Dorothy then proved herself perfidious by obtaining a job for me with Leon Schlesinger, who had just split off from his directors, Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, to form his own studio. (In a way, this was a good turn for Hugh and Rudy, who discovered that Harman-Ising was probably a more appealing name for a cartoon studio than Leon Schlesinger Productions.)
Since Leon Schlesinger did not draw, he didn’t know the difference between a cel washer and an in-betweener, and I, finally knowing a good thing when I saw it, remained in those cloistered halls most of my adult life (1933–63). By the time Mr. Edward Selzer took over command when Leon Schlesinger sold out to Warner Bros., I had floated up by way of animating to directing: the first time a cel washer had accomplished this without detection. Mr. Selzer, who did not know a director from a hole-in-the-ground, supposed me to be a hole, and treated me accordingly.
Top echelon and wives: nature of celebration obscured by time; C.J. third from left in top row, Dorothy directly in front of me
As an in-betweener I had worked (if the term can be used loosely) for Ham Hamilton, who then forced me into animation to get me off in-betweening for him. This was on the Buddy series directed by Jack King and Earl Herd, and fortunately nothing in the way of bad animation could make Buddy worse than he was anyway. Then the brilliant Friz Freleng moved over from Harman-Ising, and Mr. Freleng could easily tell the difference between a hole-in-the-ground and a hole-in-the-head and put up no resistance whatsoever when Bob Clampett and I were assigned to the newly formed Tex Avery unit, housed in an ancient bungalow faintly redolent of early Norma Talmadge and known accurately and affectionately as Termite Terrace. The prime product of Termite Terrace, beside termites, was Porky Pig and the beginnings of the wildly insane version of Daffy Duck.
My admiration for the art of Friz Freleng and Tex Avery was and is boundless. Both were masters of timing, faultless gag structure, and a kind of nutty believability. Being exposed over a long period of time to genius was bound to have its effect—even on an accomplished cel washer.
Poor Ub Iwerks! In a bad financial moment for him, Mr. Schlesinger came to his financial aid—it turned out to be a takeover—but as a penalty sent Mr. Clampett and me to Ub’s studio to act as child co-directors on a series called Gabby Goat. By some peculiar alchemy I do not yet understand, the co-directorship disappeared and I found myself animating for Bob Clampett.
The highly competent Henry Binder, business manager for Leon Schlesinger, a man who could not bear to see dumb animals suffer, in one of his few faulty moments rescued me and put me in as a director of the Frank Tashlin unit, Mr. Tashlin having lost interest in animation. (He was to go on to become an immensely successful live-action writer, director, and producer.)
With some help from my wife, I produced a daughter, Linda, in 1937. Linda, in 1989, is now Linda Jones Clough, the manager, president, majordomo, and prime mover of the Jones enterprises, which consist of Linda Jones Enterprises and Chuck Jones Enterprises, producing, preserving, and authenticating drawings and cels from my past, present, and future, selling them through major art galleries in the United States, including the Circle Fine Art Galleries and Gallery Lainzberg. In my eyes—and whose other eyes can I trust?—she had always been a perfect daughter and now is helping to bring animation art out of the pit that it was in for so long: Disney gave away cels in the first year or so of Disneyland. Cels have sold at Christie’s today for over $100,000.
C.J. and daughter, Linda, 1989
My first directorial achievement was The Night Watchman in 1938, followed by some films about dogs, mice, and bats, and some of the first and worst Bugs Bunnies. In 1940 I won the Newsreel Theatre’s award for the best animated cartoon of the year, a patriotic cartoon called Old Glory. This award was unique in that it was never given before or since and was the first such award to be won by a cel washer.
Lobby cards of early C.J. films: THE NIGHT WATCHMAN (1938), THE DOVER BOYS (1942), FOX POP (1942)
During the war years I collaborated (there must be a better word) with Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) on a goof-up soldier named Private Snafu. (“Snafu” can be translated any way you please, but the first words are Situation Normal …) Almost twenty-five years later this writer-director team would produce How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who. These two films won the Peabody Award for Television Programming Excellence, an award that has been given before and since.
Chuck Jones, Dick Thompson, Ken Harris, and talented layout man
In 1942 I directed The Dover Boys, considered by many animators, including the wonderfully talented John Hubley, to have helped set the style, method, and timing for much of the animation to follow. Along with John McGrew, Bernyce Polifka, and Eugene Fleury, I was also experimenting with highly stylized, formalized backgrounds in such films as Fox Pop, Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears, and The Aristo Cat. That’s right, The Aristo Cat, in 1943. I was able to steal it from the Disney studio twenty years before they deftly added an “s” to The Aristocats. This is what is known as retroactive plagiarism on my part.
In 1944, working nights, I directed without compensation Hell Bent for Election, because of my love for F.D.R. This was the first full-length UPA short.
After the war, I began my long association with Mike Maltese, writer; Maurice Noble and Phil De Guard, layout and background; and that superb crew
