If you don’t know the name Chuck Jones, you almost certainly know his work. Chuck Jones has become the most famous of the directors who worked on the classic Looney Tunes shorts. The hands-off approach taken by Warner Bros. toward their cartoons let all of their directors retain a greater degree of creative control and individualism than at rival studios, and Jones was arguably the most distinctive of his group. If you know what to look for, his visual fingerprints are the most easily identified, and underwent the most apparent evolution over the course of his career. That career covered more than his long service as a director for Warners. Beginning as an animator, working his way up to director, storyman, and head of his own production company, Jones worked for Disney, Ub Iwerks, MGM, TV networks, and himself before his death in 2002.
