阿蛮 选注

　　如今风靡全球的卡通形象已经成为人们生活中不可缺少的点缀，相信有三个卡通形象你一定不会不知道：精灵可爱的兔八哥，帮助女孩子们实现美丽梦想的芭比娃娃，爱写小说、喜欢吃冰淇淋的小狗史努比，但你知道是谁创造了他们吗？

　　The forever Cartoon Hero: Chuck Jones

　　Animators and filmmakers considered Chuck Jones "the father of contemporary animation,"<注1> and the true leader of animation industry after Walt Disney<注2> passed away.

　　Jones worked on more than 300 animated films in a career that spanned more than 60 years.<注3> Three of his films won Academy Awards,<注4> and he received an honorary Oscar in 1995 for lifetime achievement. He has given life to a host of cartoon icons ranging from Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck to the Grinch.<注5>

　　Jones considered his cartoon characters as real as any other subject. "Animation isn't the illusion of life," he said in a biography on his Internet page. "It is life."

　　He also created some characters on his own, most famously the fast-moving, beep-beeping Road Runner and his hapless pursuer, Wile E. Coyote. He drew Pepe le Pew, the romantic-minded skunk with the French accent, and Marvin Martian, an alien bent on destroying Earth.<注6>

　　"At times Jones was as wacky<注7> as his characters," said grandson Craig Kausen. When he was <注10>, he helped his grandfather research the movement of sea lions for the animated film "The White Seal." After noticing that the bone structure of sea lions and humans was similar, Jones tied his grandson's ankles, knees and elbows, put fins on him and put him in the pool to see how he could swim.<注8>

　　"He saw things differently than most people ... the ridiculousness and the joy of life. He could see the funny side of everything," said Kausen, who works in the family business, selling Jones' artwork.

　　Ruth Handler : "Barbie Doll's mom"

　　She's a successful businesswoman, a member of a rock band and a Women's World Cup Soccer player.<注9> Who is this superstar? It's none other than Barbie Doll. A little hard to believe, but the Barbie Doll started out<注10> as a human being! She was Barbara Handler, the daughter of Ruth Handler.

　　In the early 1950s, California entrepreneur<注11> Ruth Handler saw that her young daughter, Barbara, and her girlfriends enjoyed playing with adult female dolls as much or more than with baby dolls. Handler sensed that it was just as important for girls to imagine what they themselves might grow up to become as it was for them to focus on what caring for children might be like.<注12>

　　"I believed it was important to a little girl's self-esteem," Handler has said, "to play with a doll that has breasts."

　　Because all the adult dolls then available were made of paper or cardboard, Handler decided to create a three-dimensional adult female doll, one lifelike enough to serve as an inspiration for her daughter's dreams of her future.<注13> Handler took her idea to the ad executives at Mattel Corp., the company that she and her husband, Elliot, had founded in their garage some years before:<注14> but all staff rejected the idea because they think it is too costly and has little appeal.

　　However she persisted and even hired a designer to make realistic doll clothes. The result was the Barbie Doll, lovely model of the "girl next door."

　　Handler undeniably invented an American icon that functions as both a steady cynosure<注15> for girls' dreams and an ever changing reflection of American society. This can be seen in the history of Barbie's clothes, and even her various "face expression " to suit the times; in her professional, political and charitable endeavors; and more recently in the multi-culturalizing of her product line. In fact, Barbie has accompanied America into the new millennium.

　　Creator of Snoopy: Charles Schulz

　　Charles Schulz was both the brains and the brawn<注16> behind nearly 50 years of Peanuts comics. He single-handedly designed, researched, wrote, and drew every panel and strip<注17> that appear in daily and Sunday newspapers around the world.

　　Although he remained largely a private person, the strip brought Schulz international fame. He won the Reuben Award,<注18> comic art's highest honor, in 1955 and 1964. In fact, he is the most widely syndicated cartoonist<注19> in history, with his work appearing in over 2,300 newspapers. He has published more than 1,400 books.

　　To him, all issues experienced, evaluated, and ultimately decided upon by children.<注20> "There is a market for innocence," says Schulz, whose discipline still drives him to his studio every day "to get feelings of depth and roundness, and to know the pen line is the best pen line you can make, and I think I'm doing the best with whatever abilities I have been given. And what more can one ask?"<注21>

　　"Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?" he once said. "They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life.?Schulz drew more than <注18>,250 "Peanuts" comic strips, which expressed a droll philosophy through his trademark characters, including the hapless, angst-ridden Charlie Brown; Snoopy, a romantic, self-deluded beagle; piano-playing Schroeder and self-centered Lucy.<注22> No adult was ever pictured, though the garbled voice of a teacher or parent occasionally resonated in the background.<注23>

　　"Dear Friends, I have been fortunate to draw Charlie Brown and his friends for almost 50 years. It has been the fulfillment of my childhood ambition...." In this retirement letter, Classic "Peanuts" images were added: Lucy pulling away a football as Charlie Brown tries to kick it, Snoopy trying to steal Linus' blanket.

　　Schulz's achievements were incomparable, which spread 75 countries and made Snoopy on the world's lips.<注24>