Monday, September 24, 2007

When Walt Kelly Met Chuck Jones

I'm back from Ottawa, but it's going to take a few days to pull myself together and collect my thoughts. In the meantime, here is the 1969 Pogo Special Birthday Special, written by Walt Kelly and directed by Chuck Jones. Kelly and Jones also provided several voices for this.

I know from talking to Kelly's widow Selby that Kelly was disappointed in the results of the collaboration. It was because of this TV special that Kelly and Selby started their own animated short, We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.


5 comments:

Thad said...

Yes, Walt was not happy at all with this special.

It has the usual great Jones expressions and animation, but it deviates far too much from the brilliance of the original comic strip.

Michael J. Ruocco said...

It does has that Jones-ian charm, but it's definitely not as charming as Kelly's comic strip.

Which characters did Chuck & Walt voice in the special?

Mark Mayerson said...

Chuck Jones is the voice of Porkypine. Kelly voiced Albert and P.T. Bridgeport.

Anonymous said...

Kelly also voices Howland Owl, and Jones does Bun Rabbit and Basil the Butterfly.

And don't forget the baffling choice for Pogo's voice: June Foray!

hansgrotz said...

I do Not denny Jones for not made a cartoon as good as the comic strip.Pogo is not an easy stuff to adapt into a animated cartoon.Only to record the Fleischer's Popeye are not as brilliant as Segar's strip as well,and they did lots of nice cartoons with the character.