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An Even More Most Unusal and Fascinating Piece of Memorabilia from the Golden Age of Warner Brothers Cartoons!
LAST WEEK I brought you a rare piece of memorabilia from the golden age of Warner Brothers cartoons! If you missed it, shame on you! Here it is again!
This week, I bring you an even rarer piece of Warner Brothers cartoon memorabilia!
Look! Look!
It’s a pencil drawing of Michigan J. Frog! Chuck Jones’ once funny and clever amphibious creation – the star of a brilliant Looney Tunes one-shot (or a Merrie Melodies one-shot – who the hell knows or cares?) – who, much like the character in the actual theatrical short, was forgotten for years and then exploited beyond belief when rediscovered decades later!
But what makes this rare, unusual, fascinating? Keep your shirt on! I’ll tell you!
Animator Virgil Ross – who drew the best version of Bugs Bunny hands-down (don’t argue!) – is the fella what drawed this!
I know, I know – you’re saying, “Ted,” you’re saying, “Why, that’s preposterous! I’m an animation nerd and I know for a fact that ol’ Virg worked in Freleng’s unit, not Jones’s’s’s, and ol’ Virg, why, he’d have no reason whatsoever to draw a picture of a character that he never animated! He’d have no reason whatsoever to draw a picture of a character that he never animated especially in the exact same pose used for virtually all publicity materials of the character!”
…is what you’re saying!
Yeah, well, then explain to me how is it that this is an actual drawing of Michigan J. Frog, provenance provided by Virgil Ross’s distinctive and therefore impossible to copy signature in capital letters with a little dot in the ‘O’ – which appears on the very same paper!
The frog’s colored with colored pencils, I might add – a technology which in fact existed when Virgil Ross was alive! Explain that one to me if this is a so-called fake, there, Mr. Original Animation Art Authenticator Guy [or Gal]!
Yeah, I thought that’d shut you the hell up!
Fact is, you should stop arguing with me and instead bid on this beauty – a steal at only a hundred bucks American on the auction website “eBay”! This is the deal of the century, pal! You don’t find quality like this at your precious “Gallery Lainzberg!”
And the auction ends in just four days as I write this – so get that bid in now, if you know what’s good for you!
Who knows, maybe if it goes high enough, the seller can arrange for Walt Disney to sign it too!
Speaking of which, it’s being offered by the good folks at Gallery on Baum!
You can read about them here! And here! And here! And here!
Oh wait! No no no! Ignore all those links! Those are nothing but naysayers! Disbelievers! Jealous know-nothings spewing their bitter sour grapes all over the internet!
What do those people know, anyway?
But if Butch “Eddie Munster” Patrick’s a fan…
…well, that’s good enough for me!
Ted Parsnips
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