Chuck Jones’ Centennial Celebration

The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity is hosting a Centennial Celebration this weekend in honor of Chuck Jones’ 100th birthday. Be sure to follow Pencils.com on Twitter and Facebook for updates live from the event!

Chuck Jones’ 100th Birthday

Today marks the 100^th birthday of legendary animator and Blackwing user Chuck Jones. Chuck’s legacy includes iconic characters like Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner and Pepe Le Pew, among others, but it’s much more than that; it’s a legacy of inspiring creativity in those around him that lives on today in the form of his grandson Craig Kausen, the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity and the artists who he worked with and inspired. And, it is a legacy that is inextricably linked to the pencil.

In his autobiography Chuck Amuck, Jones recalls growing up in Los Angeles, California as the son of a perpetually failing businessman. Every time his father would start a new business venture, he would purchase stationery and pencils with the business’s name printed on them. After the business inevitably went under, he would be forced to have new stationery and pencils imprinted with his next business’s name and turn his old pencils and stationery over to his children. Needless to say, this left Chuck and his siblings with mountains of pencils and piles of paper, and opened the door to endless possibilities.

Chuck drew constantly as a child, filling the stacks of paper that took residence in his home with doodles and drawings of all types, and he eventually dropped out of high school to attend the Chouinard Art Institute at the age of 15. Upon graduation, he began selling $1 pencil drawings on the streets of Los Angeles and, before he knew it, he was working at Warner Brothers’ Leon Schlesinger Productions.

The rest, as they say, is history. Chuck played an integral role in the creation of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and dozens of other cultural icons. He created Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner in the 1940’s and even went on to write, direct and produce the animated television classic Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And, he created all of these legendary characters and stories with his tool of choice, a Blackwing 602 pencil. During the Blackwing Experience exhibit this past April, Chuck’s grandson Craig Kausen said “The whole time that I was growing up, I never remember any pencil in his hand other than a Blackwing” (you can check out his interview and a recap of the Blackwing Experience here).

Growing up, I fondly remember afternoons spent lying on the floor, my chin propped on the palm hand, watching Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons while my grandfather sat in his recliner in the back corner of the room.  Every now and then, he would let out a chuckle as the Coyote inevitably failed at whatever hare-brained scheme he had hatched in hopes of catching the elusive Accelleratii Incredibus and, as I lay there, I remember thinking that there was absolutely no place I would rather be.

It’s amazing what you can create with a pencil.