Serving Chuck Jones’ ‘Carrot Cake’
Chances are if you grew up watching “Looney Tunes” cartoons you know Chuck Jones’ work by heart. The Warner Bros. artist is one of the men responsible for some of animation’s most beloved characters, from the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote to Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, while working for Warner Bros. for decades.
Now, a collection of his work is in Houston, as 40 or so sketches and animation cels from Jones’ archives are on display at the art-gallery space at San Jacinto College South. The exhibit, titled “Carrot Cake: The Life and Career of Chuck Jones,” runs through Wednesday.
The gallery’s curator is Bradly Brown, an art professor on campus. He’s in awe that the gallery has been able to display some of Jones’ art.
“The work spans his whole career, and so it also has a lot of early character studies. A lot of the coyote and roadrunner stuff,” Brown said. “It’s a nice collection that also includes some of his lesser-known work, bringing some Rudyard Kipling stories to life via animation in the mid-1970s. His later career was also significant and interesting.”
Jones was a director at Warner Bros. Animation from 1938 until 1962. He cocreated Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. He gets sole creator credit for Marvin Martian, Pepe Le Pew, and the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote duo.
After leaving Warner Bros., he headed MGM’s animation department, where he directed the holiday staple “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” released in 1966. His Chuck Jones Enterprises operation co-created the Charlie Tuna character for StarKist tuna ads.
The gallery at San Jac runs Jones cartoons all day while its doors are open, with a makeshift living room even set up to take a load off and laugh a little and a kitchen table nearby where free milk and cereal is offered on Monday mornings.
“It’s a comfortable destination place to get some work done or just relax on campus,” Brown said.
Brown and the faculty have designs on making the 2-year-old gallery an art hub, and events like this are showing off what he and the gallery are capable of.