• March 11, 2002
• Vol. 57
• No. 9

That's All, Folks

Chuck Jones, Whose Wily Pen Begot Bugs Bunny, Led a Truly Animated Life

You'd think that, of all his characters, cartoonist Chuck Jones might have felt the greatest affinity for Bugs Bunny, introduced in the 1940 short A Wild Hare. Wasn't Jones, like Bugs, a light-footed wiseacre thumbing his nose at the silly world? In a career of more than 60 years, notably with Warner Bros. from 1936 to 1962, Jones drew not only Bugs but Looney Tunes stars Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Yet it was the blustering, blundering Daffy Duck for whom Jones felt the strongest tug. "He said he screwed up like Daffy all the time," says his wife of 20 years, Marian Jones, 73, "that he'd rather be Bugs—but Bugs was too much of a hero."

No matter how he regarded his inner duck, Jones, who was 89 when he died of congestive heart failure on Feb. 22 at his home in Corona del Mar, Calif., was perfection when he sat down to draw. The sharp colors and wiry action in his more than 300 cartoons influenced everyone and everything from Steven Spielberg—who wrote the introduction to Jones's 1989 memoir, Chuck Amuck—to Rugrats. "He always looked for something a bit edgier," says pal Rob Minkoff, codirector of The Lion King. "There's a vitality, an aliveness to his work."

And an unsentimental humor, inspired by Mark Twain, that's as ageless as Bugs (or Daffy). A week ago, when relatives paid a final visit, says his widow, "He said, 'Hmmm, this is quite a conclave. Who's getting hung?'"