Chuck Jones’ Toad of Ethics

One fine day, the Acme Wrecking Co. demolishes the J.C. Wilbur Building, built in 1892. In the cornerstone, a worker finds a metal box containing a frog. The frog hops out and performs a song and dance. A singing, dancing frog? The worker sees dollar signs. He discovers, however, that the frog performs only for him--if the curtain’s up, he merely croaks.

So begins “One Froggy Evening,” a 1956 cartoon directed by animator Chuck Jones and widely considered one of the greatest of all time. That cartoon--and a recent sequel--are among dozens of classic cartoons featured on the North American tour of the Bugs Bunny Film Festival, which stops Thursday through Sunday at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

Back to the story: The worker eventually ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Upon his release, he drops the frog’s box at another construction site and flees. About 100 years later, another worker finds the frog and the same story of greed begins anew.

“Another Froggy Evening” begs the question: Why do a sequel?

“It was a nostalgic gesture, and a tribute,” Jones, 85, said at his home in Corona del Mar. “I’d been away [from Warner Bros.] so long . . . and we’d only used that character once.

“Michigan J. Frog came from the past, he went into the future,” Jones explained. “He sang but he did not talk. The rule was, only [those watching the cartoon] and the man who found him could hear him. Groucho Marx once said that comedy is not so much what you do, it’s what you don’t do.”

Characters that Jones created and used many times include Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian and Pepe Le Pew. He also was the founding director of “Looney Tunes” immortals Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig. He receives his own tribute Thursday night in Glendale at the Bugs Bunny festival: the Golden Carrot Award.

The festival continues with matinee and evening performances of two separate programs, each offering 15 cartoons: “Taz Gone Looney” and “Fest of the Best,” which features the area premiere of “Another Froggy Evening.” Other Southern California screenings are anticipated but have not been scheduled.

Jones sounded thrilled to field questions that “Another Froggy Evening” and its predecessor seem to beg.

Are they solely about greed or is there a subtext about creative personalities and the creative impulse? Without giving too much away about the sequel, why can the frog only communicate with a certain extraterrestrial also of Jones’ creation? And what’s this about a frog being called a “perfect specimen of an operatic earthling”?

Jones addressed them in a roundabout way.

“In private, the frog can express himself, he performs. But in public, he’s one of the few great performers who refuses.”

In that respect, the frog has something in common with any writer or other creative type.

“Writing is simple,” Jones said. “You take a blank piece of paper, put it in the typewriter and stare at it until blood comes out of your forehead.”

Animation apparently is simple too: “When you finish a film, you always wonder, can you do another one?”

As for operatic earthlings . . .

“As a child, opera meant nothing to me except irritation,” Jones recalled. “But as Mark Twain said, ‘Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.’ ” But then, anybody who’s seen Jones’ “What’s Opera, Doc?” knows that.

“Strangely enough,” he continued, “in the Coyote and Road Runner cartoons, Smetana’s ‘Bartered Bride’ was used for a lot of that running. I can now look back with pride at how aesthetically powerful that was.”

(His love for opera also led him to accept an offer from Costa Mesa’s Opera Pacific to draw a whimsical brochure promoting its 1997-98 season.)

*

Jones developed his own brand of humor growing up in Hollywood, where he occasionally worked as a child extra in Mack Sennett comedies. After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of the Arts), he drew pencil portraits and sold them on Olvera Street for a dollar apiece.

In the 1930s, he got his first job in the new animation industry as a cel washer, then joined the Warner Bros. team that made “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies.” He remained at Warner Bros. Animation until it closed in 1962.

At MGM Studios, he created episodes for the Tom & Jerry cartoons; produced, co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay for the feature “The Phantom Tollbooth”; and directed the Academy Award-winning “The Dot and the Line.”

In 1966, he directed the classic holiday television special, “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” His “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957), which pitted a Wagnerian Elmer Fudd against Bugs Bunny, was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1992 as one of the most significant films of our time.

Jones has made more than 300 animated films, earning three Academy Awards. Two films he directed earned Oscars for the producers.

He nevertheless feels respect came late, at least domestically.

“While we were making [the cartoons], we were recognized in France,” Jones recalled. “The United States very often does not recognize its own people. It was France who first paid attention to American jazz, and it was France who honored Bugs Bunny and [Warner Bros. Animation unit head] Tex Avery in the 1950s and ‘60s. We didn’t receive recognition in the U.S. until the ‘70s.”

Now that the adulation is somewhat universal, he’s careful not to attach too much importance to honorary doctorates and other such awards.

“My uncle said that there’s a Spanish proverb, ‘The road is better than the inn.’ ”

In the late 1970s, Jones began to create limited-edition reproductions of scenes from his most enduring cartoons. He now has four galleries specializing in his art--in Laguna Beach, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico. He now dedicates himself to fine-art drawings.

As for why he’s getting the Golden Carrot, he said, “I’m the sole surviving member of the [Warner Bros.] crew, they’re all gone. If there is a god, he must be whimsical to leave me here.”

* The Bugs Bunny Film Festival opens Thursday at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Grand Blvd., Glendale. Through Sunday. $5-$30. TeleCharge, (800) 233-3123. (VIP tickets are $75 and include reserved seating, champagne reception and collectible poster. [800] 872-8997.)

* FROG STILL HAS LEGS: Michigan J. Frog is resurrected in a worthy sequel to “One Froggy Evening.” F5