oscaralbert Review of Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens - A Life in Animation

Great Performances: Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens - A Life in Animation (2000) Season 29, Episode 2

Some of the commentators seen here are still alive . . .

[8/10 · 19 September 2016]

. . . so Today's viewers of something labeled CHUCK JONES: EXTREMES AND IN-BETWEENS--A LIFE IN ANIMATION, PART ONE (found as a "Special Feature" on Disc 1 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 5) won't CONSTANTLY be "seeing Dead People" (including "Junior Bear" Stan Freberg, film critic Roger Ebert, Robin "Popeye" Williams, and--of course--Chuck Jones himself). Evidentally part of a "Great Performances" television episode put together in 2000, this 39 minute, 9 second piece features, among many, JUMPIN' JACK FLASH's Whoopi Goldberg (very much alive, as of this writing). Her favorite Jones creation is the cute serial rapist Henry, the runaway dad and husband who nicknamed himself "Pepe Le Pew." Whoopi gushes that "Pepe's just--he's just a horny skunk." Ironically, neither Whoopi nor any of these other Hollywood types draw the obvious connection to Bill "America's Dad" Cosby, who clearly based his Real Life proclivities--no doubt well-known much earlier than 2000 among this Tinseltown "In" Crowd--entirely upon Pepe. Further, there is absolutely no mention here of the actor who delivered 90% of the lines in Jones' shorts, Mel Blanc. This is tantamount to a John Ford documentary being produced without a word about his ventriloquist's dummy sidekick, John Wayne. Perhaps Great Performances is suggesting that Mr. Blanc was Chuck's Real Life Puppetmaster.