Monday's meanderings

Bonds Hits No. 713, Moves Within 1 of Ruth
(Jeez...hope my sister realizes this. That might mean one more for dinner, and she's a GOOD COOK.)






Wrongfully Jailed Man Wins Suit
(Well, what good is a new suit going to do him in jail? Unless it came with two pairs of pants...)







Beatles Lose Suit Against Apple Computers
(Well, NOW we know where the suit went.)






Biologist Aims to Demistify Wolf and Moose
(As opposed to moose and squirrel?)









Well, it’s been an OK weekend here in the fabulous metro DC area.

(In “Sudiespeak”, that translates to lots of naps and a few errands run to make oneself look good.)

Let’s face it…spilling my guts as I did on Saturday can wear a girl out, ya know?

In church last night, while the verses and the sermon were centering on sheep and shepherds and how the good shepherd will always be there for his flock, I was – yep – thinking about the sheepdog and wolf from the Looney Tunes cartoons.

I loved many cartoons as a child (Why am I using the past tense, by the way? I STILL DO), but what stands out in my mind was that my mom would watch these particular ones with me and laugh uproariously. She liked Bugs Bunny and the rest, don’t get me wrong, but the sheepdog/wolf ones really seemed to latch on to her funny bone for dear life.

It wasn’t until I started working that I finally figured out why…

It’s a corporate drone thing.

Think about it…if you’re familiar with these cartoons, you’re familiar with the general scenario. Wolf and Sheepdog (I can never remember the names they use to address each other…Fred and Ralph? The names escape me. ANYWAY…), two animals - who you would THINK are doing everything they do because Mother Nature tells them to do it – are really just employees.

They punch in and punch out every day just like humans do.

They get smoke breaks and lunch breaks.

If they’re in the middle of a pummeling session, and the end of work whistle blows, they stop what they’re doing and go home.

Isn’t the cartoon universe great? To think that a “mere” cartoonist (and I’m using “mere” sarcastically, because Chuck Jones is anything but “mere”) could have the audacity to suggest that Mother Nature runs a union shop…incredible.

Mother Nature is tweaked in all kinds of ways, thanks to Warner Brothers.

Think about it - only in the land of Looney Tunes could these things happen:

1. Rabbits stand up for themselves – in real life, they run and hide if you look at them cross-eyed. Rabbits take on construction workers, politicians, witches – you name it. Furthermore, they WIN 99.9% of the time.

2. Hunters are borderline-mentally impaired vegetarians

3. There is a company named Acme that sells EVERYTHING you could ever want to use to destroy another creature. NONE of it works right.

4. Many of the characters have speech impediments, and nobody at Warner Brothers makes them take mandatory speech therapy. Think about it…Daffy (at right) and Sylvester have lisps, Elmer and Tweety sound like Barbara Wa-wa from “Saturday Night Live”, Porky stutters, and Bugs’ New-Yawk accent is virtually untouched. In an age where everyone felt this need to be alike, their distinctions were virtually untouched. How about that?

5. Cats are hypochondriacs, and sent flying to the ceiling (or the sky, or the wing of an airplane) by the barking of a puppy.

6. Bulldogs make great foster parents of kittens.

7. The vast majority of the animals have opposable thumbs at will.

8. Frogs were singing and dancing before Kermit.

9. There IS life on Mars.

And people make fun of ME for liking cartoons? Hell…sometimes I think the Warner Bros. are the only ones that have gotten it right. Added bonus...I learned a lot about opera from "Rabbit of Seville" and "What's Opera Doc?"

This brings me to Chuck Jones – a master.

He created some of my favorite Warner Bros. cartoons. I’m sure he’ll forgive me for this opinion, though – I didn’t like his Tom and Jerry cartoons.

(Sorry, Chuck. Tom’s eyebrows aren’t supposed to be that thick – he looks more like Groucho Marx.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed other animators as well, but Chuck is probably my favorite. Chuck could make you laugh by having a character do something tiny (like a little facial expression – a twitch of the lip, an eyebrow tic, etc.). The way he drew EYES – they could be tiny or HUGE. I remember describing my niece Courtney to Hubby #2 as having “Chuck Jones eyes”, and he understood what I meant.

Chuck really stood out, in my opinion, as a class-act animator at Warner Brothers. Thanks to Hubby #2, I learned a lot more about him, and when Jones passed away, the wheel of life took another piece of my childhood away.

Thank goodness we’ve still got the sheepdog to guard us – until his lunch break, that is.

Sudiegirl