Chuck Jones
Charles Martin Jones was an American animator, cartoonist, author and screenwriter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, he wrote, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Porky Pig, Michigan J. Frog, the Three Bears, a slew of other Warner characters. After his career at Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib Tower 12 Productions, began producing cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. He started his own studio, Chuck Jones Enterprises, which created several one-shot specials, periodically worked on Looney Tunes related works. Jones was nominated for an Oscar eight times and won three times, receiving awards for the cartoons For Scent-imental Reasons, So Much for So Little, The Dot and the Line, he received an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 for his work in the animation industry.
Film historian Leonard Maltin has praised Jones' work at Warner Bros. MGM and Chuck Jones Enterprises, he said that the "feud" that there may have been between Jones and colleague Bob Clampett was because they were so different from each other. In Jerry Beck's The 50 Greatest Cartoons, ten of the entries were directed by Jones, with four out of the five top cartoons being Jones shorts. Jones was born on September 21, 1912, in Spokane, the son of Mabel McQuiddy and Charles Adams Jones, he moved with his parents and three siblings to the Los Angeles, California area. In his autobiography, Chuck Amuck, Jones credits his artistic bent to circumstances surrounding his father, an unsuccessful businessman in California in the 1920s, his father, Jones recounts, would start every new business venture by purchasing new stationery and new pencils with the company name on them. When the business failed, his father would turn the huge stacks of useless stationery and pencils over to his children, requiring them to use up all the material as fast as possible.
Armed with an endless supply of high-quality paper and pencils, the children drew constantly. In one art school class, the professor gravely informed the students that they each had 100,000 bad drawings in them that they must first get past before they could draw anything worthwhile. Jones recounted years that this pronouncement came as a great relief to him, as he was well past the 200,000 mark, having used up all that stationery. Jones and several of his siblings went on to artistic careers. During his artistic education, he worked part-time as a janitor. After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute, Jones got a phone call from a friend named Fred Kopietz, hired by the Ub Iwerks studio and offered him a job, he worked his way up starting as a cel washer. I went on to take animator's drawings and traced them onto the celluloid. I became what they call an in-betweener, the guy that does the drawing between the drawings the animator makes". While at Iwerks, he met a cel painter named Dorothy Webster, who became his first wife.
Jones joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, the independent studio that produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Bros. in 1933 as an assistant animator. In 1935, he was promoted to animator, assigned to work with new Schlesinger director Tex Avery. There was no room for the new Avery unit in Schlesinger's small studio, so Avery and fellow animators Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, Sid Sutherland were moved into a small adjacent building they dubbed "Termite Terrace"; when Clampett was promoted to director in 1937, Jones was assigned to his unit. Jones became a director himself in 1938; the following year Jones created his first major character, Sniffles, a cute Disney-style mouse, who went on to star in twelve Warner Bros. cartoons. He was involved in efforts to unionize the staff of Leon Schlesinger Studios, he was responsible for recruiting animators, layout men, background people. All animators joined, in reaction to salary cuts imposed by Leon Schlesinger; the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio had signed a union contract, encouraging their counterparts under Schlesinger.
In a meeting with his staff, Schlesinger talked for a few minutes turned over the meeting to his attorney. His insulting manner had a unifying effect on the staff. Jones gave a pep talk at the union headquarters; as negotiations broke down, the staff decided to go on strike. Schlesinger locked them out before agreeing to sign the contract. A Labor Management Committee was formed and Jones served as a moderator; because of his role as a supervisor in the studio, he could not himself join the union. Jones created many of his lesser-known characters during this period, including Charlie Dog and Bertie, The Three Bears. During World War II, Jones worked with Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, to create the Private Snafu series of Army educational cartoons. Jones collaborated with Seuss on animated adaptations of Seuss' books, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1966. Jones directed such shorts as The Weakly Reporter, a 1944 short that related to shortag
Elmer's Pet Rabbit
Elmer's Pet Rabbit is a 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon. Completed in 1940, the short was released on January 4, 1941. Starring Elmer Fudd and, Bugs Bunny, it is the first cartoon in which the name Bugs Bunny is given, but the rabbit is somewhat the same as the one seen and heard in Elmer's Candid Camera and other pre-Bugs shorts, it was written by Rich Hogan. Voices are provided by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan, it was produced by Leon Schlesinger. Elmer buys Bugs Bunny in a pet shop; when they get home, Elmer builds an enclosure for Bugs, serves him dinner which Bugs acts awfully towards. Bugs is seen grumbling in the night and he takes Elmer's bed as his own. Throughout the short, Bugs irritates Elmer in various ways—from dancing to attempts getting in the shower, etc.—which culminates when Elmer attacks Bugs and sends him out of the house. However, Bugs manages to reclaim Elmer's bed. Bugs Bunny's voice is pitched noticeably lower than in incarnations of the character, his character is very different from the more familiar version of himself, having a much more aggressive, arrogant thuggish personality rather than his usual fun loving and comic relief personality.
