Jane Jacobs Welcomes Bob Clampett To Toronto 1978.

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• published: 27 Feb 2013
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In 1978 I invited Bob Clampett, creator of many of the best Warner Brothers Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies Cartoons and the TV cartoon series, TIME FOR BEANY, to Toronto for a three day symposium I titled ANIMAFEASTIVAL...A Feast Of A Festival Of Animated Cartoons. People came from all over the world. I asked Toronto's then Mayor, John Sewell, to welcome Mr. Clampett to the city. His office replied he was spending that day with his son. I wondered what kid would not want to watch great cartoons and meet one of the men behind Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. As the Mayor's office had turned me down I needed someone better. I asked my longtime friend, Jane Jacobs (author of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES) to welcome Bob. She said that while she did not care about cartoons she did care about me and would do it on condition she could talk about my value to the city. Some got themselves all worked up because this little old lady talked about me instead of Bob. They had no idea who she was and what her presence lent to the occasion. My mother was in the audience. It was the first and would be the last time she heard someone speak in public about the value of her son. The effect was short lived, mothers being what all too often they are. Chuck Jones may have been interviewed by Dick Cavett but Bob Clampett was welcomed to Toronto by one of the most respected people on the planet. In 1997 Toronto hosted an international conference, JANE JACOBS: IDEAS THAT MATTER. So if you don't want to hear Jane talk about me pass on this. My father's brother, Douglas Hartt, served as Director General of Public Works Canada, which is as high in the civil service as one can get. One day he told me, "There is only one person on earth I want to meet." "Who is that?" I asked him. "Jane Jacobs," replied. "She is my friend," I told him. Pissed him off no end that the nephew who had walked out of high school and turned his back on all the financial help the government can give was the friend of the one person he wanted to meet. He refused to allow me to introduce him to her. My last day in high school my principal told me I had the wrong attitude and would starve in two weeks if I left school that day. Had I not left I would have starved. Said Mrs. Jacobs, "I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me everything I know. After that, I'm afraid, the teachers were nice, but they were dopes...I have a lack of ideology, and not because I have an animus against any particular ideology; it's just that they don't make sense to me...they get in the way of thinking. I don't see what use they are...University and uniformity, as ideals, have subtly influenced how people thought about education, politics, economics, government, everything...We are misled by universities and other intellectual institutions to believe that there are separate fields of knowledge. But it's clear there are no separate fields of knowledge. It is a seamless web." Mrs. Jacobs never went past Grade Twelve. She was completely against government funding. In 1980 I invited Friz Freleng, the multi-Academy Award winning animation director and creator of THE PINK PANTHER to Toronto. I asked if he would care for a fee. Friz said, "Can I bring my wife?" I wondered who would tell him to leave his wife at home. "Of course," I said. "In that case," he said, "there is no fee." Shortly before he was to come he called and said that he was back at Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers did not want him going anywhere they did not approve of. My board had just told me to call him and cancel the event. This was a chance to get off the hook and not lose face. Instead I said, "How do you feel about it?" "I gave you my word and my wife is looking forward to the trip," said Friz. "He's coming," I told my board which resigned en masse. We had a huge turnout for Friz. That Christmas he told me, "You are the finest host I ever met.' The suits at Warner's did not approve of me? Who the heck are they that mattered even for a day? Said one of Jane Jacobs sons when I met him on the street by chance, "My mother adored you." "And I adore her," I replied. Put that in your pipe Warner Brothers and smoke it. Fuck the lot of them.--Reg Hartt P.S. Not very many people ever received a fan letter from Jane Jacobs. I am one of the few. Invent nothing, Deny nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school. Toronto Mayor John Sewell lost the next election. He never had a feel for people and had only won the job because everyone thought the then Mayor would win and did not go out to vote. It is a good idea not to think.