for teaching me that goofy guys like elmer fudd sometimes win. Thanks for teaching me that really smart guys like bugs and tweety and the road runner always win.
And thanks for giving me something to do when I got to be a little too annoying to my parents and they were ready to kill me. You saved me many times.
Thanks, Chuck Jones.
Just a couple years (alright, more than 5) ago Saddam Hussein was a recurring character on Animaniacs- and still is on South Park. You're right though, I don't expect to see Osama Bin Laden on Pokèmon any time soon.
Hmm, no one else seems to have mentioned this one...
On his official site, it looks like there is mentioned a Chuck Jones Foundation
They're also assembling an art collection for exhibition in major museums, libraries, universities, and art galleries.(In case of /. effect)
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cartoon network
I just turned it on. Porky is hunting a groundhog, and has a dog with him named Mandrake.
This guy was obviously far (far) ahead of the technological curve...
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
Don't really know if Fred Quimby belongs here. He was the producer for MGM's cartoons -- and, if I recall Tex Avery's biography, he was even more humor-deficient than WB's Eddie Selzer. Anyway, he died in 1965.
Other recently-departed greats: Friz Freleng, Bill Hanna, Maurice Noble (Chuck's long-time co-director).
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
Your stars: an eternally chipper, squeaky-voiced, squeaky-clean mouse vs. a slightly insane, unnervingly smart Borscht Belt rabbit.
Your supporting cast: on the one hand, another mouse, a dog, another dog (except this one talks), a spluttering duck; on the other hand, a bashful pig, an obsessive hack hunter, a martian, a coyote, and a spluttering duck. Not to mention other random characters on each side.
One is a paragon of virtue to everyone but the craziest of Christian fundies. The other is a paragon of high comedy to everyone except people who think kids take cartoon violence seriously.
One gave birth to Animaniacs. The other gave birth to infinite copyright extensions.
Now which one would you rather watch?
Chuck Jones, we'll miss you.
/Brian
Little anvil in the sky, don't be silly, you can't fly...
-Dot Warner
Granted the Animaniacs could get annoyingly in-jokey, but they're the true heirs to Chuck Jones' legacy...
...but there will never be another Bugs.
/Brian
I can't remember seeing a classic Tom & Jerry cartoon -- meaning the really, really violent ones that inspired Itchy & Scratchy -- since I was a kid. I've seen the lame 60s (I think) ones where T&J are buddies searching for gold or something stupid, but those oh-so ultraviolent classics from the 40s are nowhere to be found. I've always assumed they're not shown anymore because of the violence. Can anyone confirm this? Maybe they're on in the States, but they sure aren't up here in Canada.
hoser: Slashdot reader since 1987.
One of Chuck's greatest strengths as an animator was his ability to empathize with characters rather than treat them as paint-and-cel drawings. Especially Daffy; as he once said, Bugs is who we all hope to be, but Daffy is who we inevitably wind up being.
There's a tendency to trash Chuck as being overrated, usually as opposed to his colleague Bob Clampett, as a hatchet job in Salon did a while back. That's unfair to both men; Clampett and Tex Avery excelled in demolishing the Disney-established limitations of animation, while Jones used those limits while coloring intricately within the lines. While Jones could do wild gags too, he appreciated the little touches that would sell the cartoon: the look of horror as the Coyote realizes he's hovering over a cliff, or the expression of annoyance as Daffy realizes that Bugs has flummoxed Elmer again.
Chuck Jones brought an intelligence and discipline to cartoons, making their craziness even more enjoyable. There isn't a cartoon show on these days that doesn't bear some remnant of his influence. Frankly, I thought he'd outlive all of us.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
I've long thought he might be the greatest American humorist since Mark Twain. He certainly made some terrific cartoons.
So long, Chuck.I think it's all that more important to write now. Here's the link.