This short is the only one where Bugs has yellow gloves instead of white and no visible front teeth and claims to not eat carrots. The music in the cartoon includes a variation on "While Strolling Through the Park One Day," arranged by Carl Stalling, performed by Elmer and the rabbit. Elmer, of course, has trouble with many of the words, due to his "rounded L and R" speech impediment; the rumbling on the other side of Elmer's bedroom was reused in a cartoon, The Wabbit Who Came to Supper. Bugs yelling "Turn off that light!!" was a reference to World War II's Air Raid Precautions. Elmer's Pet Rabbit on IMDb Elmer's Pet Rabbit at The Big Cartoon DataBase
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1 is a Blu-ray Disc and DVD box set by Warner Home Video. It was released on November 15, 2011, it contains 50 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies numerous supplements. A DVD version of the box set contained no extras. All but seven cartoons included on this volume - Lovelorn Leghorn, The Hasty Hare, Hare-Way to the Stars, Bill of Hare, A Witch's Tangled Hare, Feline Frame-Up, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z - were released as a part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection or a Looney Tunes Super Stars DVD. Three others were released as part of other sets. Wagnerian Wabbit: The Making of What's Opera, Doc? Twilight in Tunes: The Music of Raymond Scott Powerhouse in Pictures Putty Problems and Canary Rows A Chuck Jones Tutorial: Tricks of the Cartoon Trade The Charm of Stink: On the Scent of Pepé Le Pew Audio commentaries Eric Goldberg on Baseball Bugs, Buccaneer Bunny, Rabbit Hood, Rabbit of Seville, Robin Hood Daffy, Scaredy Cat Greg Ford on The Old Grey Hare Jerry Beck on 8 Ball Bunny, Speedy Gonzales Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese on What's Opera, Doc?
Daniel Goldmark on What's Opera, Doc? John Kricfalusi and Bob Clampett on The Great Piggy Bank Robbery Paul Dini on A Pest in the House Michael Barrier and Mel Blanc on The Scarlet Pumpernickel Michael Barrier and Chuck Jones on Duck Amuck Michael Barrier and Bob Clampett on Baby Bottleneck, A Tale of Two Kitties Michael Barrier on Kitty Kornered, Beep Jerry Beck and Martha Sigall on Old Glory Greg Ford and Friz Freleng on Tweetie Pie Michael Barrier, Michael Maltese and Treg Brown on Fast and Furry-ous Michael Barrier and Michael Maltese on For Scent-imental Reasons Music-only tracks include: What's Opera, Doc?, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Duck Amuck, Robin Hood Daffy, Speedy Gonzales Vocal-only tracks include: What's Opera, Doc? It Hopped One Night: The Story Behind One Froggy Evening Wacky Warner One-Shots Mars Attacks! Life on the Red Planet with My Favorite Martian Razzma-Taz: Giving the Tasmanian Devil His Due The Ralph Phillips Story: Living the American Daydream Audio commentaries Michael Barrier, Corny Cole, Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese on One Froggy Evening Jerry Beck and Stan Freberg on Three Little Bops Eric Goldberg on I Love to Singa, Chow Hound, Bewitched Bunny, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z, Boyhood Daze Michael Barrier, John McGrew, Paul Julian and Gene Fleury on The Dover Boys at Pimento University Michael Barrier and Pete Alvarado on Haredevil Hare Michael Barrier and Maurice Noble on Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century Jerry Beck on Devil May Hare June Foray on Broom-Stick Bunny Greg Ford on Feed the Kitty Amid Amidi on From A to Z-Z-Z-Z Music-only tracks include: One Froggy Evening, Three Little Bops, Hare-Way to the Stars, Ducking the Devil, A Witch's Tangled Hare, Feed the Kitty and Boyhood Daze Music-and-effects tracks include: Bewitched Bunny, Broom-Stick Bunny and Feline Frame-Up Vocal-only tracks include: Three Little Bops A Greeting from Chuck Jones Chuck Amuck: The Movie Chuck Jones: Extremes & In-Betweens, a Life in Animation Chuck Jones: Memories of a Childhood The Animated World of Chuck Jones Point Rationing of Foods Hell-Bent for Election So Much for So Little Orange Blossoms for Violet A Hitch in Time 90 Day Wondering Drafty, Isn't It?
