Art, Character and the Coyote

With four Academy Awards, the immortal “What’s Opera, Doc?” and his classic renditions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Pep le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, director and animator Chuck Jones would be in a pantheon somewhere--if they were still building that sort of thing. Tonight, the Hollywood Bowl hosts “Bugs Bunny on Broadway IV,” featuring many of Jones’ cartoons screened with music. We spoke with the legendary animator in the study of his seaside Corona del Mar home, where he sat at his drawing board, pencil poised for serious action, should the muse choose to strike.

Q. You’re about to turn 87 and still drawing like crazy.

A. I both love and fear drawing. When I pick up a pencil to make a drawing, I worry whether I can really do it again. To put it more poetically, anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.

Q. You went to art school at the age of 15. What did you learn?

A. That all drawing begins with an idea and that there should be no such thing as a thoughtless line.

Q. So, your big characters emerge from thoughtful little lines?

A. Sure. Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. And that’s also true of a line. The difference between a smile on Bugs Bunny’s face and a sad look [Jones deftly demonstrates the Bunny’s look on a bad day] is the right line in just this little area between the cheek and the nose.

Q. Speaking of characters, where do they come from?

A. From inside of us. Laurence Olivier said that the only movie role he was completely at ease with was “The Entertainer” because it’s about a failed vaudevillian, and all actors know sadly that they have a failed vaudevillian inside of them.

Q. There’s a coyote inside of you?

A. Of course. In order to draw a coyote, you have to have a coyote inside of you. My wife and daughter used to hide whenever I reached for a hammer or a screwdriver.

Q. Does the Coyote’s plunge into the abyss still work in this age of amazing special effects, or has gravity lost its gravity?

A. We’re getting to the point where nothing is believable because everything is believable. I worry that kids don’t read enough. If they demand visual images all the time, what’s their imagination going to do?