Academy Award®-winning animator John Canemaker (The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, 2005) will host this double centennial tribute to Tex Avery and Michael Maltese, which returns to the big screen some of the short cartoons the pioneering pair worked on together as well as selected highlights from their prolific individual careers in animated films.

Avery and Maltese, both born a century ago in early 1908, crossed paths at the Warner Bros. animation studio back when it was Leon Schlesinger Productions (now affectionately referred to as “Termite Terrace”).  Among their collaborations and individual career achievements are many of the wackiest moments (animation or live action) ever devised for the film medium.

Avery’s directorial approach to animation was to celebrate the medium’s unique energy and limitless possibilities at a time when Disney animation was striving for increased pictorial realism.  Maltese, who wrote dozens of animated shorts over the course of his career, was perfectly suited to incorporating Avery’s madcap style into the evolving stable of Warner Bros. characters, which included Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.

The evening will include screenings of such Avery and Maltese classics as Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937), Heckling Hare (1941), Oscar winner For Scent-imental Reasons (1949) and What’s Opera, Doc? (1957).