Chuck Jones passed away last night. While his death may not mean a lot to younger fans who only care about Pokemon and Digimon, older fans like myself are deeply affected. Jones helped to bring most of the classic Warner Brothers characters to life from the late 1930s onwards, and created several lasting characters such as Marvin Martian, Pepe Le Pew, and – most famously – Wile Coyote and the Roadrunner.
People like me liked Chuck Jones because, although self-educated in most respects, he was the most cerebral animation director within American animation for decades. Unlike most Golden Age animated shorts, Jones’ were seldom in perpetual motion. Jones preferred to work with the psychology of his characters, making sure that each one possessed a unique personality and displayed that personality accordingly. His cartoons are immediately recognizable due to the expressive poses he placed his characters in. If anything, his characters’ facial expressions were even more telling. Jones’ characters smirked, raised eyebrows, grimaced, and popped their eyes open with delight and wonder.
Under Jones’ influence, Bugs Bunny changed from a rascally wiseguy into a resourceful, plucky fellow who performed his mischief only when properly motivated. Daffy Duck was a rubbery, bouncy loon who ended up as a rather sophisticated frustrated second-stringer constantly resentful of Bugs’ easier accomplishments. Jones established these characters so well that even in cartoons that represent radical departures from their usual style (such as What’s Opera, Doc and Duck Amuck) we readily recognize and appreciate the comedy. The Coyote and Roadrunner are Jones’ most famous creations, and their cartoons represent a form of theme-and-variation that simply doesn’t exist in most cartoons. As Jones was fond of telling interviewers, "A fanatic is someone who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim," which is perhaps the moral of the self-inflicted injuries the Coyote suffers in his attempt to catch a Roadrunner he doesn’t really want anyway.
Jones also excelled in one-shot cartoons. At Warners, Jones directed the stylized Dover Boys and the bizarre comic-tragedy One Froggy Evening, which introduced the world to Michigan J. Frog. After Warners stopped production of shorts in the early 1960s, Jones turned to television with several adaptations of Kipling stories, as well as the unforgettable How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Years later, even one curl of Jones’ Grinch’s lip is worth far more than all the self-conscious mugging and grandstanding that Jim Carrey brought to the character in the live-action remake.
Chuck Jones had been in retirement for years, an indication that he’d finished all his major artistic statements. When people wish to be reminded how funny characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were before they were endlessly recycled for films like Space Jam and the TV series Tiny Toons, they will turn to Jones’ cartoons. They will appreciate his accomplishments all the more.
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