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics The Bear That Wasn't How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Pencil Test The Door Bonus Cartoons The Fright Before Christmas from Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales Spaced Out Bunny from Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century from Daffy Duck’s Thanks-for-Giving Another Froggy Evening Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension Superior Duck From Hare to Eternity Father of the Bird Museum Scream Looney Tunes Golden Collection Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 is a DVD box set, released by Warner Home Video on November 2, 2004. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies numerous supplements; as with Volume 1, the individual discs were released separately in Region 4: Disc 1: Best of Bugs Bunny - Volume 2 Disc 2: Best of Road Runner Disc 3: Best of Tweety and Sylvester Disc 4: All-Stars - Volume 3In Region 1, discs 3 and 4 were released separately as the more family-friendly Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 2. All cartoons on this disc star Bugs Bunny. Music-only audio tracks on Hyde and Hare Music-and-effects-only audio track on Broom-Stick Bunny, Bunny Hugged, Baby Buggy Bunny Audio commentaries Bill Meléndez on The Big Snooze June Foray on Broom-Stick Bunny Greg Ford on Bugs Bunny Rides Again, The Heckling Hare Jerry Beck on Gorilla My Dreams Michael Barrier on Tortoise Beats Hare, Slick Hare Chuck Jones on Tortoise Beats Hare The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special: Part 1 The Bugs Bunny Show: Do or Diet bridging sequences.
Music-only audio tracks on Guided Muscle, Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z, There They Go-Go-Go!, Scrambled Aches and Bored Music-and-effects-only audio track on A Bear for Punishment Audio commentaries Michael Barrier on Beep, The Dover Boys at Pimento University or'The Rivals of Roquefort Hall', A Bear for Punishment Greg Ford on Stop! Look! And Hasten!, Whoa, Be-Gone!, Mouse Wreckers Adventures of the Road-Runner 1962 television pilot The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show opening title sequence Crash! Bang! Boom!: The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown Music-and-Effects Only Audio Tracks for Tweet Tweet Tweety and A Bird in a Guilty Cage Greg Ford on Ain't She Tweet, Tweetie Pie Michael Barrier on Kitty Kornered, Baby Bottleneck, Porky in Wackyland Jerry Beck and Martha Sigall on Old Glory John Kricfalusi on The Great Piggy Bank Robbery Bonus cartoon: Daffy Duck for President The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special: Part 2 The Porky Pig Show opening title sequence The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show 1988 and 1992 opening title sequences The Man From Wackyland: The Art of Bob Clampett Music-only audio tracks on Three Little Bops, One Froggy Evening, What's Opera, Doc?
Vocals-only audio tracks on Three Little Bops and What's Opera, Doc? Audio commentaries Greg Ford on Back Alley Oproar, Hollywood Steps Out, Show Biz Bugs Michael Barrier on Book Revue, A Corny Concerto, One Froggy Evening Jerry Beck and Stan Freberg on Three Little Bops Daniel Goldmark on Rhapsody Rabbit and What's Opera, Doc? Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, Maurice Noble on What's Opera, Doc? Jerry Beck on You Ought to Be in Pictures Looney Tunes Go Hollywood It Hopped One Night: A Look at One Froggy Evening Wagnerian Wabbit: The Making of What's Opera, Doc? Orange Blossoms for Violet - short live movie with dubbed-animals only. Academy Award-winning So Much for So Little. Sinkin' in the Bathtub - although stated in the DVD box as included in this section, this cartoon was not included, it appeared in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, vol. 3, disc 2. The 2009 UK edition deletes "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" from the DVD box. Although all cartoons on The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 are presented uncut, a handful of cartoons in this DVD set feature digital video noise reduction applied artifacting: the noise reduction process unintentionally erases or blurs some of the scenes in the cartoons.
This process has upset consumers and animation collectors. Cartoons in the collection that have been afflicted with DVNR are Bob Clampett's The Big Snooze, Frank Tashlin's Have You Got Any Castles?, Robert McKimson's Gorilla My Dreams. Controversial is the inclusion of interlaced copies of a handful of cartoons, most of which are present on the DVD in progressive scan. Many have raised concern over the process and have insisted that Warner Home Video encode the cartoons onto DVD in progressive scan only; the interlaced cartoons on this collection are Bob Clampett's A Corny Concerto and Book Revue, Tex Avery's I Love to Singa and Hollywood Steps Out, Frank Tashlin's Have You Got Any Castles?. No interlacing is used for the cartoon shorts in the PAL version of the collection. In 2007 Warner Home Video began a replacement disc program whereby consumers could replace their interlaced discs with new progressive scan ones. Warner Home Video was not sure that Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 would sell well enough to justify a second release in the series.
