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| - I'm a huge Chuck Jones fan, as this artist and director was behind so many memorable Looney Tunes shorts like "One Froggy Evening" (that introduced us to Michigan J. Frog), the "Rabbit of Seville" (where Elmer Fudd gets a "haircut" he will never forget), and the surreal "Duck Amuck" (where an animator with two long ears and a bushy tail torments Daffy Duck).
So the prospect of a museum dedicated to this man and his work, the Chuck Jones Experience at Circus Circus, had me writhing in anticipation from the moment I heard about it.
That anticipation dragged on for a few months, as every time a new opening date was announced, it was pushed back a month later, again and again. The Chuck Jones Experience just wasn't ready yet.
Unfortunately, now that it finally is in full operation, it still feels unfinished and unready, and my initial excitement has quickly turned into disappointment.
The exhibit opens up with a small movie theatre that introduces you to Chuck Jones and his work through a number of film clips that seemed a bit grainy and dithered on the screen they were projected upon. It then leads you into his office where you can get a peek at his desk and peruse the bookshelf and the books that inspired him; this was one of the more interesting parts of the exhibit as I wondered how books like "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan, Francois Truffaut's interviews with "Hitchcock", and several books by Mark Twain might have influenced him throughout his career.
The next room explores how some of the more famous characters were designed and the "rules" animators needed to follow to ensure continuity. While there was a lot to see and absorb in this very small room, I started feeling a bit of dread as I was already halfway through this very short exhibit and had barely been in there 10 minutes.
The experience continues into one of its larger rooms that features scale models of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. While this room offers nothing more than a fun photo opportunity, it will probably be the most appealing to any children you might be dragging along with you, as the room that follows contains more pencil art, some actual scripts, a gallery of paintings, and an impressive wall listing each cartoon Chuck Jones has worked on, which kids will probably stare at for a second and quickly run past.
While this gallery tries to cover the whole body of his work -- from early cartoon ideas, to his work on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, to a number of unique oils -- there are no real explanations as to what you are seeing. There are no cards explaining why Chuck Jones chose to parody Van Gogh's self portrait using a bandaged Wile E., when these painting were made, and whether they were created just for fun or commissioned by someone else. They're just there, hanging on the wall, their colorful and vibrant canvases merely an afterthought.
The next and final room of the experience might also appeal to children, as it tries to explain how cartoons are inked and painted, and how foley and sound effects are added to the soundtrack.This part of the exhibit could have been a lot more interesting and interactive if it followed the model used by the awesome Sounds Dangerous exhibit at Disney's Hollywood Studios in DisneyWorld, which is not much bigger than this exhibit, but so much better organized. Unfortunately, the foley "stage" was nothing more than a couple of computer workstations (equipped with a microphone, maraca and triangle), one of which was already out of order.
Meanwhile, the "ink and paint" station was simply an electronic, on-screen coloring book that allowed you to color in the lines and nothing more, which might only appeal to children three years old and younger. Aside from a working zoetrope machine, this section of the exhibit did not touch upon animation's rich history: how thousands of individual drawings were traced with ink on celluloid, then hand painted, and then photographed one at a time. It fails to offer guests a way to experience that facet of the animation process (either with examples, a short film, or a guide) and appreciate the tools Chuck Jones had available to him in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when some of his best cartoons were made.
And that's pretty much the whole tour and "experience". Exit through the gift shop. Eh? What's up with that, doc?
While the curators suggested the museum was still in its infancy and will be growing over the next few months, I would have preferred to wait a bit longer, even a whole year, and experienced something grander instead of being so disappointed by its meager content and slapdash atmosphere. Indeed, in its current state, this exhibit might only appeal to die-hard fans or burgeoning cartoonists who might appreciate some of the the scraggly notations Chuck Jones left on a few drawings and documents.
As Bugs Bunny might say: "I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque." Maybe I could have avoided this mess.
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