Why 'What's Opera, Doc?' looks like that

I could not tell reading the article if Jones et. al. initial inspiration was a "love of opera" or whether it was just an interesting new challenge/storyboard. It sorta read as the latter, but my hope is that the former was the starting point. This story is very on point today as Mamdani is providing tens of thousands the opportunity to go to the Met -- hopefully each and every one would not have had this opp without M. That is going to be interesting.

Interesting anecdotes to follow if you want to continue...

When I worked in Portland late 80s Coffee People was just one store in the NWest district. Went there every morning for a coffee. They played lots of non-opera, non-classical Muzak. I suggested that perhaps they might consider adding an Opera highlights CD (no streaming then) into the mix. Surprisingly one day I go in and Opera was playing. A few weeks later Opera was playing again, and the barristas were silently singing along with the lyrics when a climactic passage was playing. Made me laugh. Then late 90's I again go every morning to an independent coffee shop this time in Corvallis. Told the owner who was the barrista that I would gift her a CD if she would play it occasionally. She agreed, and I gifted her Cecilia Bartoli singing Rossini's Heroines (a favorite). A while later the owner told me she was going to move to Australia. Asked her if the Rossini was going to be left in the shop, and she said it was going with her.

Edit: Just re-watched the original. I literally remember watching this on TV when it debuted. Anyway... did not know then, but do know now that Mel Blanc did all the voices. In this one Mel's singing. What a unique talent. Studios have tried to replace him, but all efforts fall short. A once-in-a-lifetime talent who most folks enjoy, but know nothing about.

What's always been a bit surprising to me is that the conductor Leopold Stokowski had enough 'cultural cachet' that there was some expectation that people watching the cartoon would recognize the reference to him ("Leopold!"):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Stokowski#Hollywood_Bo...

Not sure that the general public would have any kind of awareness for conductors or anyone in the classical music world today: perhaps Yo-Yo Ma, and some years ago 'The Three Tenors' were a thing.

I can't hear "Ride of the Valkyries" without hearing "Kill the Wabbit" in my head. Also "Spear and magic helmet" :-)

Oh, what a great cartoon that is!

In my college daze, Chuck Jones dropped by to give a talk to a packed auditorium. Of course, what he showed was What's Opera Doc. We all loved it, and Chuck enjoyed our enthusiasm.

> To get the extra work done, Jones and his crew secretly shaved a couple weeks off other, easier films and faked their time cards. It was something they did on occasion. (The mysterious price increases angered the managers, Jones said, but they were “not very bright” and didn’t figure out the trick.)

How many companies work just because the average worker is the one making it work? In my experience a lot of them.

It is sad that the money always accumulates at the top even when so often that same people at the top are an impediment for doing better work.

> It’s one of the really famous cartoons. If you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve probably watched it yourself.

I've never heard of it and would have appreciated at least a cursory definition. I thought I was going to see an article about an ad for Opera the browser.