In Appreciation Of | Chuck Jones

Originally Posted 02/27/02 by Jeff Harris

I never understood The Dot and The Line.

The basic premise of the cartoon was, well, this male line was in love with a female dot, and the line was trying his darnedest to please her. My young fragile mind figured that this was perhaps the trippiest cartoon I had ever seen (never mind the fact that I'd never seen Nelly's Folly and The Bear That Wasn't). However, as I had grown older, I realized that this was perhaps a story about life. How everything has a purpose and everything is in flow with nature. As an artist, I realized that the dot and the line were one of the same and needed each other to thrive. It wasn't the fact that they were a dot and a line that made it a watchable cartoon. It was because of the characterizations Mr. Jones had given them that made it watchable. The cartoons of Chuck Jones had a lot of personality, a lot of charm, and a lot of creativity.

If they didn't, they would all be nothing more than a bunch of lines and dots.

I remember the first Chuck Jones cartoon I have ever seen. It was on the old WYAH-27 weekday afternoon lineup back in the day. Now, WYAH was owned by Pat Robertson in those days, and a LOT of profanity was muted on TV shows back then, not to mention airing a bunch of OLD movies (it wasn't classics, they were just old movies). WYAH is now WGNT, a flagship UPN network owned by Viacom, but I think I strayed long enough. Back then, WYAH used to show their own showcase of Bugs Bunny cartoons every day. It was a Daffy Duck cartoon that had the duck take on a crazed artist, just manipulating him and his environment in every way. When the cartoon was over, it was Bugs Bunny behind the brush. I was four years old. I cracked up! I picked up a pad and pencil and started drawing, wishing I could do that one day.

Mr. Jones was a good storyteller. He was kind of a modern-day Mark Twain, chronicling the stories of rambunious pranksters and everyday stories making fun of the world. A whole lot of the Termite Terrace animators did it with crass and over-the-top humor. Basically, guys like Clampett and Avery were visualists. You had to pay attention to the dialogue to get the humor. Afterall, not many people could get away with something like this:

Would you like to shoot me now or wait 'til you get home?
SHOOT HIM NOW!!! SHOOT HIM NOW!!!
You keep out of this, he doesn't have to shoot you now.
Oh yeah? Well, I say he does have to shoot me now. So shoot me now!
BANG!

Mr. Jones was one of the few guys responsible for the development of Bugs Bunny (along with Ben "Bugs" Hardaway [he's the guy who also created Daffy Duck and Woody Woodpecker] and Tex Avery [who produced THE definative BB cartoon "A Wild Hare"]), a character that would be more than just a corporate mascot, unlike what other studio's characters have become. Bugs Bunny was still basically Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit, but at least he was fleshing out into his own character in Elmer's Candid Camera. A foil in Elmer Fudd was guided by Mr. Jones. In fact, the first cartoon to feature Bugs Bunny's name was Mr. Jones' Elmer's Pet Rabbit in 1941. Mr. Jones also sent Bugs into space, made him a prize fighter, a matador, and a barber.

Aside from Bugs Bunny, most of his early shorts were Disneyesque. Cutsy. Innocious. Bland. And a whole lot of small creatures. But the humor was still there. Chuck Jones wasn't afraid to experiment with the medium. He created a myrad of characters from the super-saccharine Sniffles the Mouse to the enamorous skunk Pepe Le Pew to the despot midget Marvin the Martian to the duo of Hubie and Bertie (you know, the pair of mice that cause a lot of trouble). He also created the silent duo of the Coyote and the Road Runner, helped develop Snafu, a cartoon series that soldiers of the second World War saw in droves, and turned Porky Pig into the perfect sidekick (and as a recent Cartoon Network promo suggested, there's no shame in that!). He also told a lot of stories, from a cannibal hunting an annoying mynah bird to a cat that thinks he's sick all the time to a big bulldog taking care of a precoious little kitten to a very dysfunctional revamp of the Three Bears to a defender of the cosmos looking for the shaving cream atom.

After he left Warner Bros., Mr. Jones's cartoons got a little trippy. Actually, before he left WB, his cartoons got a little trippy, but his works at MGM were borderline cartoon and fine art. The Bear That Wasn't was kind of poetic, as was The Dot and the Line. His Tom and Jerry shorts weren't as violent or as rambuncious as Hanna-Barbera's were. Over the years, Mr. Jones continued experimenting, turning children's stories into television classics (one in particular, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is now considered by many to be one of the best holiday traditions ever), and embracing new mediums like computer software and the internet.

His passing came as a blow to me, and I didn't know how to express my grief over it. I'm not an animator nor someone who knew him like a whole lot of animation historians did. I'm just a fan, and I feel nothing that I could do would be enough to honor the life of this man, so I thought of the only suitable thing I could actually say.

Thank you Chuck Jones.

Thank you for giving the world fuel for creativity.

Thank you for giving me an event that I could look forward to every holiday season.

Thank you for creating one of the funniest animated pairings ever.

Thank you for telling great stories, and having the cajones to experiment every now and then.

Thank you, well, thank you for being Chuck Jones. Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.

Thanks for the laughs.