Chuck Jones

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chuck Jones (1976)

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (born September 21, 1912 in Spokane , Washington , † February 22, 2002 in Corona del Mar , California ) was an American illustrator and director of animated films , where he also worked as a screenwriter.

Life

Chuck Jones grew up in Los Angeles . He developed a talent for drawing at an early age, which he continuously developed. After studying at the Chouinard Art Institute, he worked as an animation assistant for the animation studios of Ub Iwerks and Walter Lantz .

In 1933 Jones went to Leon Schlesinger Productions , an independent production company that Tex Avery was working for at the time . There he gained his first experience as a director and in 1938 delivered with Mann oder Maus? made his cartoon debut. However, the first films met with little acceptance by the public. Colleagues also criticized the slow narration, the lack of humor and the kitschy drawing style, which was very much based on Walt Disney .

In 1942, Jones embarked on a completely new path with The Dover Boys and broke with all common conventions. He reduced and stylized the drawings to a minimum and thus distanced himself from the more realistic standard that Disney had set years earlier. Of the film The Dover Boys , Jones later said: "With him I learned to be funny." At this time he also began to invent his own characters, such as B. Charlie Dog, Hubie, Bertie, The Three Bears and the later very popular pig Dick. During World War II , Jones worked with Theodore “Dr. Seuss ”hostage to“ Private Snafu ”, a series of reconnaissance and propaganda cartoons for soldiers, and drew an election spot for Franklin D. Roosevelt .

As early as the early 1930s, the Leon Schlesinger studio was producing the cartoon series Looney Tunes for Warner Brothers . Although Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were the undisputed stars of the show, Jones also created numerous unforgettable characters from the mid-1940s, including the dog Marc Anthony, the skunk Pepe LePew, the Martian Marvin as well as the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote . Two of his first successes as a director were the cartoons Dicke Luft (orig. For Scent-imental Reasons ) and So Much For So Little , for which he won two Oscars in 1950 . De-nerved duck ( Duck Amuck ) gained great popularity in 1952, in which Daffy Duck is tortured by his draftsman.

When the Warner Brothers animation studio was closed for two years in 1953, Jones worked for rival Disney during this time. Parts of the film Sleeping Beauty (1959) were made by him. After returning to Warner, he created One Froggy Evening in 1955 , which is about a man who owns a singing frog. However, he never shows his talent in the presence of other people. The main character Michigan J. Frog was the mascot of Warner Brothers for years. In What's Opera Doc? from 1957 Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd fight in the style of the Disney hit Fantasia to the sounds of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . Both works are still extremely popular and have long been considered classics.

In the early 1960s, Jones wrote the script for the film Gay Purr-ee on behalf of the UPA studio . Seeing this as a breach of contract, Warner was fired in 1962. From 1964 he drew several episodes of the series Tom and Jerry for MGM . With his own animation company Sib Tower 12 , he produced the film The Dot and the Line in 1965 , which is about the love of a straight line to a point and won an Oscar .

1966 Jones created the animated film The Stolen Christmas ( How the Grinch Stole Christmas ) placed on the children's book that stole Christmas How the Grinch from Dr. Seuss based. The film is still shown on television every Christmas year in the USA .

From the 1980s onwards, Jones worked less and less as an animator . Instead, he held numerous lectures at art schools and gave drawing courses. He was also seen in small roles in movies, such as Joe Dante's Gremlins - Little Monsters (1984) as Mr. Jones and in Die Reise ins Ich (1987) as a supermarket customer . He worked well into old age. Chuck Jones died of heart failure on February 22, 2002. He was married twice and had two children. In total, he has directed nearly 300 cartoons.

Filmography (short films)

