Bugs moves from TV to gallery

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. -- What's art, doc?\nAt the James A. Michener Art Museum, that question is answered with a new exhibit featuring more than 160 drawings, cels, paintings and related items from the golden era of Warner Bros. animation that made Bugs Bunny now officially a senior citizen and his fellow Looney Tuners into pop culture icons for generations of Americans.\n"These days, it seems pop stars are around for 60 days, not 60 years," said Stephen Schneider, the exhibit's curator. "What they did at Warner Bros. was so resonant, it managed to hold on to its pre-eminence in a way you rarely see."\n"That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Brothers Cartoons," on view at the Doylestown museum from Saturday through July 3, is an expanded version of a 1985 exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art.\nIt takes a comprehensive look at the history, artistry, humor and cultural commentary that breathed life into Bugs, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and the rest of the gang with an emphasis on the "golden age" from 1938 to 1955, Schneider said.\nThe era was marked by a creative team that included Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and Bob Clampett.\nThe minutes-long films took as much as a year to create and required thousands of hand-drawn "cels" of the characters and watercolor backgrounds. The cartoons were shot one frame at a time, with just the slightest change in position from one cel to the next, giving the impression of fluid movement.\nThe exhibit also shows the preliminary work that went into the films, including "model sheets" -- the templates that made characters consistent from cartoon to cartoon and artist to artist. The model sheet for Bugs Bunny, complete with dozens of facial expressions and poses, instructed animators: "Keep ruff on cheek high, it makes him younger."\nBut their artistic attributes are only part of the picture. The cartoons got their distinctive style from the richly zany musical scores and story lines that were frenetic in pace, irreverent in tone and imbued with sarcastic send-ups of movie stars and political figures.\n"It wasn't until the 1970s that people really started to appreciate the artistry that was involved in creating these, and how unique and innovative they were," said Marla DelSordo of the Michener Museum.\nIn Warner's infancy during the early 1930s, Walt Disney's lavishly animated fantasy worlds and storybook tales reigned supreme. But the upstart studio staffed with Disney expatriates soon began blazing new trails.\n"They looked to live-action feature films," Schneider said. "After all, Warner Bros. was the studio of Bogart, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, all the rough and tumble stuff."\nThose noir stars made it into Warner cartoons, as well as Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and many other celebrities. Born in 1940, Bugs battled the Axis powers during World War II in many cartoons now rarely seen because of their insulting portrayals of Japanese and Germans.\nAbout two dozen Warner Bros. shorts, most featuring racial stereotypes or extreme violence, are rarely seen these days. A few examples in the exhibit may be disturbing to viewers, even those familiar with today's raunchy adult cartoons, such as "South Park."\nWorld War II-era sketches depict uniformed ducks with slanted eyes, thick round glasses and enormous teeth. Another drawing shows black stereotypes featured in "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs," created in 1948 as a parody to Disney's Snow White and banned by Warner Bros. from broadcast or distribution since the 1960s for its offensive content.\n"It's important that these examples are in here. They're uncomfortable to look at, but they are a part of the whole story," DelSordo said.\nThe exhibit also shows how such characters as Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd greatly changed in appearance over the years a move that today often prompts outcries of heresy from toonatics.\nWarner Bros. recently announced it was giving extreme makeovers to six classic Looney Tunes characters for a new show, starring Bugs, Daffy, Roadrunner, Taz and others as lean, mean, futuristic superheroes with little resemblance to their furry and feathery forebears.\nThe changes have been unpopular with purists, but the studio's innovative ideas are what kept its creations relevant for so many years, Schneider said.\n"The irreverence is what they have to hold onto, no matter how the characters change," he said.