18
Jul/14

CHUCK JONES MATINEES: DUCK AMUCK AND OTHER CARTOONS

18
Jul/14
Bugs and Daffy go at it in RABBIT SEASONING, part of special Museum of the Moving Image tribute to Chuck Jones this weekend

Bugs and Daffy go at it in RABBIT SEASONING, part of special Museum of the Moving Image tribute to Chuck Jones this weekend

Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, July 19, 1:00 & 2:30, and Sunday, July 20, 1:00, free with museum admission
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Some people learn about life from their parents, others from books and movies, and still others from religion. We discovered everything we ever wanted to know about the world from one primary source: Warner Bros. cartoons. And the mastermind behind it all was one of our heroes, Charles Martin “Chuck” Jones, who was a director at Warner Bros. from 1939 to 1962. The Spokane-born Jones ended up making more than 250 films, earning eight Academy Award nominations and three wins as well as an honorary Oscar in 1996, presented to him by Robin Williams. “Like my contemporaries Wile E. Coyote and Daffy Duck, I have little time and no inclination to find fault or failure in others, for I have too many abundant and stimulating faults and failures of my very own,” Jones explained in his 1999 memoir, Chuck Amuck, offering words to live by that continued, “Recognition of my own ineptitudes has always led me to better understanding of my trade. Jumblings, mistakes, and errors in judgment are the essence, the very fabric of humor.” There will be plenty of humor, and no noticeable faults or failures, this Saturday and Sunday at 1:00 when the Museum of the Moving Image presents “Chuck Jones Matinees: Duck Amuck and Other Cartoons,” a program of eight of Jones’s best animated works, being shown in conjunction with the exhibition “What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones,” which opens July 19 and runs through January 19. And what a lineup of seven-minute classics they are. In Rabbit Seasoning, Bugs and Daffy confuse Elmer Fudd as to which of them it’s legal to hunt. In Feed the Kitty, big, tough dog Marc Anthony can’t help but be charmed by a cute but devious little kitten. Bugs ends up in the ring taking on an angry toro in Bully for Bugs, in which he famously declares, “I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque” and “Of course you realize this means war.” Someone is having an awful lot of fun drawing and erasing Daffy in the masterpiece Duck Amuck as Jones gets right to the heart of his creative process. Bugs meets Marvin the Martian and the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator in Hare-Way to the Stars. The Road Runner keeps getting the best of Wile E. Coyote in Zoom and Bored. Michigan J. Frog belts out, “Hello, my baby / Hello, my honey / Hello, my ragtime gal,” but only at certain times, in One Froggy Evening. And Bugs and Elmer do Wagner in What’s Opera, Doc?, one of the greatest short films ever made, wonderfully displaying Jones’s take on high and low culture, his sly humor, and his contagious exuberance.