Word: ducks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Next week the imposing galleries and auditoriums of New York City's Museum of Modern Art will be turned into a barnyard. A stuttering pig, a frazzled black duck, a wily coyote, an amorous skunk, a pussycat with a paunch, a tiny yellow bird and, to be sure, the world's most "wascally wabbit" will invade MOMA for a four-month tribute to the Warner Bros. cartoon shop, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. But that's not all, folks. Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester J. Pussycat, Tweety Pie, Bugs Bunny...
...yeah? What's art, doc? You mean those six-minute strips of animated paint and ink that served as anarchic baby sitters for a couple of generations of Satur- day-matinee kids? A duck getting its beak blown askew by an irate hunter is art? Well, yeah, when the duck is Daffy and the hunter is the dully malevolent Elmer Fudd. In Rabbit Seasoning (1952), Daffy and Bugs are out to convince Elmer that the other is the legally blastable species. In the midst of an argument, Daffy encounters some pronoun trouble and tells Elmer, "I demand that you shoot...
...soulful eyes, pastel prettiness and comforting moral of the traditional Disney cartoon. Feed the Kitty (1952), the acme of Jones' career, is a fable about a bulldog who falls into mad maternal love over a winsome kitten. But even in Warner's usually violent cat-eat-bird, rabbit- humiliate-duck world, character is at the base of the comedy. Each nuance of eyebrow makes Bugs' almost inhuman sangfroid seem more endearing; each microsecond of exasperated deadpan underlines Daffy's status as Hollywood's least placable loser; every syllable of Sylvester's lisp or Pepe Le Pew's fetid French intensifies...
...cassette buyers should understand what Critic Manny Farber realized about the Warner's cartoons in 1943, "That ( the good ones are masterpieces, and the bad ones aren't a total loss." It would be fine if films with such titles as Porky in Wackyland (Clampett), Show Biz Bugs (Freleng), Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century (Jones), What's Opera, Doc? (Jones) and Duck Amuck (glorious Jones) were embraced by the canons of academe. But imagining this, one can also hear Daffy grouse, "What a revoltin' development thith ith." Better, perhaps, for the Warner siblings to wear their garlands lightly...
...challenge that awaits Reagan on his return to Washington includes an irrevocable factor: even this most resilient of Presidents is running out of time. The period in which he must regain the initiative or see his last term fade into lame-duck stagnation appears to be dwindling rapidly. Political considerations will dominate the capital once the new year begins and midterm congressional elections approach. But as Reagan negotiates with Congress this fall, he must also prepare for his all-important summit with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The President has often been highly successful when tackling one or two major issues...