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1st Tier Director
Awful OrphanMississippi HareMouse WreckersThe Bee-deviled BruinLong-Haired HareOften An OrphanFast and Furry-ousFrigid HareFor Scent-imental ReasonsBear FeatRabbit HoodThe Scarlet PumpernickelHomeless HareThe Hypo-chondri CatBall BunnyDoggone SouthThe DuckstersCaveman InkiRabbit of SevilleTwo's A CrowdBunny HuggedScent-imental RomeoA Hound for TroubleRabbit FireChowhoundThe Wearing of the GrinA Bear for PunishmentDripaLong DaffyOperation: RabbitFeed the KittyLittle Beau PepeWater, Water, Every HareBeep BeepThe Hasty HareGoing! Going! Gosh!Mouse WarmingRabbit SeasoningTerrier StrickenDon't Give up the SheepForward March HareKiss Me Cat
Nobody talks about the cartoons Chuck Jones did in the 1940's, and when they do, it's to write them off as "too cutesy" and "too slow". It was in the 50’s that he introduced all the gimmicks that made his cartoons so lovable: Background scenery by the likes of Robert Gribbroek, Pete Alvarado, Bob Givens, Maurice Nobel, and Phillip DeGuard, each of whom gave him amazingly-designed scenery and dazzlingly-colored backdrops; super fast timing, with about 30 gags-a-minute in the classic Road Runner cartoons; and his ultra self-conscious comedy routines (fourth wall breaking in Duck Amuck, mock-pretension in What’s Opera, and the whole Wabbit/Duck Season bit). None of his 40’s cartoons had these attention-grabbing treats (or at least if they did, it was in moderation).
As you may have guessed, it really bothers me that a full decade of Chuck Jones' work is ignored. The 40's cartoons of Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Frank Tashlin, and Friz Freleng are praised to high heaven by knowledgeable cartoon fans, but Chuck Jones was no good until the 1950's? A lot of his early cartoons were lackluster (Good Night Elmer and The Bird Came C.O.D., anyone?), for the usual reasons described in the first sentence up there, but let's not forget he did My Favorite Duck, Little Lion Hunter, The Dover Boys, The Unbearable Bear, and others were he focused on gags instead of gimmicks. But even then he was highly experimental with scenery, timing, and reaction shots, and most of his experiments worked. There's no cartoon like The Unbearable Bear, and it was done in 1943. Remember that.
But his 50's cartoons aren't revered for no good reason - Duck Amuck, Scarlet Pumpernickel, What's Opera Doc?, and the Wabbit/Duck Season trilogy are absolute classics that convince me the 1950's were still the Golden Age of animation, not the last declining embers. Not every cartoon Chuck did in the 50's was a classic though - Sometimes he relied too heavily on verbal gags, even in the supposedly classic stuff. And although the surface dressing vastly improved, the contents underneath, like angles, cutting, timing, and animation, didn't improve by a noticeable margin. He simply did fewer slow cartoons.
But whatever the decade, Chuck's cartoons generally have a few things in common, such as his "cutesy style." You know, the big, black eyes and the curvy facial lines. This style is pretty cool most of the time, as long as he doesn’t over abuse it (the cutesy demeanor wasn’t right for Tom and Jerry). Chuck Jones went a long way to making facial expressions a more active part of cartoons. Although John K., Bob Camp, Jim Smith, and the other Spumco artists took such an innovation even higher (after all, Bob Camp had dozens of idiosyncratic facial expressions in his head that he spent on a scrawny dog whose composure was never the same twice), nobody could beat Chuck when it comes to striking the viewer with a pause and close-up shot. To name my favorite example, watch Pest in the House and dig that face on the business tricked by Daffy into carrying his own bags. Ouch. Sometimes the “pause and stare at the audience” shtick became a bad habit, but Chuck almost always used this technique effectively.