Prior to the release of the second volume, WHV's Vice President of Non-Theatrical Franchise Marketing announced, "We are pleased with consumer response to last year's Volume One editions and we are delighted to release another installment of our most famous animated classics."The first set in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series had won the Classic Award at the Parents' Choice Awards, the second release was an award-winner. TVShowsOnDVD.com reported that the set won the award for "Best Animated Series" release at the 3rd Annual TV-DVD Conference. In The New York Sun and critic Gary Giddins complained that this set, like the first one, was skimpy with the black-and-white shorts, seemed to avoid the more politically incorrect cartoons in the series; when his review was reprinted in the book, Natural Selection, Giddins noted that Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 made up for the latter shortcoming by including some of the racist caricature in the series, prec
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a television personality. Trump was born and raised in the New York City borough of Queens and received an economics degree from the Wharton School, he was appointed president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, expanded it from Queens and Brooklyn into Manhattan. The company built or renovated skyscrapers, hotels and golf courses. Trump started various side ventures, including licensing his name for real estate and consumer products, he managed the company until his 2017 inauguration. He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal, he owned the Miss Universe and Miss USA beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015, he produced and hosted The Apprentice, a reality television show, from 2003 to 2015. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $3.1 billion. Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and defeated sixteen opponents in the primaries.
His campaign received extensive free media coverage. Commentators described his political positions as populist and nationalist. Trump has made many misleading statements during his campaign and presidency; the statements have been documented by fact-checkers, the media have described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics. Trump was elected president in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, the fifth to have won the election despite having lost the popular vote. His election and policies have sparked numerous protests. Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist. During his presidency, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns, he enacted a tax cut package for individuals and businesses, which rescinded the individual health insurance mandate and allowed oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
He repealed the Dodd-Frank Act that had imposed stricter constraints on banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. He has pursued his America First agenda in foreign policy, withdrawing the U. S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, imposed import tariffs on various goods, triggering a trade war with China, negotiated with North Korea seeking denuclearization, he nominated two justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The Justice Department investigated links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government regarding its election interference; when Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, in charge of the investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to proceed with the probe. The Special Counsel investigation led to guilty pleas by five Trump associates to criminal charges including lying to investigators, campaign finance violations, tax fraud.
Trump denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a politically motivated "witch hunt". Attorney General William Barr wrote that the special counsel's final report did not find that Trump or his campaign had "conspired or coordinated" with Russia during the 2016 election, but did not reach a conclusion regarding obstruction of justice, neither implicating him regarding obstruction of justice nor exonerating him. Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at the Jamaica Hospital in the borough of Queens, New York City, his parents were Frederick Christ Trump, a real estate developer, Mary Anne MacLeod. Trump grew up in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, attended the Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission. In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University.
After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, he worked at Elizabeth Trump & Son, he graduated in May 1968 with a B. S. in economics. When Trump was in college from 1964 to 1968, he obtained four student draft deferments. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based upon a medical examination and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was given a medical deferment that he attributed to spurs in the heels of both feet, which resulted in a 1-Y classification: "Unqualified for duty except in the case of a national emergency." In the December 1969 draft lottery, Trump's birthday, June 14, received a high number that would have given him a low probability to be called to military service without the 1-Y. In 1972, he was reclassified as 4-F. In 1973 and 1976, The New York Times reported that Trump had graduated first in his class at Wharton. However, a 1984 Times profile of Trump noted.
In 1988, New York magazine reported Trump conceding, "Okay, maybe not'first,' as myth has it, but he had'the highest grades possible.'" Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, testified to the House Oversight Committee in February 2019 that Trump "directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores." Days after Trump stated in 2011, "I heard [Barack O
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards known as the Oscars, are a set of awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership; the various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more referred to by its nickname "Oscar". The award was sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; the Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now seen live worldwide, its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2018, was held on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, California.
The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,072 Oscar statuettes have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 90th ceremony, it was the first ceremony since 1988 without a host. The first Academy Awards presentation was held on 16 May 1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people; the post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period; the ceremony ran for 15 minutes. Winners were announced to media three months earlier; that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards; this method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began.
The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier. At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period. With the fourth ceremony, the system changed, professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on 27 March 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced; until foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Traditionally, the previous year's winner for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor present the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, while the previous year's winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress present the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
See § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in tall, weighs 8.5 lb, depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Directors and Technicians; the model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design; the statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy, plated in copper, nickel silver, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones; the only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base.
