infamous

Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins masterfully examines the poetry of Loony Tunes in an article for the Wall Street Journal .  His colorful commentary on the simple aspects of life that are dealt with by the shifty characters is spot on.  He even gifts us with some of his own poetry on the subject.

Elmer
The mailbox in front of the neat cottage
spells out the unfortunate name.
This morning the homebody
is singing in his sunny kitchen
dum-dee-dum, waiting
for the tea water to boil.
Later he will have his nap,
the enormous pink head
rolling on the pillow
dreaming again of the wabbit,
the private carrot patch.
Waiting by his bed
is the shotgun and the ridiculous hat
for he is the human.

He has several of the characters outlined in poetry, however Elmer is my favorite as he most closely represents us on the screen in this cast of cartoon crazies.  There is also an interesting parrallel drawn between the dramatic writing of these characters and the French surrealist movment.

And just as Pirandello and other modern dramatists sought to break down the actor/audience barrier, so Looney Tunes allowed an animated character to talk directly to the movie house audience or to criticize the very hand of its animators, thereby betraying the text itself. In one cartoon which mixes animation with a live action sequence, Porky Pig barges into producer Leon Schlesinger’s office demanding to be let out of his contract. Another cartoon opens quietly with the figure of Elmer Fudd in full hunting regalia tip-toeing left to right through the woods. Then, as if noticing a noisy late-comer to the theater or the sound of a shaken box of candy, Fudd stops, turns to face the audience, puts one of his four fingers to his lips and says in a seething whisper: “Shhhh! It’s wabbit season.” Ah, Elmer, you unlikely modernist!

I didn’t know that my parents where giving me or that my son was getting such a high brow education by watching cartoons on Saturday mornings.  Perhaps sitting so close to the television wasn’t so bad afterall.

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