"Chuck Jones Conquers Bugs Bunny" by John Kricfalusi

 This is the second part of an article about Chuck Jones by John K.

To read part one, click here.

 Animation Magazine - Issue #31 October/November 1994

Click each image to enlarge. Text version included below.

Text Version:

Tradition has it that Bugs Bunny was born in a Tex Avery cartoon called A Wild Hare in 1940. A few prototype Bugs Bunny cartoons had previously been made by other directors but it is generally agreed that this is the first time the characters and the situation gelled.

    The cartoon solidly establishes Bugs Bunny's (and Elmer Fudd's) personalities. Bugs' dominant characteristic is that he is a heckler. Being a heckler in itself was not new in 1940. Daffy Duck was a heckler and he was born three years earlier. Bugs Bunny brought a subtle change to the stock heckling character. He is a calm, cool heckler — for the most part. In A Wild Hare, Bugs Bunny clearly enjoys heckling. He is a young character, kind of a teen-aged wiseacre, a hip class clown.

    This, for cartoons, was a revolution in personality. Bugs Bunny is a character that we can relate to. He's down to earth, realistic, street smart. He's slightly devilish and gets away with things that we would like to get away with. Elmer's personality on the other hand is completely unbelievable. He's a throwback, a slightly earlier Warner Bros.-style character, a surreal cartoon personality. He's too stupid. (Not too stupid to be funny, just too stupid to be believed.) These are the two schools of Warner Bros. personalities combined successfully and the combination created a new style. 

    One of the funniest scenes in the picture has Bugs Bunny pretending that Elmer has shot him. Elmer, realizing what he has done, cradles the rabbit as he goes through his death throes. This is a wonderfully

acted scene, both by Mel Blanc who spoke it and Bob McKimson who animated it. You don't see this kind of professional comedic acting in other studios' work.

    Bugs looks outwardly like a timid forest creature, which masks his potential for damage to his prey. While Elmer is the supposed hunter in the cartoon, it soon becomes obvious that Bugs is the one who is doing the luring and trapping.

    It's interesting that Elmer Fudd never directly provokes Bugs Bunny. He doesn't get a chance to. In A Wild Hare, Bugs is not at all put out by the fact that Elmer Fudd is invading his territory, let alone trying to kill him. In fact, he's glad he's there. He wants somebody to screw with, which he does, right from the start, just for fun. Just because he's a wiseacre. Now this situation is ridiculous. Bugs is a frail woodland creature, Elmer has a gun and could easily kill him. The fact that Elmer goes along with Bugs' routines is completely preposterous.

    Not only Bugs Bunny was born in this cartoon. The perceived Warner Bros. cartoon style was also born. This combination of believable characters with surreal characters and unbelievable gags and situations set what people think of today as the Warner Bros. cartoon style. Bob Clampett brought this style to its peak of success, both popularly and artistically during the mid-forties, and was copied by all the contemporary studios, including Disney. The Warner Bros. "irreverent" cartoon style is raped and pillaged and beaten to death today by its usurpers. It remains the standard for funny cartoons.

    A Wild Hare is not the first cartoon to have all these story elements. A previous cartoon had practically all the same elements, the same characters with the same personalities, the same gags, the same story situations. The cartoon was even written by the same person, Rich Hogan. 

    Only one element between the cartoons was truly different. The director. 

    In Elmer's Candid Camera, as in A Wild Hare, Bugs Bunny screws with Elmer without any motivation, just for kicks. Elmer is not out to harm him, he just wants to take photographs of wildlife. 

    Elmer's and Bugs' characters are pretty well developed in this cartoon, from a written standpoint. They say things that fit their modern personalities but something is missing. They don't seem timed or drawn right. (I don't mean "on model," I mean the expressions don't match the attitude of the dialogue.) There is a lack of conviction.

    The gags and story situations are very similar to the Avery cartoon. There's even a fake death scene in it like in A Wild Hare, except for some reason it's not really as funny.