  • 1939: Rabbit in a Hat (Perst-O Change-O)
  • 1939: Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur
  • 1940: Caution Camera (Elmer's Candid Camera)
  • 1941: Rabbit Plague (Elmer's Pet Rabbit)
  • 1942: Löwenherz und Hasenfuss (Hold the Lion, Please)
  • 1942: Case of the Missing Hare
  • 1943: Super-Schlappohr (Super-Rabbit)
  • 1944: Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
  • 1945: The scent of L'amour (Odor-Able Kitty)
  • 1945: Hare Conditioned in the department store
  • 1946: Hair-Raising Hare
  • 1948: Bugs Bunny and the Indian (A Feather in His Hare)
  • 1948: Bugs, the Boxer (Rabbit Punch)
  • 1948: Haredevil Hare
  • 1948: My Bunny Lies Over the Sea
  • 1948: The award-winning Mouse Wreckers
  • 1949: My dear Mr. Choral Society (Long-Haired Hare)
  • 1949: Fast and Furry-ous
  • 1949: Frigid Hare
  • 1949: Beloved Skunk (For Scent-imental Reasons)
  • 1950: Homeless Hare
  • 1950: Bird in tails (8 Ball Bunny)
  • 1950: The Ducksters
  • 1950: The Rabbit of Seville
  • 1950: Hit it, bunny! (Bunny Hugged)
  • 1951: The hunting season has started (Rabbit Fire)
  • 1951: Porky and the Green Shoes (The Wearing of the Grin)
  • 1951: No more cheese (Cheese Chasers)
  • 1951: Papa Bear has a hard time (A Bear for Punishment)
  • 1951: Quakende Colts (Drip-Along Daffy)
  • 1952: Feed the Kitty
  • 1952: From the rain to the eaves (Water, Water Every Hare)
  • 1952: Marvin the Martian (The Hasty Hare)
  • 1952: Road Runners Beep Show (Beep, Beep)
  • 1952: No lunch for Coyote (Going! Going! Gosh!)
  • 1952: Waidmanns Heil (Rabbit Seasoning)
  • 1953: Counting Sheep (Don't Give Up the Sheep)
  • 1953: Sagittarius Bugs (Forward March Hare)
  • 1953: De-nerved duck (Duck Amuck)
  • 1953: Astro-Daffy (Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century)
  • 1953: Coyote-style bird trapping (Zipping Along)
  • 1953: Duck, Duck! (Duck! Rabbit, Duck!)
  • 1954: barking prohibited! (No Barking)
  • 1954: Hot soles on the highway (Stop! Look! And Hasten!)
  • 1954: Lumber Jack Rabbit
  • 1955: Race in the clouds (Beanstalk Bunny)
  • 1955: Heavy artillery (Ready .. Set .. Zoom!)
  • 1955: Animated series (Rabbit Rampage)
  • 1955: Fast as an arrow and explosive (Guided Muscle)
  • 1955: The Singing Frog (One Froggy Evening)
  • 1956: Masquerade with consequences (Broom-Stick Bunny)
  • 1956: Gold Rush (Barbary-Coast Bunny)
  • 1956: falling rocks and dynamite (There They Go-Go-Go!)
  • 1957: Roller skaters and steamrollers (Scrambled Aches)
  • 1957: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Steal Wool)
  • 1957: The Ring of Niegelungen (What's Opera, Doc?)
  • 1957: Ali Baba Bunny
  • 1957: Totally Mad (Zoom and Bored)
  • 1958: Robin Hood Daffy
  • 1958: Star flight (Hare-Way to the Stars)
  • 1958: Flattened and thrown through (Whoa, Be-Gone!)
  • 1959: music, maestro! (Baton Bunny)
  • 1959: Arabian Nights (Hare-Abian Nights)
  • 1961: Beep-Beep (Beep Prepared) at all times
  • 1963: Tom and the Penthouse Mouse
  • 1963: Marshäschenom (Mad as a Mars Hare)
  • 1963: Ideas and Failures (To Beep or Not to Beep)
  • 1964: Tom the Singing Kater (The Cat Above and the Mouse Below)
  • 1964: Jerry the Cyclone (Is There a Doctor in the Mouse?)
  • 1964: Games with Fire (Snowbody Loves Me)
  • 1964: Tom gets a deputy (The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse)
  • 1964: Tom gets in trouble (Much Ado About Mousing)
  • 1965: Duel at dawn (Duel Personality)
  • 1965: Tom as a vole (Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life)
  • 1965: Playing with Tom (Tom-ic Energy)
  • 1965: Tom as a real brain worker (Bad Day at Cat Rock)
  • 1965: Tom and the Magic (Haunted Mouse)
  • 1965: Tom's Downhill (I'm Just Wild About Jerry)
  • 1965: The Good Fairy (Of Feline Bondage)
  • 1965: The Year of the Mouse
  • 1965: Tom comes to the dog (The Cat's Me-Ouch)
  • 1966: Tom Under Pressure (Jerry, Jerry, Quite Contrary)
  • 1966: Tom in love (Love Me, Love My Mouse)
  • 1966: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
  • 1967: The Journey to Venice (Cat and Dupli-cat)
  • 1967: Tom as sardine (Cannery Rodent)
  • 1967: The Bear That Wasn't
  • 1970: The Speck of Dust (Horton Hears a Who!)
  • 1971: A Christmas Carol
  • 1973: The Cricket in Times Square
  • 1978: Bugs Bunny at King Arthur's Court (A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court)
  • 1995: Peter and the Wolf (Peter and the Wolf)

Filmography (feature films)

  • 1970: Milos utterly impossible journey (The Phantom Tollbooth)
  • 1979: Bugs Bunny's wild, daring hunt (The Bugs Bunny / Road-Runner Movie)
  • 1982: Bugs Bunny: Tales from 1001 Nights (Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales)
  • 1983: Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island
  • 1988: Daffy Duck's Quackbusters

Awards and nominations (selection)

All nominations and awards in the Best Animated Short Film category (except for So Much For So Little in the Best Documentary Short Film category)

literature

Film documentaries

  • Chuck Jones - A Life in Animation ( Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens. A Life in Animation ). Documentation by Margaret Selby and Greg Ford. USA 2000, 90 minutes
  • The Magical World of Chuck Jones . Documentation by George Daugherty. USA 1992, 93 minutes

Web links

Commons : Chuck Jones  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Jones, Chuck
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jones, Charles Martin (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comic book artist and animated film director
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Spokane , Washington
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 2002
Place of death Corona Del Mar , California