An Unforgettable Character in Animation

During an interview in 1988, I asked Oscar-winning cartoon director Chuck Jones how he got such convincing performances from his characters. He replied, “I didn’t think this out philosophically, but every character I worked with came from inside: Daffy Duck is inside me. Bugs is there too, in the sense that he’s what I’d like to be. But Daffy is what I know full well I am. You can dream about being Bugs, but when you look in the mirror in the morning, you see Daffy.”

For millions of animation fans, Chuck’s death Thursday at age 89 marked the end of the pageant of wonderful characters he and his fellow artists at Warner Bros. created: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Pepe LePew, the Road Runner, Sylvester and Tweety. For me, it also marked the end of a friendship that had lasted almost 24 years.

Like most baby boomers, I grew up watching Warner Bros. cartoons on TV--and became a fan of Chuck Jones without realizing it. Even as a kid, I liked some cartoons better than others because Bugs and Daffy and Porky and Elmer were funnier in them. When I began to study animation seriously, I learned to recognize the razor-sharp timing and adroit balance of verbal and physical humor that marked Jones’ directorial style.

But that was long after the Warner Bros. studio had closed, and Chuck Jones seemed like an icon from a long-past cartoon golden age. So I was dumbfounded when I walked into class at UCLA the day after my first long article about animation was published in the Los Angeles Times to find a message on the blackboard: “Charles, Chuck Jones wants you to call him.” He had liked my article and invited me to his offices at Sunset and Vine to talk about it.

I knew I was in the right place when I saw the sign on the front door: “Acme Company. We make superior Acmes.” Chuck spent about an hour with me and encouraged me to write more--heady praise for a part-time writer and grad student. He presented me with a cel from the special “A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court” and, best of all, he invited me to visit again.

Spending more time with Chuck, I realized that the director of some of the funniest short films ever made--in animation or live action--was also a gracious, generous and witty friend.

If we talked about his films, he always praised the artists who had worked with him. “Rabbit of Seville”? That cartoon succeeded because writer Mike Maltese had given Bugs such wonderful lines as “You’re so next!” “A Bear for Punishment” owed its hilarity to Ken Harris’ brilliant animation of Mama Bear’s high kicking tap dance, executed with the frowsy elan of Edith Bunker auditioning for the Ziegfeld Follies. Chuck spoke as if he’d just stayed out of the way and let the artists do their work.

Although Chuck took great pride in his films and the honors they received (“I’m a modest man, but I have a lot to be modest about”), there was a self-deprecating streak in his humor.

He said that when he was a student at Chouinard Art Institute, his dream was “to go to Paris and get a place among the chimney pots and paint and die at some ancient age like 37. But I came to the horrid realization that it costs money to die poor: You’ve got to get to Paris, you’ve got to rent an apartment, you’ve got to buy all those cobwebs .... “ Poverty forced him to go into animation, and we’re all the richer for it.

Chuck was an extremely erudite man who enjoyed discussing Damon Runyon, Dorothy Parker and George Bernard Shaw--it’s no wonder his Bugs Bunny could flimflam Daffy and Elmer with his patter. He liked to quote Santayana’s definition of a fanatic, “One who redoubles his effort after he loses sight of his goal,” to describe Wile E. Coyote’s monomaniacal pursuit of the Road Runner. The juxtaposition of the author of “Realms of Being” and the hapless consumer of Acme Batman suits, earthquake pills and catapults sums up the breadth of his interests.

He had a special fondness for a well-turned phrase and liked to cite Mark Twain: “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning bolt and the lightning bug.” When I described his hilarious Road Runner-Coyote cartoons as “forming a vast fugue on the theme of The Chase,” Chuck smiled at me and said, “That’s a good line. I may use it.”

Unlike many old artists, Chuck was genuinely excited by the new work being done in his field. He loved the art of animation and wanted to see it continue. The Disney features of the early ‘90s, from “The Little Mermaid” to “The Lion King,” delighted him. When I introduced some of the young artists to him, he complimented them and asked to see their sketchbooks. “Every artist has 100,000 bad drawings in him,” he commented, “and the sooner you get through them, the better it is for everybody.”

But Chuck had no patience for inferior work. He would scowl and dismiss a bad cartoon as “about as funny as a sack of wet mice.” He complained with equal fervor about obtuse studio executives, conservative Republicans, second-rate films--and old age. At his 80th birthday party, someone asked him how it felt to be an old man; he replied, “I don’t feel like an old man, I feel like a young man with something terribly wrong with him!” His quip hid a darker reality. Over the last few years, he grew increasingly impatient with his body’s failure to stay as nimble as his mind. The last time I visited Chuck at his home in Corona del Mar, he stayed seated the entire time, rather than use the cane or the walker by his chair. Wile E. Coyote could limp away from a disaster and be back to normal in the next scene; Chuck couldn’t, and he resented it.

If all his characters did come from inside him, I’m hoping that the mirrors in heaven are a little more accurate and that Chuck finally gets to see he really was Bugs.

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Charles Solomon served as emcee for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Salute to Chuck Jones in 1981.