Charles Martin Jones

Charles Martin Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, director, and painter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of shorts. He wrote, produced, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig, among others.

  Jones started his career in 1933 alongside Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and Robert McKimson at the Leon Schlesinger Production's Termite Terrace studio, the studio that made Warner Brothers cartoons, where they created and developed the Looney Tunes characters. He created 'Tom and Jerry' shorts (1963–1967) as well as the television adaptations of Dr. Seuss's 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' (1966) and 'Horton Hears a Who!' (1970). He later started his own studio, Chuck Jones Enterprises, where he directed and produced the film adaptation of Norton Juster's 'The Phantom Tollbooth' (1970).

  Jones won three Academy Awards. The cartoons which he directed, 'For Scent-amental Reasons', 'So Much for So Little', and 'The Dot and the Line', won the Best Animated Short. Robin Williams presented Jones with an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 for his work in the animation industry. In Jerry Beck's 'The 50 Greatest Cartoons', a group of animated professionals ranked 'What's Opera, Doc?' (1957) as the greatest cartoon of all time, with ten of the entries being directed by Jones including 'Duck Amuck' (1953), 'Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century' (1953), 'One Froggy Evening' (1955), 'Rabbit of Seville' (1950), and 'Rabbit Seasoning' (1952).