.emotion {weep: I spent far too many hours watching Loony Tunes as a kid. Laughing and getting educated at the same time. Damn. The quality of 'toons has gone down(with shit like Barney, the Smurfs, etc.)since then. Luckily the 'toons are still there--Chuck Jones will live forever.;
}
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Don't forget The Profess-or, Poindexter, and Rock-Bottom!
And what about Underdog!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If I recall correctly, Mel Blanc, who was the voice actor for many of Chuck Jones' characters including Porky Pig has "That's All, Folks" on his tombstone.
Yep.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
I always spoke French awkwardly (many anglo Canadians speak French with an Anglo accent on purpose in order to signal they "don't really speak French")
Heheh
Just remember about Gossamer...
"Monsters are such INTERRRRESTING people!"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Wow
Vary rarely do you see upper management's fatal flaws being put to such good use.
I know the loony toon's commedy timing like doctor's know the beat of a heart. It still is some of the most genuis comic timing I have ever seen. Even the total length of the cartoon was perfect. Never too long and only too short to make you want another!
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All the Pixar films so far should have at least been nominated for Best Film of their year, I think the time when that can happen is moved further away by this category.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
...One Froggy Evening?
It may not have been rolling-in-the-aisles funny, but it is the deepest cartoon I have ever seen. A story of the eternal greed of mankind, and told in five minutes and without a single line of dialogue (if you don't count the frog singing).
I don't see many works from the 1920s still being widely distributed for profit, nor TV commercials abusing content from the late 1800s. Many of the TV commercial abuses could still be trademark infringement even after the content has fallen out of copyright anyhow.
Either public domain is good or bad -- either it's better to have a work available for the public, for archival companies that widely distribute cheap copies, for unlimited inclusion in libraries everywhere and pay the price of allowing some commercial abuse, or it isn't. I'll take the abuse if it means that the recordings of Martin Luther King Jr's speeches can be included in electronic encyclopedias and found online rather than being ransomed by his greedy heirs. I'll take it if it means that any piano student or lover of music can download the works of Gerschwin to listen to or to play. I'll take it if it means that the classic plays of the early 1900s can be performed without paying royalties which will never reach their long-dead authors.
Better to have culture that can be misused than to have no culture at all.
Can't imagine a world without Accellerratis Incredilibus, Carnivoris Vulgaris, and ACME Birdseed and -Dynamite. :-(
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
I remember that one too. I liked the part where he walks through the castle as the Dracula monster keeps trying to drop rocks on him. Bugs is singing to the tune of "It's Magic"
"Lala lala lala lala lala lala lala la Hocus Poooocus" *zing* and Dracula turns into a bat holding a huge rock in the air, which falls on him. lol Great stuff.
i've had the good fortune to meet many of chuck's contemporaries, like the late, great director friz freling, and chuck's partner and background designer, maurice noble... sadly, on both occasions when i was to meet chuck, he took ill... i'm sorry that i'll never get to meet my hero, but his work is immortal, and i hope that his inspiration is felt, loud and clear, in my movie, which will be dedicated to chuck's memory
note: for a great retrospective on chuck jones, i recommend the warner brothers video chuck amuck, and/or the book of the same name
i thought, therefore i was...
If ever you are in Santa Fe, NM (my hometown), be sure to stop in at the Chuck Jones Gallery downtown. It's full of great stuff. I remember many cartoons, but seeing the pictures in the gallery always jogged my memory. Especially now, they will have a changing special display. I strongly suggest you check it out.
:)
BTW: If you come from the west coast, you should take a left at Albuquerque
LOTR: Elijah Wood is a munchkin asshat. Yes, asshat. LOL.
I'm surprised that this thread has so many responses and no one has yet mentioned Chuck Jones' brilliant collaboration with Ted Giesel (AKA Dr. Seuss). Back before the VCR made it possible to watch your favorite stuff over and over again, I used eagerly pour over TV Guide listings around Christmastime looking for anyone who would broadcast the Grinch... *Sigh* - Rest In Peace, Chuck.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
If you do a little digging and guessing with the filenames, you can actually download the full Flash animations. I'd be more specific, but I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I've got all but two downloaded right now.