The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C. W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, which contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R. S. Owens & Company, it would take between four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology; the time required to produce 50 such statuettes is three months. R. S. Owens i
Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. The History of Tom Thumb was published in 1621, was the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tangling with giants, becoming a favourite of King Arthur; the earliest allusions to Tom occur in various 16th-century works such as Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, where Tom is cited as one of the supernatural folk employed by servant maids to frighten children. Tattershall in Lincolnshire, reputedly has the home and grave of Tom Thumb. Aside from his own tales, Tom figures in Henry Fielding's play Tom Thumb, a companion piece to his The Author's Farce, it was expanded into a single piece titled The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the History of Tom Thumb the Great. In the middle 18th century, books began to be published for children and, by the middle 19th century, Tom was a fixture of the nursery library; the tale took on moral overtones and some writers, such as Charlotte Yonge, cleansed questionable passages.
Dinah Mulock however refrained from scrubbing the tale of its vulgarities. Tom Thumb's story has been adapted into several films. Tom Thumb may have been a real person born around 1519, it is set into the floor adjacent to the font of the main chapel in Holy Trinity Church at Tattershall, Lincolnshire, UK. The inscription reads: "T. THUMB, Aged 101 Died 1620"; the grave measures just 16" in length. The tale of Tom Thumb is the first recorded English fairy tale; the earliest surviving text is a 40-page booklet printed in London for Thomas Langley in 1621 entitled The History of Tom Thumbe, the Little, for his small stature surnamed, King Arthur's Dwarfe: whose Life and adventures containe many strange and wonderfull accidents, published for the delight of merry Time-spenders. The author is presumed to be Londoner Richard Johnson; the only known copy is in New York. Tom was a traditional folk character when the booklet was printed, it is that printed materials circulated prior to Johnson's, it is not known how much Johnson contributed to his adventures.
William Fulke referred to Tom in 1579 in Heskins Parleament Repealed, Thomas Nashe referred to him in 1592 in his prose satire on the vices of the age Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Divell. Reginald Scot listed Tom in his Discoverie of Witchcraft as one of the creatures used by servant maids to frighten children, along with witches, elves, fairies and other supernatural folk. Tom was mentioned by James Field in Coryat's Crudities: "Tom Thumbe is dumbe, until the pudding creepe, in which he was intomb'd out doth peepe." The incident of the pudding was the most popular in connection with the character. It is alluded to in Ben Jonson's masque of the Fortunate Isles: "Thomas Thumb in a pudding fat, with Doctor Rat."Richard Johnson's History may have been in circulation as early as this date because the title page woodblock in the 1621 edition shows great wear. Johnson himself makes it clear in the preface that Tom was long known by "old and young... Bachelors and Maids... and Shepheard and the young Plow boy".
The tale belongs to the swallow cycle. Tom is swallowed by a cow, a giant, a fish, by a miller and a salmon in some extensions to Johnson's tale. In this respect, the tale shows little imaginative development. Tom is delivered from such predicaments rather crudely, but editors of dates found ways to make his deliverance more seemly and he passed beyond the mouth. Tom's tale was reprinted countless times in Britain, was being sold in America as early as 1686. A metrical version was published in 1630 entitled Tom Thumbe, His Life and Death: Wherein is declared many Maruailous Acts of Manhood, full of wonder, strange merriments: Which little Knight liued in King Arthurs time, famous in the Court of Great Brittaine; the book was reprinted many times, two more parts were added to the first around 1700. The three parts were reprinted many times. In 1711, William Wagstaffe published A Comment upon The History of Tom Thumbe. In 1730, English dramatist Henry Fielding used Tom Thumb as the central figure of a play by that name, which he rewrote in 1731 as the farce The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the History of Tom Thumb the Great.
The play is filled with 18th-century political and literary satire and is intended as a parody of heroic tragedies. The title of "The Great" may be intended as a reference to politician Sir Robert Walpole, called "The Great." Henry Fielding's tragedy Tom Thumb was the basis for an opera constructed by Kane O'Hara. Fielding's Tom is cast as a mighty warrior and a conqueror of giants, despite his stature, as well as the object of desire for many of the ladies at court; the plot is concerned with the various love triangles amongst the characters, who include Princess Huncamunca, giantess Glumdalca, Queen Dollalolla. Matters are complicated when Arthur awards Tom the hand of Huncamunca in marriage which results in Dollalolla and the jealous Grizzle seeking revenge. Tom dies when swallowed by a cow, but his ghost returns. At the conclusion, Tom's ghost is killed by Grizzle and most of the cast kill each other in duels or take their own lives in grief. Fielding's play was adapted into a spoof on opera conventions called The Opera of Operas.
This version includes a happy ending in which Tom is spat back out by the cow and the others are resurrected by Merlin's magic. This is considered to
