Friday 23 April 2010

Chuck Jones' Cartoons

What I really like about animation from the 60s is that a lot of it was very experimental and the narrative was often driven by a musical rhythm. Warner Bros. released a series of cartoons called "Merry Melodies" which fell under the brand "Looney Tunes". A lot of those were very inventive from an animation viewpoint, and gave us a bunch of very memorable characters such as Buggs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvester and so on. The only thing that I didn't like much about them is that sometimes the narrative fell into the "cartoon cliche" trap. Especially, when a situation was resolved with the use of dynamite or an anvil falling on someone's head and thus achieving a comedic moment. Personally, that is a formula that has become too predictable and I much prefer something that doesn't have to rely on violence for comedy.
Chuck Jones was a very famous animator at Warner Bros. and he was one of the most experimental at the studio. The plots are very unusual and the characters are very well animated. It is also interesting to note how transitions are used to switch from one scene to another. I like how unpredictable the cartoons are, as they have a  certain surreal feel to them.
Here are some of my favorite of his cartoons.




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