Newsletter 4 Page 2
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HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD !
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character drawn into them - well, it was
magical. Chuck’s advice on drawing Bugs, by
the way, is simple - ‘]ust draw a carrot, and
hang a rabbit on it!’ That’s easy for him to say!
We met Friz at Warner Bros Animation which
is now in a tall office block just across the road
from the huge Warner Bros studio lot in
Burbank. As soon as he came in he was
surrounded by people who used to work with
him, talking about the old days. Eventually we
got him on his own and talked to him about
some of the characters he developed,
particularly Yosemite Sam and Sylvester and
Tweety. 'I developed Yosemite Sam because
I wanted a comedy character to oppose Bugs
and I was looking for an outlaw, a man to hold
up the train. I think Tex (Avery) was
responsible in a way because he did a saloon
thing or somthing where a guy was yelling at
the top of his voice. And I thought "Gee, I'd
like to have the littlest guy I could find with
the biggest voice". So I made the smallest
character I could. He was so small that he
stood in the middle of the Tracks to hold up
the train and the train just ran over him.’
Yosemite Sam, of course, was voiced by Mel
Blanc. Sadly, Mel died last year but we went
to see his son Noel who has inherited some of
his father’s vocal characteristics. He told us
what it was like growing up with all these
characters. Later he became Mel’s recording
producer working from a studio at home. ‘The
Sylvester scripts were always a laugh. If you
say “Suffering Succotash! " so many times you
inevitably spray the script. Sometimes it was
so wet by the end of recording that you could
hardly read it.’
Whilst we were out in California we thought
we’d better set up an American branch of
Rolf s Cartoon Club. The first place we took
the youngsters was a huge theme park about
40 minutes drive North of Los Angeles.
The Six Flags Magic Mountain Park has lots
of rides and events linked to Bugs and his
friends. You can have your photograph taken
with Daffy Duck and even go shopping at the
Acme Warehouse. If you’re feeling bold and
in control of your stomach the roller-coaster
rides are incredible. They’ve got the world’s
fastest and longest here - The Viper.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go on it.
(Phew! What a relief!)
But the special Hollywood show isn’t just
about the Old Warner Bros cartoons, it’s also
about what’s happening now. Whilst we were
at Wamer Bros Animation we had a sneak
preview of a new Bugs Bunny cartoon. In fact
it’s the first one they’ve made for the cinema
for 26 years, and it’s called Box Office
Bunny. Darrell van Citters is the director
of animation and it turned out that when he
was at college he was a room-mate of
Member No 1 of the Club, John Lasseter.
John lives and works in California so we
invited him to a party to celebrate Bugs’s
50th birthday. We found the perfect place
for the party - right on Hollywood Boulevard,
just by Bugs’s star in the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, is C C Brown’s Hot Fudge Sundae
Parlor. It’s a piece of original Hollywood
and serves the most delicious ice cream with
hot fudge sauce...mmm. If you’ve never seen
an Oscar-winning animator playing Bugs
Bunny chess with ice-cream on the end of
his nose! - just watch the show.
And tha-tha - that’s not all folks. Coming
up on Children’s ITV next spring is a brand
new cartoon series, Tiny Toon Adventures.
All the characters look somehow similar to
Bugs or Daffy or Elmer or Porky, in fact like
all the classic characters. They all go to
‘Acme Looniversity’ where those classic
characters teach them all the essential
things that cartoon characters need to know,
like walking in mid-air. (You’re OK as long
as you don’t look down, seems to be the key).
We took our Californian members along to the
studios to see these new cartoons which
are a joint venture between Steven Spielberg
and Warner Bros Animation.
And what else is in the show? Cartoons,
that’s what. But don’t blink, you might miss
something, because we’ve assembled some
of the greatest moments from some of the
greatest cartoons ever made.