Chuck Redux

Exclusive Opportunity for Fans of Chuck Jones

We appreciate our loyal readers, fans and collectors and are thrilled to be able to offer you an exclusive opportunity through Bloomspot.  What is Bloomspot, you may well be asking right now; like Groupon, they offer a variety of restaurant, retail and relaxation specials.  Because of the quality of their offerings, we felt it was the perfect place to release these specials.  You'll be able to buy a $100.00 gift certificate for $45.00; one of our latest Chuck Jones fine art etchings for $95.00 (a $195.00 value) or even the 26 color, hand-pulled serigraph, "Spring Training" at an amazing price.  

To view the artwork being offered, please click on Bloomspot!  Happy Holidays from all of us here at Chuck Redux!

"Marc Anthony & Kitty" a fine art etching, edition size 500.  © Warner Bros. 2011

Chuck Jones on the Origins of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote

Let's listen to Chuck Jones as he discusses the origins of his characters, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Afterwards there'll be a quiz, so please take notes.  

You know that's not true, afterwards there'll be a cartoon starring these self-same animated animals, enjoy!

 

 

At the Bus Stop--Oxford Circus - London 1960

As we get closer to installing the Chuck Jones exhibition at the Chuck Jones Experience in Circus Circus -- Las Vegas, we continue to unearth amazing little gems of drawings and watercolors from Chuck's travel notebooks.  In 1960 he and his wife, Dorothy, traveled to Europe and visited England, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.  

When I showed one of the drawings to Chris, the Center's resident teaching artist, he said that you knew by looking at the drawing that Chuck just had his hand to paper and wasn't looking specifically at the drawing as it unfolded, but at what he was drawing -- that the free flowing line (so simple, but so telling at the same time) conveyed the immediacy of the moment -- really, you could have been standing there next to him, they are that fresh.  On display at the Experience will be several of these notebooks revealing moments that Chuck experienced first-hand and because of his natural genius and talent with pen & ink (and watercolor as seen in the work featured here), you will be able to do the same.  

Chuck Jones at the Port of Portland

Beginning September 19th, a new Chuck Jones exhibit based on his drawings for his 1996 book, "Chuck Reducks--Drawing from the Fun Side of Life" will be featured along Concourse A at the Portland, Oregon airport.  If you're traveling through Portland then (particularly on Alaska or Horizon airlines) make sure you check out this original artwork, much of it never-before-seen, from the hand of Chuck Jones.  The exhibit will close at the end of March 2012.  

The exhibit focuses on drawings that Jones created to illustrate how he drew the characters that we've all come to know and love, including, Sam Sheepdog, Porky Pig, Marvin Martian, Bugs Bunny and others.  The works below are a sample of the original artwork that will be on display.

Important Information! How to Draw Bugs Bunny

Since the Chuck Jones Big Draw will be setting a Guinness World Record for the most people taking an art class in one venue on Sunday, August 7th at exactly 2 PM PDT (location: 3303 Hyland Ave., Costa Mesa, CA) and since we're all going to learn how to draw Bugs Bunny, it seems completely appropriate and timely that we should start learning from the master himself, Chuck Jones.  See you there!

Thanks to Larry Levine, co-creator of Aw Prunes for reminding me this clip existed!  Join us by registering at www.EventComplete.com.  

Cats That Have Known Chuck Jones, a Portfolio

The cat has been domesticated since ancient times.  Of the genus Felis, the common (and as we’ll discover, uncommon) house cat, Felix Sylvestri (wherever did those cat names come from?), has been the visual inspiration for untold centuries of artists, from the tombs of the Pharaohs to contemporary society.   For Chuck Jones it began with one cat called Johnson.   

Johnson entered the Jones household one foggy morning in 1918, carefully picking his way through the sand at Balboa, to stand looking up at their home requesting admission.  “He moved into our house that morning, bag and baggage.  The bag was that cat bag all cats live in, one of the few characteristics he shared with other cats.  He sat fat and walked thin like other cats, but the resemblance to other cats stopped there,” reminisces Chuck Jones in his autobiography, Chuck Amuck.  “His baggage was what appeared to be a very old, very used tongue depressor, fastened securely about his neck…bearing the crude inscription…Johnson.”

Chuck Jones recalls that morning because he realized that it marked a turning point in his perception of character and one of the most important lessons of animation: individuality.  Johnson demonstrated for Jones that it is the individual, the oddity and peculiarity of character that counts.  In response to the question, “Why do animated cartoonists use animals?” Jones has said that it is easier and more believable to humanize animals than to humanize humans. 

The Cat Portfolio is a limited edition collection of 9 cats drawn by Chuck Jones over a 50-year period.  The ten fine art reproductions on paper (one cat is seen in x-ray as well) that comprise the portfolio are led off by a drawing of Johnson, jauntily wearing three-quarters of a grapefruit rind on his head like a space helmet.  “On such occasions he seemed to enjoy this raffish adornment and would saunter out onto the sand, often with only one eye visible under the overhang, a curious sight to many people, a delight to our family, and a source of sheer terror to small dogs and old ladies,” Jones continues in his autobiography.  And if that weren’t enough, Johnson liked to swim in the ocean, too.   

Ali Baba Bunny

On their way to Pismo Beach*, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck make that wrong turn at Albuquerque and end up in a secret treasure cave in Baghdad.  Thus opens, Chuck Jones’ 1957 “Ali Baba Bunny”.  It doesn’t take but a New York second for Daffy to realize that their travel mistake will make him “comfortably well-off”.  The guardian of the treasure, Hassan, tries his best to halt the thievery, but is stopped by the implacable Bugs Bunny.  “Rabbit Rope Trick” (below) brings to life one of the classic moments from this film.  Created from Chuck Jones’ original drawing, each cel has been hand-painted by expert cel painters much as it would've been when the film was originally made.

