Chuck Jones – Chuck Reducks – Drawing from the Fun Side of Life

By Chuck Jones

Warner Books, 1996

8¼" x 10¼", 286 pages

I really enjoyed Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones so I was ready to enjoy this book as well. The first pages were full of Jones humorous anecdotes written in a style that would lend immediately to making cartoons out of them. Those anecdotes may seem only remotely related to animation but I think they are direct illustration of the book's subtitle "Drawing from the fun side of life". It is obvious, in this book as well as in "Chuck Amuck", that Jones success as an animation director is due his keen sense of observation of human and animal behavior. Not just observaton but observation with a strong humorous filter.

If there is one important lesson to be learned from Jones book, it is that observing is extremely important. Jones writes about observing life in one way or another, from cover to cover, although he almost never writes explicitly that this is what he is doing. But every chapter is filled with anecdotes that Jones observed in his life, mostly from his childhood.

The first part of the book, Jones writes about how he became an animation director. Jones always drew when he was younger. This, he explains funnily in "Chuck Amuck". So he whent to Chouinard to learn to draw. While writing about his art school experience and his numerous jobs up to his entance in Warner Brothers, he takes the numerous opportunities to fill the pages with observations about the human and the animal form, motions and behavior with accompanying illustrations.

This is typically Jones way of teaching, that is in a very informal way instead of in a set of magistrally structured chapters. Jones writes in a very verbose style. Personally, I like that. His books read like novels. But I'm sure this will turn off several readers. That is unfortunate because there are really a lot of lessons in those books provided the reader is attentive.

The second half of the book, more than half, actually, reviews cartoon characters that Chuck Jones worked with. 16 characters overall. Each character his own chapter. The most popular characters have several pages while the least popular ones may have only two pages. There we are presented with the character sheet, some diagrams showing how the characters are drawn, including guidelines and numerous drawings from animated shorts preparation sketches and drawings. Drawings of the key secondary character that the main character had to deal with, and textual description of the character, its evolution, his manners and psychology.

Sometimes, it seems like Jones didn't really know what to write about a character. This is particularly obvious with the least popular ones. The chapter about "Ralph Phillips", is particularly notable. Ralph Phillips is a little boy. The chapter holds on 3 pages. But Jones writes about a girl, named "Blossom Mills", he had a crush on when he was 6 years old. I tried to find a relationship, even an indirect one but I couldn't find one. Fortunately, though, the chapters about the characters we love the most are very well elaborated.

In conclusion, my feeling, upon finishing reading this book, was that it was filled with rambling more than with usefull information. After a few weeks, though, my impression is a little bit different. My impression, now, is that the book is filled with usefull information for an animator. But, this information is not structured. It is fun reading the book but it clearly cannot be considered a reference book in animation because the informal information is disseminated and difficult to find after a reading. This is a good book for somwone interested in Chuck Jones per se. The book also contains a welth of information, directions, instruction and observations. But don't expect that information to be spelled out. The reader needs to be very attentive to get the true perls of teachings from this book.