If there’s one man I’d like to swap places with for the kind of work he did; it would have to be Chuck Jones…I think its tie between Jones and Mel Blanc for the first place. Hugh Hefner is a distant third. But Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc, these guys have spread so much warmth, so much cheer, with so much class and such endurance. I love them.
The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies gang of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, and of course Elmer Fudd is a part of the collective childhood memories of more than two generations in a nation; nay, the whole world.
Chuck Jones was creating animation classics with his freehand drawings when George Lucas was a wee kid and Pixar was a good 30 years away. Today, CGI animation rules and when the storyteller manages to infuse characterization and some soul into the story it’s worth watching. This was what Jones and his gang did. They gave Bugs Bunny and the rest a lot of character.
The sophistication in execution of ideas as Chuck Jones achieved is the reason why superb cartoons like “What’s Opera, Doc?” are still so eminently watchable. If only it were possible to get inside the mind of guys like Chuck Jones and find out what makes it tick.
Chuck Jones: True American Hero.
That’s what I think at least.
I assume Chuck Jones isn’t alive anymore…Interesting guy though, I didn’t really know who he was.