What’s up, doc? Today is the day Chuck Jones was born in 1912 — he’s the creator of Bugs Bunny, not to mention the Road Runner and his would-be nemesis Wile E. Coyote, Porky Pig, Marvin the Martian, and Pepé Le Pew.
When Jones was a boy, his father was a serial entrepreneur, and not a particularly successful one. This, Jones said later, was the thing that stimulated his artistic talent. Every time the dad started a new business, he would purchase pencils and paper bearing the new company name. The big stacks of paper and pencils from the previous, failed company were turned over to Jones and his three siblings to use however they wanted, but they were supposed to use them up as fast as possible (probably so that the bad memories of Yet Another Failed Venture would fade quickly). So the kids drew pictures. A lot of pictures. When he got to art school, Jones had an instructor who told the class that every artist has 100,000 bad pictures they have to draw before their work could get any good. Jones felt good about this because thanks to all that stationery, he felt he was easily past 200,000 bad drawings.
He became an assistant animator in the studio that created Loony Tunes and Merrie Melody cartoons in a small secondary studio they called the Termite Terrace. He created his first popular character in 1939: Sniffles, who was a cute mouse. He had trouble at first with comic timing, and the head of his studio ordered him to make funnier cartoons. He created one called The Dover Boys that nowadays is considered the turning point in his ability (in other words, his first really funny cartoon) — but the studio wasn’t satisfied, and if they’d been able to find a replacement, would have fired him. But World War II had started and they couldn’t find anybody to hire, so Jones kept his job.
During the war Jones created a series of funny educational films for the Army featuring Private Snafu, who did everything wrong. His partner in those films was Theodor Geisel, who you’ve heard of as Dr. Seuss. That work led to their later collaboration on the animated versions of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who.
Jones really hit his stride in the 1950s when he came up with Bugs Bunny (as a co-creator) and his other most popular characters. Among the films he directed was What’s Opera, Doc?, whichwas rated the “greatest cartoon of all time” but animation professionals. He also won three academy awards — in his acceptance speech he said “I stand guilty before the world of directing over three hundred cartoons in the last fifty or sixty years. Hopefully, this means you’ve forgiven me.” You can see (and buy) his work at https://chuckjones.com, and find out about the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity. Meep meep.
