Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones and Jim Henson in London in 1988, as seen in Jones' 1990 book Chuck Amuck.

Chuck Jones was an animator and director known for his contributions to Looney Tunes, creating the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, and Pepe LePew (whose 1949 short For Scent-imental Reasons won an Oscar). His cartoons transitioned Daffy Duck to a sarcastic rival to Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig to Daffy's deadpan straight man. Other best known shorts include One Froggy Evening (1955), operatic Bugs Bunny outings Rabbit of Seville and What's Opera Doc?, the "rabbit season" trilogy, and the stylized early short The Dover Boys (1942). After leaving Warner Bros., Jones directed the Christmas classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a series of specials adapting Rudyard Kipling.

Jones was one of the workshop consultants in the earliest stages of the Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street, along with other filmmakers, artists, educators, and psychiatrists. When asked in a later interview about his involvement, Jones recalled attending with fellow animator Don Arioli and said his role was only "to the extent that I think what I did was clear the air." In contrast to the jargon employed by the experts, "I think about all I contributed to it was pointing out that we're talking directly to people... I'd like to take credit for doing everything for them, but I wasn't, and I had very little to do with it. Probably just as well for them."

Despite his limited direct involvement, Jones was impressed by Sesame Street when it aired. He wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Times on the subject, published on November 25, 1969 (two weeks after the first episode premiered).

“The major and most important phenomenon is that no commercial show will ever be quite the same...I have a feeling that Joan Ganz Cooney and David Connell have opened a Pandora's box that will scare the hell out of everybody in TV because the TV-watching child will devour Sesame Street to the last crumb. And if that is true, some network is going to realize that intelligence is just conceivably commercial, which is just so revolutionary, it just might be un-American. ”

As hopes were raised that commercial television would raise its standards to match Sesame Street, Jones was appointed executive director of children's programming for ABC. He planned a show on similar lines called Curiosity Shop, aimed at older school children and focusing on general knowledge topics and social skills. Airing from 1971 to 1972, the show combined puppets, live actors, and animated segments, centered on a topic. Contributors included Sesame writers Jim Thurman and Gene Moss, and the show animated comic strips including Dennis the Menace and The Wizard of Id.

Jones later contributed short new Roadrunner segments to The Electric Company.

References

• Daffy's battles with his animator in 1953's Duck Amuck, arguing about sudden changes from the animation stand, were borrowed for the relationship between Ace Hart and Eliot Shag on the TV series Dog City.

• In the third season Farscape episode "Revenging Angel," heavily referencing Looney Tunes and the Roadrunner in particular, the animated Crichton asks D'Argo to consider counseling instead of shooting him: "Dr. Chuck Jones wrote the book on these situations."