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

272 38 44 Share A still from What’s Opera, Doc? Welcome! This is another Sunday edition of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, and this is the plan:

1. Maurice Noble’s design for What’s Opera, Doc? (1957).

It’s one of the really famous cartoons. If you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve probably watched it yourself. After almost 70 years, What’s Opera, Doc? endures.

Classic status wasn’t exactly the team’s goal. This was, in some ways, a workaday Bugs Bunny production. “ What’s Opera, Doc? is one many Europeans adore,” Chuck Jones said in the ‘70s. “They call that my ‘masterpiece,’ which it may or may not be; I didn’t think about it at the time.” 1