Jerry's Beck's “Heavyweights of Cartoon Comedy” face-off between animators Tex Avery and Jay Ward may seem at first like a pitched battle between apples and oranges, but if we don't crown a champion, bananas will take over and age all the other fruit prematurely. Tex Avery, the animator who had a hand in creating everything from Bugs Bunny to Daffy Duck and the Frito Bandito, saw his greatest creative triumphs at Warner Bros. and MGM through the 1940s and '50s. His was a style that's all loud horns and total frenzy, characters exploding and falling in love with equal enthusiasm. His logical — if subtler — successor, Jay Ward, co-created Rocky & Bullwinkle. Ward's production house was behind the surreal, literate antics of Super Chicken and Tom Slick, and created breakfast cereal mascots Cap'n Crunch and Quisp. Beck's rare film prints of these cartoons are increasingly crucial in an age when cinemas are being pressured to switched entirely to digital projection, so sit back and enjoy two comic geniuses spazzing out at their finest. Cinefamily, 611 N. Fairfax Ave.; Tues., July 5, 8 p.m.; $10. (323) 655-2510, cinefamily.org.

Tue., July 5, 8 p.m., 2011

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