The Art Institutes of Orange County and the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity are partnering to celebrate what would have been the late artist/screenwriter/producer/animated Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies director's 104th birthday on Wednesday.
And you're invited!
Charles “Chuck” Jones was a four-time Academy Award recipient and master of visual comedy, having directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Pepé Le Pew and Porky Pig. Jones also helmed longer cartoons, including television's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
A longtime resident of Corona del Mar, Jones had a commercial studio there on Coast Highway for years. He passed away at home in 2002. The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, which is within SOCO behind the 405 freeway in Costa Mesa, is a large space with rotating exhibits, animated cels for sale and art camps, classes and other special events, especially for young people.
The birthday celebration will not be there but at the nearby The Art Institute of California, 3601 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana. An exhibit of fine art, animation cels, music, a special birthday cake made by Institute culinary students and Jones' widow and grandson will be there.
It's free and open to the public but you would really be daffy to not RSVP at 949.660.7793, ext. 107, to reserve a seat.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.