Chuck Jones Biography

Chuck Jones was the most famous director of cartoons for the legendary Warner Bros. animation studios. Along with animators like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones developed Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, and other beloved and way-out cartoon characters.

Chuck Jones grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute there. He landed a job at the animation studios of Ub Iwerks, where he learned the cartoon business. That led him in 1933 to a job as an assistant animator at Leon Schlesinger Productions, the independent studio that created Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes for Warner Bros. He remained at Schlesinger and Warners for nearly 30 years, helping to create Bugs Bunny and then creating characters like Michigan J. Frog, Marvin the Martian, and Wile E. Coyote. His creations were known for their wit, anarchic slapstick, and absurdist humor.

After Warner Brothers closed its animation division in 1962, Jones worked on Tom and Jerry cartoons and many other projects — most notably, the hit TV version of the Dr. Seuss book How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966). He won an Oscar for his 1965 animated short The Dot and the Line, and was given an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1995. He also directed For Scent-imental Reasons, the Warner Bros. cartoon (starring the skunk Pepé Le Pew) that won the Oscar as best short subject of 1949.

Warner Bros. cartoons enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, and Jones became a revered guru from animation’s first golden age. Chuck Jones died in February of 2002 at his home in Corona del Mar, California, where he had been suffering from congestive heart failure.