1950s Road Runner Wile E Coyote Looney Tunes Mike Maltese Production Publicity Lobby Card Sketch Warners Brothers from Willie Ito Estate hr

HOT-ROD AND REEL!
1950's Mike Maltese
PUBLICITY/LOBBY CARD SKETCH
from Willie Ito Collection
Warner Brothers Merrie Melodie Looney Tunes
with WILE E COYOTE and the ROAD RUNNER

Comes with a Charles Scott Gallery Certificate of Authenticity

This very rare sketch was done by Mike Maltese and given to animator Willie Ito as a concept and reference for the lobby cards and publicity art for the 1959 classic, "Hot-Rod and Reel!" Sadly, we have not located an image of the final lobby card. From the Willie Ito collection. NOTE: it has a paperclip indentation in the upper left, as it was stored that way for decades. Measures approximately 9.5" x 12".

Mike Maltese started at Schlesinger Studios in the days of the animation building they lovingly called Termite Terrace. He was wrote for a variety of directors at WB, (Tex Avery and Friz Freleng) before settling into Chuck Jones's animation unit in 1948. Over the following decade the team of Maltese and Jones produced many of the classic WB Looney Tunes cartoons we all remember. Willie Ito also worked in the Jones unit and was given the opportunity to illustrate publicity art for the theatrical shorts it produced.

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