    Chuck Jones says this about Elmer's Candid Camera, "In this cartoon, we find Bugs stumbling, fumbling and mumbling around, vainly seeking a personality on which to hang his dialogue and action, or — in better words than mine — 'walking around with his umbilical in his hand, looking for some place to plug it in...' "Not only Bugs suffered at my hands, but difficult as it is to make an unassertive character like Elmer Fudd into a flat, complete schmuck, I managed. Perhaps the kindest thing to say about Elmer's Candid Camera is that it taught everyone what not to do and how not to do it..."

    The main difference between A Wild Hare and Elmer's Candid Camera is that one director understood the elements and the other didn't. In order to tell a joke well, you need to get the joke. In order to do the Warner Bros. style well, you need to understand it. In order to present an attitude or point-of-view in your art you need to believe in it and feel it.

    Between 1940 and 1945 or so, while the Warner Bros. stock characters and style grew to become the most popular American cartoons, Jones was directing at Warner Bros.

    It seems only fitting that he would have a quota of Warner Bros. style cartoons and stock characters, so in between Sniffles and Conrad Cat cartoons, Jones worked at learning the house style. He claims that it took him 10 cartoons and six years to finally understand Bugs Bunny.

    "From Hair-Raising Hare (released May 1946) on, I did not have to ask for whom the rabbit toiled; he toiled for me. I no longer drew pictures of Bugs; I drew Bugs, I timed Bugs, I knew Bugs, because what Bugs aspired to, I too aspired to. Aside from a few stumbles, Bugs and I were always at ease with one another."

    Bob Clampett's very first Bugs Bunny was right on the mark. In 1941 Clampett directed Wabbit Twouble a much funnier cartoon than A Wild Hare or any of the other directors' Bugs Bunnies. The character and the director seem perfectly confident with the formula. Bugs Bunny's personality doesn't falter. Clampett made three Bugs Cartoons in the stock mold set by A Wild Hare. He was getting used to

the character. By the fourth Bugs Cartoon he began to experiment with taking the character in new directions, building on his personality — and his look.

    First, he had his head animator Bob McKimson design a new model sheet, less rabbit like, more human in his expressions. His poses changed from the bent-kneed animal to a straight legged human-like pose, or one bent knee and one straight.

    His head was more triangular, more appealing and modern as a design. The confident, cocky personality is all over these drawings.

    The first cartoon to feature the new design was Tortoise Wins by a Hare. In this remake of Avery's Tortoise Beats Hare, Clampett is so confident with the character that he demonstrates what a hilarious sore loser Bugs Bunny, the good winner, can be.

    It would be three years before Jones made a Bugs Bunny cartoon that he was satisfied with, that resembled the one in the first Avery's and Clampett's.

    Actually I think Jones is too hard on himself. There are some very good things in some of his early Bugs cartoons.

    Elmer's Pet Rabbit is drawn better than Candid Camera.

    The cartoon has the same kind of jokes that most of the early Bugs Bunny cartoons do, but some of the gags go on too long.

    In one scene Bugs asks Elmer to kick him. Elmer doesn't want to do it. Bugs Bunny says, "Oh, come on." Elmer reluctantly gives him a light tap. Bugs Bunny swings around and says, "Of course you

know this means war." Bugs Bunny wants Elmer to give him an excuse to heckle him. I think Jones does too.

    In Case of the Missing Hare (1942), Jones introduces a formula that he uses many times in his career: a Lummox does something to Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny says, "Of course you know this means war!" Then Bugs Bunny turns on the Lummox. At the end of the cartoon, Bugs sings a smug little tune that boasts a successful revenge.

    This time when Bugs Bunny says, "Of course you realize this means war" it's motivated. The Lummox (a magician, "Ala Bama") smacks Bugs in the face with a pie. This Bugs Bunny cartoon is exactly the formula Jones used in many later car- toons, the films he says have Bugs Bunny's personality down. The lummox in this cartoon is a proto-lout, a generic design, but still kind of funny. He has the little feet and hands that Jones loves to draw and a big fat body.

    This "motivated" Bugs Bunny is important to Jones. He speaks about it a lot.

    "Well, I always underwrote the idea of Bugs being a heckler — he's minding his own business, and then somebody comes along and tries to disturb him, hurt him, destroy him. But when he fights back, he becomes an anarchist, rather like Groucho Marx."