- Termite I ask
- Lights, Camera, Traction
- Family Tree
- A Tail to Tell
- Timberwolf in Sheep's Clothing
- To Beaver or Not To Beaver?
- Oh! Christmas Tree
- Self Helplessness
- Call to Harms
- Tree for Two
- You Go, Squirrel Friend!
- Bite Me?
- Hiccup Runneth Over
I even like the little games they have at the beginning of the animation to make the download wait more bearable, even if I no longer have to wait!-sk
But strangely enough, the really GOOD Tom & Jerry cartoons are easily categorisable by having "Produced by Fred Quimby" on them.
If it doesn't say Fred Quimby, then it's a crap Tom and Jerry. QED.
"Information wants to be paid"
I suspect that the majority of Slashdot's readers have never even seen the original (read: uncut) Merry Melodies or Loony Tunes - here's why: at some point since their invention and first airing, people (well, I'm sure they roughly resemble people, at least) decided that these shows were too violent and too crude for children. Thus, the majority of the coolness that made these shows what they were, was cut. I personally have only seen a single 'real' Loony Tunes short - it was by far superior to the cut version, which I have also seen, in terms of humorous skill and wit.
As far as I can recall, there have only been two series that come close to the skill of the original, uncut LT and MM - The Animaniacs and Ren and Stimpy (first two seasons).
Does anyone know if there's a way to get ahold of the 'uncut' versions of Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts? Most of the cut ones aren't even entertaining without the violent goodness that was in the originals (Roadrunner and Coyote shorts come to mind).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Wow, we've lost a lot of great cartoonists in the last couple years. I hope that Bill Waterson relapses and decides to start doing Calvin and Hobbes again - I really miss his cartoons. I would get up every morning while still in school, just to read his comics. My first audible sound of the day would always be laughter.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Nice shot, troll, but guess again...last time I checked, IE wasn't the only browser that supports JavaScript.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Rest In Peace, Chuck.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
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I almost went and bought a laserdisc player, because I saw 5 boxed sets of 5 each laserdisks.
They were complete sets of WB cartoons, by decade, like $250/set.
It would have been worth it if I could have just found/begged/borrowed/stolen the cash.
Words can't even begin to describe the magnitude of this loss.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
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Animation Birthdate:
July 27, 1940
Tweety Bird
Animation Birthdate:
November 21, 1942
Bugs Bunny was created on that date by TEX AVERY. And the personality which made Bugs Bunny an American icon was given to the character by BOB CLAMPETT. Tweety Bird was 100% a CLAMPETT creation, and his current personality was given to him by FRIZ FRELENG.
This is the crap I was expecting to happen. History is usually written by the winners, but in this case, history will be written by the last survivor of the Termite Terrace directors.
This pisses me off, but WTF can you do about it? Except rant and rave about it and be considered a sorehead. OK, call me sorehead, but I want to see the record kept correct.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
{culture which is publicly available} = {culture which is privately owned which the owners choose to make available} UNION {culture which is public domain}.
{culture which is publicly available} does not include {culture which is privately owned which the owners choose not to make available}.
For any individual work in the latter set, that work is effectively lost to the public. I argue that it is better that this work be made available to the public (via the mechanism of public domain), even if this means that it may abused, than that it be unavailable to the public, and thus 'no culture at all'. Works which are available to the public despite private ownership may certainly comprise some portion of the set of culture -- but works unavailable to the public as a result of such ownership (or which are restricted from wide use) can no longer fairly be described as being included in the set.
I don't argue that all works should be public domain -- certainly, some controlled level of copyright does promote the public good by encouraging creative works. However, few authors are likely to decide to stop publishing even were their royalties only to last for, say, 20 years. Any extension of copyright beyond the point where such extension encourages further creation bargains away the public's interest in seeing a wide variety of works widely available, but gives nothing in return for that all too high price.
Suuupra-Genius.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on