"The timeless masterpieces of animation director Chuck Jones have kept audiences laughing all over the globe for more than sixty years. The cartoon characters he has shaped and brought to life--Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner, the Grinch, and a memorable menagerie of others--have, like their creator, become indelible icons of American culture. Packed with entertaining anecdotes--encounters with Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney, life with such legends as Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, and Carl Stalling in the bedlam conditions of Termite Terrace (the Warner Bros. Animation studio), and collaborations with the genial Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)--Chuck Reducks is an unforgettable tour inside the endlessly creative mind of one of America's greatest comedy directors. There are character-by-character portraits of Chuck's animated stars, with enough priceless gems to satisfy even Daffy's appetite: Why Bugs Bunny's face had something in common with ice skater Sonja Henie's; Why there is something very peculiar about Marvin Martian's mouth and Witch Hazel's hairline; How inept management inspired Pepé le Pew; and did Michigan J. Frog (1957) inspire Steven Spielberg to name a certain adventure hero after a state and an admired animation director? Chuck Reducks also includes informative chronologies, illustrations detailing how characters are drawn and given movement, in-depth looks at such masterpieces as What's Opera, Doc? and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and practical tips for tomorrow's animators."--Publisher's description.
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