Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings

Portraits of American Genius #3

by Hugh Kenner

Creator of the mono-maniacal Wile E. Coyote and his elusive prey, the Road Runner, Chuck Jones has won three Academy Awards and been responsible for many classics of animation featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd. Who better to do Chuck Jones than Hugh Kenner, master wordsmith and technophile, a man especially qualified to illuminate the form of literacy that Jones so wonderfully executes in the art of character animation?
"A Flurry of Drawings" reveals in cartoon-like sequences the irrepressible humor and profound reflection that have shaped Chuck Jones's work. Unlike Walt Disney, Jones and his fellow animators at Warner Brothers were not interested in cartoons that mimicked reality. They pursued instead the reality of the imagination, the Toon world where believability is more important than realism and movement is the ultimate aesthetic arbiter. Kenner offers both a fascinating explanation of cartoon culture and a new understanding of art's relationship to technology, criticism, freedom, and imagination.

Genres: Biography, Film

114 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Bren · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have a lot of respect for hugh kenner and his work, obviously, but i have problems with his concepts of 'character animation' vs Limited Animation (almost but not quite digs at UPA) and his wholesale swallowing of the Jones mythos. just as obvious as kenner's importance in the modernist canon is jones' importance in american animation; he IS one of the masters, but its not for the reasons kenner postulates here mostly (which tend to accord with jones' self-perceptions of his abilities) - his sickly sweet sentimentality (which kenner somehow DENIES is a characteristic of jones, begging the question of whether or not hes seen a single sniffles cartoon), leaps into abstraction, just abt all that he gets right is that jones' mathematical leanings serve him well, even if i disagree abt how exactly. a frustrating read for someone who loves the work of both artists here.

[StephenM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant, a joy from beginning to end. If you're not familiar with Hugh Kenner, he's a legendary literary critic of the high modernists (Pound, Joyce, Eliot), so for him to take up a book on Looney Tunes is an unexpected delight. He knows his stuff, too, providing all sorts of details on the animation process and tossing in references to other studios and styles in the offhand manner of a true expert. And as you might expect, he never lets a point of comparison between Chuck Jones and classic literary figures pass him by without comment (he gets a lot of this from Jones himself, an omnivorous reader, opera-goer, and raconteur, both in his autobiography Chuck Amuck and in interviews with Kenner). But he never forces the issue of declaring 6-minute talking animal cartoons High Art, he just likes mentioning the connections. Mostly he's just tons of fun to read, witty and sophisticated but conversational, full of colorful metaphors and rhythmic sentences that pull you along. Here's a taste, chosen at random:

"Walt's narcotics were safe for the kiddies; whereas it's been routinely objected from that day to this that the Warner formula is bad for them, incorporating as it does so much violence. My first afternoon with Chuck Jones, in Baltimore, back in 1974, was punctuated by a woman with a Social Conscience who charged him with promulgating violence, vide those awful 'Road Runners.' Having heard that, oh, say, 8,053 times, Chuck wasn't deterred. The Coyote, he pointed out, is the only one who gets battered; but never, ever, does the Coyote find himself in a situation he didn't set up, personally and in detail. (Unmollified, Ms. Conscience, a lighter-into, next lit into the hors d'oeuvres.)"

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hugh Kenner is one of those guys who prove Chesterton's dictum that interested people are interesting people. He's interested in math and literature and technology, and, yes, cartoons. Chuck Jones, it turns out, is a guy majorly responsible for much of the best parts of my childhood: the 70s Grinch, Riki-Tick-Tavi, and The Phantom Tollboth, not to mention Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny arguing about the legal merits of Elmer Fudd's hunting expeditions. Reading this will educate you on how much thought and effort went into classic cartooning. Zaniness as (maybe! Kenner is reticent, Jones is humble) an art form. Makes for good fun reading.

[Henry Begler · Rating 4 out of 5]

grabbed this off the shelf after watching roadrunner cartoons all morning. fun short read, not a lot i didn’t know, mostly making the case for both chuck’s genius and the genius of the system (give them six minutes per cartoon and leave them alone, shave budgets whenever possible) that led to constraint-induced brilliance like said roadrunner/coyote cartoons. so kind of an auteur theory third way. i bounced off kenner’s magnum opus the pound era but his extremely allusive and off-the-cuff style works well here. and if you choose to write three books about the geniuses of the twentieth century and you choose pound, joyce, and chuck jones you probably have your head on straight.

[Susanne]

Interesting read about Chuck Jones, one of the directors of the animation team behind the Road runner cartoons. Learned a lot about how the process of animation used to work, although I assume it's very different now

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief overview of Jones’s career and impact as an animator and director of animations. Not a true biography, but definitely an appetizer. Makes me want to read more about him.

[Dan Sendker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essentially a condensed version of Chuck's memoir "Chuck Amuck," with many of the author's quotes and all of the art pulled from that book. Kenner does a great job walking us through the high points of Chuck's career, but many key people and characters are skipped over entirely. No mention of "Gay Purr-ee," and animators like Abe Levitow, Ken Harris, and Ben Washam only get passing mention. Virtually nothing on Marvin the Martian or any supporting character except those in "Feed the Kitty" and "No Barking." Most frustrating of all was the convoluted, highbrow phrasing throughout the book. Chuck, an intellectual, would've loved it, but Hugh Kenner is way too thrilled with how smart he is (and he is very smart). He's not a bad author and this isn't a bad book, but it's too hard of a read for too little benefit.

[Luis F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una visión de la obra de Chuck Jones, uno de los artistas de animación más importantes de la Warner Bros durante el siglo XX, y responsable de algunos de los cortos más memorables de las series de Bugs Bunny y el Correcaminos. La obra no es tanto una revisión académica, ni una biografía, ni tiene vocación que cubrir la obra de Chuck Jones exhaustivamente. Más bien es un repaso claramente entusiasta por la obra de Jones. A veces un poco densa, tanto por el lenguaje (el libro sólo está disponible en inglés) como por el nivel del texto, pero definitivamente recomendable para el conocedor y entusiasta de la obra de Jones. And that's all folks. :-)

[j_ay · Rating 2 out of 5]

a brief over-view of animation with some random quotes from Chuck Jones' autobiography. Not even close to a "profile" of the man, though...

[Sem · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is excessively annoying and much of the material is available in Chuck Amuck and elsewhere and I could have done without the digs at Disney but still... Chuck Jones.