Chuck Reducks: Drawings from the Fun Side of Life

Chuck Jones

Warner Books, 1996 - Art - 286 pages

The timeless masterpieces of animation director Chuck Jones have kept audiences laughing all over the globe for more than sixty years. The cartoon characters he has shaped and brought to life - Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner, the Grinch, and a memorable menagerie of others - have, like their creator, become indelible icons of American culture. Packed with entertaining anecdotes - encounters with Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney, life with such legends as Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, and Carl Stalling in the bedlam conditions of Termite Terrace (the Warner Bros. Animation studio), and collaborations with the genial Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) - Chuck Reducks is an unforgettable tour inside the endlessly creative mind of one of America's greatest comedy directors. There are character-by-character portraits of Chuck's animated stars, with enough priceless gems to satisfy even Daffy's appetite: Why Bugs Bunny's face had something in common with ice skater Sonja Henie's; Why there is something very peculiar about Marvin Martian's mouth and Witch Hazel's hairline; How inept management inspired Pepe le Pew; and did Michigan J. Frog (1957) inspire Steven Spielberg to name a certain adventure hero after a state and an admired animation director? Chuck Reducks also includes informative chronologies, illustrations detailing how characters are drawn and given movement, in-depth looks at such masterpieces as What's Opera, Doc? and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and practical tips for tomorrow's animators.

About the author

Charles Martin Jones was born in 1912 in Spokane, Wash. and began his distinguished career in animation in 1932, as a cel washer at Ubbe Iwerks Studio. In 1936, he became an animator for Leon Schlesinger, later bought by Warner Brothers. He stayed with Warner Brothers until the studio closed in 1961; during his employment there, he was animator and director for such characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Marvin the Martian. He has been honored with four Academy awards and directed one of the most popular Christmas specials of all time, the Peabody award-winning Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966). His What's Opera, Doc? (1957), in which Bugs and Elmer Fudd do their own version of Wagner's Ring Cycle, was the first animated film to be included in the National Film Registry (1992). Chuck Jones is also the author, adapter, editor, and illustrator of several children's books, including Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1982) and William the Backwards Skunk (1987).

Robin McLaurin Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951. He studied acting at the Juilliard School. He was an actor and comedian, who appeared in both television shows and feature films. His television shows included Mork and Mindy and The Crazy Ones. He starred in numerous films including Popeye, Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, The Fisher King, Awakenings, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Patch Adams, Bicentennial Man, Insomnia, Night at the Museum, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Merry Friggin' Christmas, and Boulevard. He won an Oscar in 1998 for Good Will Hunting. He also appeared in stand-up comedy specials like Robin Williams: An Evening at the Met and in an annual series of HBO telethons for Comic Relief, a charity organization that helps homeless people and others in need. In 2011, he made his acting debut on Broadway in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. He suffered from drug and alcohol addiction in the past and was currently battling severe depression. He died of a suspected suicide due to asphyxia on August 11, 2014 at the age of 63.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Chuck Reducks: Drawings from the Fun Side of Life
• Author: Chuck Jones
• Contributor: Robin Williams
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Warner Books, 1996
• ISBN: 044651893X, 9780446518932
• Length: 286 pages
• Subjects: Art / General