Early Chuck Jones Looney Tunes Cartoons (1938-1942)

Chuck Jones, the late animator, is frequently hailed as one of the all-time great Looney Tunes directors. Nonetheless, his early years as a director (1938-1942), spanning from "The Night Watchman" to "Fox Pop," were not marked by the same level of acclaim.

They included characters like Sniffles the Mouse, the Two Curious Puppies, Inki, Conrad Cat, Henery Hawk, among others.

Shorts

1938

• "The Night Watchman" (November 19; one-off)

1939

• "Dog Gone Modern" (January 14; first Two Curious Puppies short)
• "Robin Hood Makes Good" (February 11; one-off)
• "Prest-O Change-O" (March 25; with the Two Curious Puppies and Happy Rabbit)
• "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" (April 22; with Daffy Duck)
• "Naughty but Mice" (May 20; with Sniffles; also his first appearance)
• "Old Glory" (July 1; with Porky Pig)
• "Snowman's Land" (July 29; one-off)
• "Little Brother Rat" (September 2; with Sniffles)
• "The Little Lion Hunter" (October 7; with Inki and the Minah Bird; also the first appearance of both)
• "The Good Egg" (October 21; one-off)
• "Sniffles and the Bookworm" (December 2; with Sniffles; first appearance of the Bookworm)
• "The Curious Puppy" (December 30; with the Two Curious Puppies)

1940

• "Mighty Hunters" (January 27; one-off)
• "Elmer's Candid Camera" (March 2; with Elmer Fudd)
• "Sniffles Takes a Trip" (May 11; with Sniffles)
• "Tom Thumb in Trouble" (June 8; one-off)
• "The Egg Collector" (July 20; with Sniffles and the Bookworm)
• "Ghost Wanted" (August 10; one-off)
• "Stage Fright" (September 28; with the Two Curious Puppies)
• "Good Night Elmer" (October 26; with Elmer Fudd)
• "Bedtime for Sniffles" (November 23; with Sniffles)

1941

• "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" (January 4; with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd)
• "Sniffles Bells the Cat" (February 1; with Sniffles)
• "Joe Glow, the Firefly" (March 8; one-off)
• "Toy Trouble" (April 12; with Sniffles; the final appearance of the Bookworm)
• "Porky's Ant" (May 10; with Porky Pig)
• "Porky's Prize Pony" (June 21; with Porky Pig)
• "Inki and the Lion" (July 19; with Inki and the Minah Bird; last Inki short of this era)
• "Snowtime for Comedy" (August 30; with the Two Curious Puppies)
• "The Brave Little Bat" (September 27; with Sniffles; last Sniffles short of this era)
• "Saddle Silly" (November 8; one-off)
• "Porky's Midnight Matinee" (November 22; with Porky Pig)

1942

• "The Bird Came C.O.D." (January 17; first appearance of Conrad Cat)
• "Porky's Café" (February 21; with Porky Pig and Conrad Cat)
• "Conrad the Sailor" (February 28; with Daffy Duck and Conrad Cat; the final appearance of Conrad Cat)
• "Dog Tired" (April 25; with Two Curious Puppies; final appearance of the Two Curious Puppies)
• "The Draft Horse" (May 9; one-off)
• "Hold the Lion, Please" (June 6; with Bugs Bunny)
• "The Squawkin' Hawk" (August 8; first appearance of Henery Hawk)
• "Fox Pop" (September 5; one-off; final short in this era)

