Behind the Tunes: Drawn to Life - The Art of Robert McKimson

Outer space invader Yosemite Sam wants to capture typical earth creature Bugs Bunny.

Sam, the Duke of Yosemite, will inherit one million pounds if he can keep his temper in check. Thing is, he has to endure Bugs Bunny as his house guest.

Los Angeles-based artist Ed Ruscha’s 1975 short film Miracle centers on a day in the life of an auto mechanic (played by artist Jim Ganzer), who has a transformative experience while working on the engine of a Ford Mustang. Actress and singer Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas plays his love interest. Since the 1960s, Ruscha has received extensive critical acclaim for his paintings, photographs, drawings, and books exploring the commercial vernacular of Los Angeles—its graphic signage, architecture, and even parking lots. In effect, his work subtly comments on America’s cultural and socioeconomic evolution in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Miracle is one of only two films made by the artist in the 1970s. – Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Kelly Shindler, Associate Curator

Shot on 16mm celluloid across parts of New Zealand and Samoa, interdisciplinary artist Sam Hamilton’s ten-part experimental magnum opus makes thought-provoking connections between life on Earth and the cosmos, and, ultimately, art and science. Structured around the ten most significant celestial bodies of the Milky Way, Apple Pie’s inquiry begins with the furthest point in our solar system, Pluto, as a lens back towards our home planet and the ‘mechanisms by which certain aspects of scientific knowledge are digested, appropriated and subsequently manifest within the general human complex’. Christopher Francis Schiel’s dry, functional narration brings a network of ideas about our existence into focus, while Hamilton’s visual tableaux, as an extension of his multifaceted practice, veer imaginatively between psychedelic imagery and performance art.

Memories have the power to haunt us forever, whether or not they actually happened. For Margot, the man named Dan who stalked and tormented her for three years of her life is as real as any criminal—even if he's the manifestation of her first serious schizophrenic episode. Margot proves incredible strength in her first-hand accounts of her road to healing. Through art and therapy, she found relief. Through relief, she found a chance at life.

Hired to steal a rare painting from one of the most enigmatic painters of all time, an ambitious art dealer becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.

After driving the Foreign Legionnaires from their fort with his aroma, lovesick skunk Pepe falls for the camp mascot, a cat who's accidentally gotten a white stripe painted down her back.

Bugs is provoked by a pack of foxhounds and their hunters stampeding over his hole, so he gets out his Halloween costume from last year (a fox suit) and sets out to lead the dogs on a merry chase. The stupidest of the dogs, whose objective is to cut a fox's tail off, becomes his main victim; Bugs tricks him into chasing a train instead. He eventually tricks the dog pack into running off a cliff, but the stupid dog ends up with Bugs' tail.

In 1492, Bugs Bunny sails the ocean blue, as mascot for Christopher Columbus.

Josh Thomas is an artist grieving the loss of his wife, channelling inner turmoil into art. When presented with an opportunity, Josh must decide whether he’s selling art or his emotions.

Yosemite Sam hears that Granny has inherited fifty million dollars. Good guy Bugs tries to save Granny from Sam's clutches.