Chuck also made sure the backgrounds were as much a part of the gags as anything else. Doesn’t the charm of What’s Opera Doc? lie in the elaborate mountains and ruins Bugs and Elmer run around in? Isn’t it captivating how the scenery can take on any form at any time in Duck Amuck? Isn’t it just plain cool that Papa Bear extracts all kinds of gags by interacting with the background in What’s Brewin’ Bruin?. Would the six-thousand-five-hundred-eighty-one falling gags he put the Coyote through be so funny if the canyons weren't drawn at just the right perspective?
Don’t forget Chuck also had the longest career of anyone in animation. Friz Freleng might have been a director for longer, but Chuck’s overall career outlasted anyone. Right up to his death he was still active in animation, and whatever the quality of his output he was the warhorse of animated cartoons, the medium’s answer to Will Eisner and the Rolling Stones.
His lengthy career ensured his vast diversity. Bob Clampett is more diverse in some respects, but Jones’ vast body of work taken together conveys a certain atmosphere no one could match, and tracing his evolution from Night Watchman to Timber Wolf is quite fascinating. No one can boast a variety of moods as wide as Chuck Jones. He could make you cry with What’s Opera Doc?, make you laugh your head off with My Favorite Duck (and others), take you on a surreal journey beyond the fourth wall with Duck Amuck, creep you out with those Sylvester and Porky cartoons, thrill you with tacky sci-fi send-ups, send you on a high-speed ride with the 50-odd Road Runner cartoons, and, uhm…show you the possibilities of limited animation with Tom and Jerry.
As for formats, he did tons of short cartoons, but also half-hour specials and feature films and even illustration outside of animation. Bob Clampett did do puppetry, but as far as animation went he always stuck to the short format. As did Tex Avery, who apparently hasn’t done anything significant in animation since the 1950’s.
The last big point I wanna make about Chuck Jones is that he’s a very personal director, obviously wearing his heart on his sleeve. Some of his cartoons might feel egocentric because of this, but it also pumps up the resonance factor. Bob Clampett and Tex Avery might have been creating whatever they felt was funny, but there’s an air of emotional detachment in their cartoons (same with Alan Moore – one has to dig deep to find the personal expression buried under the craft). This may never be confirmed, but I’m under the impression some of Jones’ gags and plots were metaphors for actual events in his life. Don’t take that as fact – I could be wrong here, but Chuck said we laugh at ourselves when we watch cartoons, so I could just as easily be right.
Even with all Chuck Jones has going for him, I can’t give him more than a 4/5. Don’t lynch me now. It only means I like him as a cartoon director a little less than Bob Clampett and Tex Avery. Chuck is my third favorite of the classic-era directors, for all I’ve explained above, but he’s still more gimmicks than gags. Take away all the embellishments that made his cartoons so famous and you’ll find there aren’t near as many creative ideas as with the BIG TWO. Lots of demonic effort developing the major draws, not enough thinking up good gags.
Besides, remember when I said that in a certain way, Bob Clampett is more diverse? Each Bob Clampett cartoon (speaking of the classic 1941-46 period at least) had an identity of its own (and even the b&w Porky Pigs do to a lesser extent). Clampett rarely repeated himself; he might’ve recycled a gag here and there, but never the main premise. I’m hard pressed to memorize a good portion of Chuck’s early cartoons, and even his classic 50’s material is surrounded by non-descript repetitiveness. Vast diversity comes with vast filler.
Within individual cartoons, Clampett still has Jones licked. No Chuck Jones cartoon deserves the highest overall rating. Clampett could organize his ideas much better than Jones and had more of them to boot. Jones crafted many cartoons that are fun to watch over again, but nothing in them would make you go, “Wow! I never noticed that before.” A Chuck Jones cartoon will grow on you and stay there; A Clampett cartoon you might view in a whole new light each time you watch it. I certainly have.
As to why Tex Avery is better than Chuck Jones, he was simply the greatest gag-man in cartoon history. Jones looks like a man straining to be creative next to Avery's apparent effortlessness. I have a lot of love and respect for Chuck Jones' cartoons, but he will always be second best. Now onto the reviews!