“Ali Baba Bunny” premiered February 9 and was directed by Charles M. Jones.  Michael Maltese wrote the story with animation by Richard Thompson, Ken Harris, Abe Levitow and Ben Washam and effects animation by Harry Love.  Maurice Noble created the layouts, the backgrounds were painted by Philip DeGuard and the film editor was Treg Brown.  Voice characterization was provided by Mel Blanc and musical direction by Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn. 

*Pismo Beach, California is located on the central coast between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.  In the early part of this century through the 1950’s, Pismo Beach had a reputation in Hollywood for a less than genteel population.  Noted for its gambling dens and bordellos situated in quaint little cottages by the sea, it drew many a Hollywood personality.  (And the clams weren’t half-bad either, although they’re a protected species now.)

Long-Haired Hare

“Of course, you know this means war!”  And with those words the battle begins pitting the ingenious Bugs Bunny against the pompous and self-absorbed opera singer, Giovanni Jones.  The results are to be expected (the rabbit wins!) but getting there is all the fun.  Gainers by Giovanni into the horn section of the orchestra pit, liquid alum shrinking his head, and in the scene depicted here, Bugs dressed as a bobby soxer requesting an autograph by handing our vain singer a lit dynamite pen!  The coup-de-grâce comes as Bugs enters the Hollywood Bowl dressed as Leopold Stokowski, the famed conductor, wreaking havoc as he conducts Jones in his final bow before the Bowl blows up and buries him in its debris.

Long Haired Hare made its début in theaters nationwide on June 25, 1949.  Directed by Charles M. Jones with a story by Michael Maltese, it was animated by Phil Monroe, Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan and Ken Harris.  Robert Gribbroek designed the layouts and the backgrounds were painted by Peter Alvarado. Mel Blanc provided the voice characterizations and the music was provided by Carl W. Stalling.

The White Seal

In 1974, Chuck Jones brought to life the story of Kotick, the white seal, while a vice-president in charge of children’s programming at ABC.  This television special was based on the story of survival and perseverance of a group of seals living in the Bering Straits.  The original tale is by Rudyard Kipling and can be found in his collection* of stories, “The Jungle Book”.   Chuck Jones also recreated for television two other Kipling tales, “Rikki Tikki Tavi” 1975 and “Mowgli’s Brothers” 1976.  This image below is a recreation by lithography of an original production cel and background used in the film and later featured on the cover of the book based on the television special “The White Seal”. 

*From “Chuck Amuck” by Chuck Jones:  “We always had books in the house we lived in.  We not only had books, we had books (old or new) that were fresh to us.  The way it worked was this: a house in those days of the early twenties had books.  Incredible as it seems, that’s what people did: they read.  We didn’t have a phonograph until I was twelve, a radio until I was seventeen, or television until I was forty-six.

“So that left books.  When you rented a furnished house, it was equipped with furniture and books.  …Father would scout around for a furnished house.  “Furnished” in his lexicon meant furnished with books, hundreds being mandatory, thousands being preferable.  Colonel Terhune’s big house on the Speedway in Ocean Park had thousands of books, as did Times editor Harry Carr’s place on Mount Washington Drive, so the six or seven or eight of our family stayed in each house for over five years, until we had exhausted the supply,  a sort of omnivorous plague of indiscriminate readers.” 

 

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was

The Academy Award-winning director of "Duck Amuck," "What's Opera, Doc," "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and other timeless classics, created dozens of cartoon characters throughout his decades-long career: Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote... and Crawford, an accident prone, nine-year-old boy whose daily routine includes surviving his own boyhood.

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was follows the twenty-seven year journey it took Jones to bring "Crawford" to the public, from conception to storyboard to newspaper strip. This incredible volume is loaded with never before seen sketches, drawings, storyboards and production notes, and the six-month run of the Crawford newspaper comic strip from 1978. Accompanying the artwork is a biography of Chuck Jones's career in the sixties and seventies and how it influenced the creation of Chuck's only foray into the world of comic strips.

Marian Jones, Chuck's widow had this to say about the project, "Kurtis Findlay, an admitted comics addict, is too young to have ever read Chuck Jones’ 1970s short-lived comic strip, “Crawford”, in the newspapers.  But he came across some copies not too long ago and was hooked.  He was also puzzled.  “Crawford” was the least known of all of Chuck’s work; he thought that was a loss.  He also wondered how it had started, what had become of it, and how Chuck had developed it.

"A query to  CJCC [Chuck Jones Center for Creativity --ed.]led to Kurtis visiting us and proposing to write a book assembling all the original strips with any  information he could ferret out.  He and I spent several days in the archives, with Kurtis registering more and more amazement and excitement over Chuck’s drawings and historical source material.

"Even though I had worked with Chuck at that time, and was myself writing a comic strip (originated by someone else --Rick O’Shay and Hipshot) I had totally forgotten about some of the material that Kurtis discovered.  His book traces a never before spelled out story of a character that chased around in Chuck’s head, and in various ways onto film, over the years, but never quite came to fulfillment." 

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was is a dream come true in that almost all the art is being reproduced from Chuck Jones's originals! It is a treasure trove of previously unknown artwork that is a must for all fans of animation and comics.

Visit the official Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was website. All-new, never before seen Chuck Jones art will be added in the coming weeks and months leading up to the book's release this holiday season.  You can find them on Facebook as well.