Chuck Jones
Master of the Warner Bros. cartoon. Chuck Jones directed some of the funniest cartoons ever made, created the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote and won three Oscars plus an honorary award.
Chuck Jones in his office, 1978: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0
Art school to Termite Terrace
Chuck Jones grew up in California and studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. In the 1930s he joined the Leon Schlesinger studio, which made the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons for Warner Bros. A shabby building nicknamed Termite Terrace housed a young team, including director Tex Avery, that would reinvent cartoon comedy.
Finding his voice
Jones became a director in 1938. His early films were cute and slow, but in the 1940s he sharpened his timing and developed a style based on tiny expressions: a raised eyebrow or a slow blink could get a bigger laugh than a crash. He directed many of the best Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons, such as Duck Amuck (1953), in which the unseen animator torments Daffy by changing the background, his body and even the soundtrack.
The Road Runner rules
In 1949 Jones and writer Michael Maltese created Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in Fast and Furry-ous. The cartoons had almost no dialogue and followed strict rules, for example that the Coyote is always defeated by his own gadgets or by gravity, never by the Road Runner. That discipline made the gags sharper.
What's Opera, Doc?
In What's Opera, Doc? (1957) Bugs and Elmer Fudd act out a mini Wagner opera in seven minutes, with grand sets and full orchestral music. In 1992 it became the first cartoon short selected for the US National Film Registry.
After Warner Bros.
After the Warner cartoon studio closed, Jones made The Dot and the Line (1965) at MGM, which won an Oscar, and directed the television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). He won three competitive Academy Awards and received an honorary Oscar in 1996. His autobiography, Chuck Amuck, is a favourite with animation students.
Where to start
Watch Duck Amuck (1953) for a lesson in what animation can do, What's Opera, Doc? (1957) for spectacle in seven minutes, and any early Road Runner short for perfect visual comedy timing. One Froggy Evening (1955), about a singing frog that will only perform for its owner, is often listed among the best cartoons ever made.
Did you know? Jones made dozens of pencil drawings for every short to plan expressions, and his drawings now appear in museum exhibitions.
- Chuck Jones in his office, 1978: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0
Text written by Fantastic Cartoon.
