It’s been a sad 11 days for fans of animation. Although people may not have noticed it, the animation community has lost one of its leading figures. Charles M. Jones, who for 25 years directed some of the most famous cartoon shorts for Warner Bros., died of congestive heart failure Feb. 22. Along with others who know of his work, I’m mourning his death. Although I never met him, through his work I and millions of others felt that we got to know him.
Jones was one of the more likable types in the field. Unlike the sometimes bitter and temperamental Hayao Miyazaki, who professes to despise the industry he works in, or Walt Disney, whose gentle, fatherly facade concealed a cold, ruthless and controlling side, Jones was instead a buoyant sort whose spirit and sense of fun was reflected in his films.
In private life, he was known to enjoy jokes and wordplay, and even cultivated a friendship with Ted Geisel (better known to the world as Dr. Seuss) while the two worked on the “Private SNAFU” edu-tainment cartoons for the Army during World War II. In these little-seen works, Jones had free reign on humor: “Spies,” for instance, had our “hero,” SNAFU, inadvertently telling the entire Axis Powers about his troopship’s sailing. Among the hilarious sight gags in the short is the ending. SNAFU ends up in a burning cauldron in hell. “Now who the hell do you suppose let my secret out?” asks SNAFU. Hitler, as the devil, gives him the answer: In a mirror, we see SNAFU’s face turn into a horse’s ass.
It is said that a man can be measured by the body of his work. In that case, Jones belongs in whatever pantheon exists for animation. One can almost rattle off his most famous efforts: “Duck Amuck,” “What’s Opera, Doc?” (the only cartoon short inducted into the National Film Registry), “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and “The Dot and the Line” are probably all somewhere in the top-20 list of any discriminating animation fan. And who can forget the brilliant characters he created? Yosemite Sam, the pint-sized gunslinger; Pepe le Pew, the Charles Boyer-esque lover (but who could love a skunk?); and the rebuild of Daffy Duck, turning a chaotic black duck into the greedy, scheming, egotistical mallard we all know and love. Disney may have had the upper hand in marketing his characters, but Jones always seemed to have a heart and soul that transcended the acetone plastic, ink and paint of the cel.

Personally, of all the cartoons that I watched as a normal TV-addicted child of the ’80s, some of the most memorable ones, and the ones that I still watch frequently today, were directed by Jones. My favorites were the trio of cartoons that pitted Bugs and Daffy against the eternal hunter, Elmer Fudd. I defy anyone reading this article to go home, watch “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!” and not laugh as poor Daffy is outsmarted at every turn by Bugs. “Shoot me, go on! It’s elk season! I’m a fiddler crab! Why don’t you shoot me? It’s fiddler crab season!”
The rabbit hole lays silent now, the hunter’s gun still. Farewell, Chuck. You have left us all with wonderful memories.