Wisdom of the Ancients: Chuck Jones edition

FMD Crankmonkey delivers this valuable ore: Things I learned from Chuck Jones.

1. Never stick a body part, or your gun, in to a hole.

2. When your life is on the line, it’s okay to dress like a girl and seduce your captor.

3. Even a Grinch can be lovable.

4. Control your anger at all costs. Otherwise you will end up repeatedly falling off a 500-foot tall diving platform.

5. You cannot win an argument with a smart rabbit. Especially if you’re a duck.

6. Anvils are funny, but dynamite is funnier.

7. When casting voiceover talent, pick the most distinctive voice(s) you can find. Even if just one guy does the all the voices.

8. A “varmint” is an objectionable or undesirable animal.

9. Visual gags are universally understood.

10. That being said, to fully enjoy Road Runner and Coyote, you must learn to read.

11. If you ever find a frog in a box at a construction site, kill it before it starts singing.

12. Boris Karloff should have been the voice of more cartoon villains.

13. Cartoonists can get away with murder. Repeatedly.

14. There doesn’t always have to be a winner and a loser, but it does make things more entertaining if there is.

15. You don’t need to use profanity to be funny.

16. Children will learn to appreciate Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Rossini, and Wagner when their music is used as a soundtrack.

17. Skunks stink.

18. Cartoon cats are a great foil.

19. Pencils are better writing instruments because they allow you to erase your mistakes.

20. A performance of “Flight of the Valkyries” is just not complete without a guy singing, “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit.”

21. Cartoon characters can take any amount of punishment you choose to dish out.

22. Never buy anything from a place called Acme.

23. There are many ways to exploit the same gimmick.

24. People who never grew up watching Looney Tunes will not have a fully developed sense of humor.

25. “That’s all folks,” is a much nicer way to say “The End.”