    In Bugs Bunny Magazine, Jones explained, "I felt that somebody should always try to impose his will on Bugs. That gave him a reason to act, and I couldn't understand a character unless he had a reason for what he did." I don't think I agree with this. A character's central personality trait — who he is doesn't need to be motivated. I think that you have to motivate the character's departure from his personality. If somebody is going to do something against his nature, that you have to motivate. But you don't need to explain why a character acts the way he does naturally.

    Think about The Honeymooners. Imagine if we had to explain why Ralph is an a-hole at the beginning of every show. We don't know why he's an a-hole, he's just an a-hole. And we believe him because he's a convincing a-hole. He likes being an a-hole.

    Bugs Bunny in Bob Clampett's cartoons is completely convincing as a wiseacre; he likes to screw with people. He likes to screw with people in Tex Avery's cartoons, "Hmm...let's see, what can I do to this guy next?" Bugs is a happy heckler in Friz Freleng's, Bob McKimson's, Art Davis' and Frank Tashlin's cartoons.

    If Bugs Bunny deviates from his normal cool behavior, then we need a motivation, as we have in Tortoise Wins by a Hare, Tortoise Beats Hare by Tex Avery and Falling Hare by Bob Clampett. In Chuck Jones's cartoons, we have to explain why he likes to screw with people. Except in Duck Amuck.

    In Case of the Missing Hare, the motivation didn't radically alter the effect of this cartoon compared with Jones's last Bugs cartoon. It is better, due to some experimental layouts and dynamic poses, some-

what in the style of The Dover Boys, although it has some of the same problems as the other early Jones cartoons.

    Jones is still unsure of this style of humor. His drawings and timing aren't as funny as the other directors who are working in their native styles.

    What's important here, isn't whether or not Bugs Bunny's personality needed to be motivated at the beginning of each car- toon. If Jones needs a rationale to do the Warner Bros. style, that's okay. At least having an excuse for Bugs to act like Bugs got Jones over a hump. He was now trying to make funny cartoons.

    In Super Rabbit, Jones started to get a handle on the character and his new formula. In this one the lummox is very specific; a cowboy Lummox named Cottontail Smith, who hates rabbits. "If there's one thing I hates more than a rabbit, it's two rabbits." This line later became a trademark of Yosemite Sam.

    Bugs is more confident in his heckling persona, "Time out, whilst I think of some more deviltry." This is a pretty wacky cartoon for an early Chuck Jones cartoon. Bugs is pretty geeky and playful, full of youthful energy like the Avery/Clampett Bugs.

    Artistically, there are a lot of held poses in the cartoon. This is a specialty of Jones: poses that are so strong that they are worth holding long enough for us to enjoy them.

    In Wackiki Wabbit (1943), Bugs Bunny doesn't seem to have a strong motivation to go after two guys on a deserted island. A tall skinny guy and short fat guy want to eat him, but they're starving, so its justified. They aren't villains.

    At the end of the cartoon, a rescue boat comes. Bugs Bunny escapes on the boat, and leaves the two guys on the island to die, enjoying every minute of it. The gags in this cartoon come out of Bugs Bunny taking advantage of the fact that these two guys are starving.

    Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (1944) is a weaker cartoon, mostly because the production values are very rough. It seems as if the cartoon was rushed. However, Jones introduces his Three Bears, characters with great potential that he later spun off. These characters are from a whole other world than the typical Warner Bros. cartoons. They are in the tradition of radio sitcoms, the world of the Bickersons and Jack Benny. The relationships between the wild-tempered Father, stupid lummox baby and sexless Mom are more entertaining than Bugs himself. Junior and Pa steal the show. Here are characters that Jones is comfortable with. He doesn't feel the need to over-motivate these characters' relationships to each other. Pa never says "Of course you know, this means child abuse!" after Junior does something stupid.

    The cartoon that for me, shows that Jones finally clicked with Bugs Bunny and the Warner style is Hare Conditioned. 

Next issue, Kricfalusi explains why Hare Conditioned is a triumph for Jones. Kricfalusi is the president of Spumco.