Confessions of an Animation Nerd, 12/95

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Confessions Of An Animation Nerd...12/95-1/96

Firstly, let me explain the title of this article. Beginning in January, Anvil Anthology Magazine will be on Newsstands, in Book stores and anywhere else you can buy magazines. Space permitting, I will begin an ongoing column called "Confessions of an Animation Nerd." This will be a fan's-eye view of animation-related issues, from censorship to creators' rights to adult-oriented animation.

In January or February, my first column will appear here whether it will appear in Anvil #2 or not. Until then, check this out.

This is a post I made on alt.animation.warner-bros in Summer, 1995, right after the live action-animated movie Space Jam featuring Michael Jordan was announced. Since WB is pressing on with this ill-starred venture, it seemed very appropriate to reprint this on my web site.

BBS: The Ledge PCBoard
Date: 06-26-95 (09:56)             Number: 3830
From: MICHELLE HASS                Refer#: NONE
  To: ALL                           Recvd: YES 
Subj: WB: Just Don't Do It!!!!       Conf: (389) alt.animation.warner-bros
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To: all From: michelle.hass@ledge.com AN OPEN LETTER TO WARNER BROS. PICTURES From a cartoon fan. Please reconsider your decision to make Space Jam, the Bugs Bunny feature-length animated film featuring a live Michael Jordan. If anyone is monitoring this newsgroup, it should become obvious that we who passionately love the old WB short subjects (in my case, especially from the mid-'30s through to the end of the 1940s) are very distressed by the idea of this film. I realize there has never been a true Bugs Bunny feature film. (Bugs Bunny Superstar, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie and Daffy's Quackbusters were of course compilations of shorts) This is not a bad thing. Bugs was created by Tex Avery as a creature of cartoon shorts. There is no way you can keep the momentum of the classic Avery, Clampett, Freleng and Jones shorts going through a 75-minute running time. And it is very distressing too that you have opted to have live action comedy screenwriters, and second-string guys script the movie rather than allow your new staff of cartoonists (which Chuck Jones spoke very highly of at the recent Marc Davis lecture at the AMPAS Goldwyn Theatre) to "write" the story visually, as the classic WB shorts were, and the Disney features up to "Beauty and the Beast." This will only lead to trouble. There is a difference between scripting a movie for the screen and forcing cartoonists to hew to a written script. Remember all those great visual gags in the classic WB cartoons? You can't write them at a typewriter or a word processor. You have to draw them. Your comedy writers will not be able to create the magic of the classics. Please reconsider. Don't befoul our memories of the classic, Mel Blanc-voiced, cartoonist-written Bugs with this potential travesty. Instead, invest in your new unit of young cartoonists and animators. Allow them to come up with new ideas, maybe even NEW CHARACTERS who will represent the new era of WB shorts, instead of rehashing old scenarios and trying to revive the old glory of Bugs, Daffy, Porky,Tweety, Sylvester, Elmer et al. Make it a goal to release each and every movie you put out with a new theatrical short! I write this because we genuinely love Bugs Bunny. Don't spoil our memories with such an insensitive move to cash in. Thank you for your time, --.\\<-H-- michelle.hass@ledge.com Staff writer, ANVIL ANTHOLOGY MAGAZINE

PS: Thanks for putting the Water Tower back to its classic appearance. The new paint job with its "The WB" logo and Michigan J. Frog in the rafters was violence done to a historical landmark. * SLMR 2.1a * Support creators rights for animation creators!

Sadly, WB is continuing with this project, to be released (rough estimate) in 1997.

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