Tex Avery and Michael Maltese, the Warner Bros. team who created many beloved Looney Tunes characters to life will be honored in a double centennial tribute by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater at the Academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood. The event is open to the public. From the official release:
"Putting Looney in the Toons" will return to the big screen some of the short cartoons Avery and Maltese worked on together as well as selected highlights from their prolific individual careers in animated theatrical films. The screenings will be complemented by audio presentations of rare recorded interviews with both Avery and Maltese discussing their careers with film historian Joe Adamson. In addition, the evening will feature a panel discussion with Brenda Maltese Moulthrop, daughter of Michael Maltese, and several of Avery and Maltese's collaborators, including Martha Sigall, Jerry Eisenberg and Don Jurwich.
Avery and Maltese, both born in 1908, crossed professional paths at the Warner Bros. animation studio back when it was Leon Schlesinger Productions. Avery began his career at Walter Lantz's Universal cartoon studio, working on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In 1935 he moved to Warner Bros., where he would create Daffy Duck and crystallize the personality of Bugs Bunny. From 1941 to 1954 Avery directed cartoons for MGM, introducing audiences to Screwy Squirrel, Droopy Dog and a whole new style of animated humor. In 1954 he initiated his final theatrical cartoons for Walter Lantz, including several Chilly Willy classics.
Maltese began at Warner Bros. in 1937 and actually appeared on camera as a studio guard in "You Ought to Be in Pictures," a 1940 Porky Pig short. After working with Avery and many other Warner Bros. directors, Maltese would go on to collaborate primarily with Chuck Jones, writing and storyboarding some of the most memorable Warner Bros. cartoons ever made, including "What's Opera Doc?," "Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century" and "One Froggy Evening."
As real animation declines and computers take over the job of creating animated films, it's important to recognize those animation geniuses who created the format. Nothing beats those old Looney Tunes classics, in our opinion.
Tickets are available to "Putting Looney in the Toons: A Double Centennial Tribute to Tex Avery and Michael Maltese" online at Oscars.org and are are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID.