Bad Qualities

1. Chuck Jones' efforts to emulate Disney were evident, yet his work lacked the ingenuity of Disney's animations, opting instead for an excessively sweet and saccharine approach. This was particularly strange given the Looney Tunes' standards between 1938-1942, a period when many Warner directors were distancing themselves from Disney's stylistic influence.
   • While not direct remakes/rip-offs of pre-existing Disney cartoons of the time, some of his early cartoons go so far as to rehash certain scenes from Disney's animated output, for example:
     • "Dog Gone Modern" bears plot similarities to that of the Donald Duck cartoon "Modern Inventions".
     • "Naughty But Mice" bears plot similarities to that of the Silly Symphonies cartoon "The Country Cousin".
     • "The Good Egg" bears plot similarities to that of the Silly Symphonies cartoon "Elmer Elephant".
     • The scene near the end of "Sniffles Takes a Trip" where Sniffles is fearful of the surrounding dark forest rehashes the scene where Snow White is terrified of the spooky forest from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
     • All of Chuck Jones' Inki cartoons bear similarities to that of the 1937 Silly Symphonies short "Little Hiawatha", since both cartoon involve a native child protagonist hunting jungle animals.
2. The stories are just not good and frequently lack humor, most notably the Sniffles cartoons, "The Bird Came C.O.D." and "Fox Pop"
   • Most of the cartoons suffer from lethargic pacing with loads of filler and can get boring very quickly.
     • Some of the jokes and humor are very dull, even by 1938-42 standards, especially considering the other Warner units like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery and Friz Freleng had significantly improved their comedic timing by then.
     • Between the years 1941-1942, though Jones started slowly moving out of his "cute" phase beginning with "Inki and the Lion", many of the later cartoons of this era from "Inki and the Lion" up until "Fox Pop" overall often can't decide if they want to be Disney cartoon knock-offs or zany-wacky Looney Tunes cartoons at heart, mainly due to Jones at the time still struggling on trying to incorporate the Tex Avery-inspired zany-wacky humor the Looney Tunes series is best known for into his cartoons, often with mixed-to-poor results, with "The Bird Came C.O.D." and "Fox Pop" being the worst offenders of such.
3. While they aren't mean-spirited jerks or loathsome characters, Sniffles, the Two Curious Puppies, Inki, Minah Bird, Conrad Cat, Henery Hawk, and the other one-off characters are just bland and some of the hideously one-note characters that come close to giving even Buddy a run for his money.
   • The Two Curious Puppies are bland rip-offs of Pluto from the Disney cartoons.
   • Conrad Cat is a lazy clone of Goofy from the Disney cartoons.
   • Inki is a race-swapped version of Little Hiawatha from the 1937 Silly Symphonies short of the same name, except that he's an African native boy drawn in blackface style rather than a Native American boy.
   • Almost all of Jones' cutesy Disney-inspired protagonist characters such as Sniffles tend to be overly weak and passive.
   • Henery Hawk, on the other hand, isn't any better as he just a bratty, half pint-sized chicken hawk, making him even worse then any character that Chuck Jones made.
     • Despite how bland and boring Jones' early characters are, Sniffles appears to the overused of all of Jones' earliest characters, having appeared in a total of 12 cartoons between the years 1939-1946, with him appearing in a total of 9 cartoons during this era with three Sniffles cartoons produced each year between 1939-1941.
       • The same can even be said for Two Curious Puppies though not as much as Sniffles, who appeared in 6 cartoons during this era, where the two originally appeared in 3 cartoons during their debut year in 1939 before their reappearances have been cut back to just one cartoon each year between 1940-1942.
4. Many cartoon premises tend to be unoriginal and formulaic, often featuring a cute character who struggles to achieve a goal or is tormented by an inanimate object.
   • Most of his early Disney-esque cartoons overall couldn't decide whether they want to be cheery and uplifting (like in "Sniffles and the Bookworm") or drab and dramatic (like in "The Good Egg").
   • Numerous bad/mediocre cartoons scattered throughout his early career, such as:
     • "The Curious Puppy"
     • "Stage Fright"
     • "Elmer's Candid Camera" (which started Elmer Fudd's career on a sour note)
     • "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" (which started Chuck Jones' career with Bugs Bunny on a sour note)
     • "The Good Egg"
     • "Sniffles Bells the Cat"
     • "Good Night Elmer"
     • "Porky's Ant"
     • "Porky's Midnight Matinee"
     • "Sniffles Takes a Trip"
     • "The Squawkin' Hawk" (which started Henery Hawk's career on a rather sour note)
     • "The Bird Came C.O.D." (which started Conrad Cat's career on a terrible note, which is also the worst cartoon this era has to offer)
     • "Fox Pop" (which ended this era on a sour note)
5. There are instances where characters, who often don't deserve it or haven't done anything wrong, are subjected to mean-spirited moments. This is primarily done in a desperate attempt to garner viewer sympathy for these characters, such as:
   • The younger squirrel getting bullied by his brothers in "Robin Hood Makes Good".
   • Elmer Fudd getting tortured by Happy Rabbit and Bugs Bunny in "Elmer's Candid Camera" and "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" respectively.
   • Sniffles gets thrown into a lot of scary and complicated situations in almost every cartoon he appears in, such as getting chased by a scary cat resembling a prototype Sylvester, with the worst offender being "Sniffles Takes a Trip" where he is fearful of almost every harmless woodland creature.
6. Some moments from his early cartoons are very dark and depressing, mainly as a desperate attempt to get viewers to sympathize with his characters, such as:
   • "The Good Egg" has a very dark and depressing scene of Mother Hen trying to commit suicide when she can’t have a baby, and its overall concept is mainly about a baby turtle getting bullied and ostracized by the baby chicks throughout the entire cartoon.
   • Daffy Duck's first death in "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur".
   • The central theme of "Fox Pop" revolves around a fox who mistakenly believes a fox farm is a gateway to a luxurious life, only to discover the grim reality that foxes are bred and ultimately killed for their fur to make capes.
7. To make matters worse, Chuck Jones reuses some of his plots for his earlier cartoons such as "Inki and the Lion" reusing the same plot from "The Little Lion Hunter", "Porky's Midnight Matinee" reusing the same plot from "Porky's Ant", and "The Bird Came C.O.D." reusing the same plot from "Stage Fright".
8. Although the animation is typically excellent, there are occasions when it appears somewhat imprecise and careless.
   • The scene in "Hold The Lion, Please" where Bugs Bunny starts to exaggerate his "fear" of Leo appears to be off-model.
   • Many character designs tend to be overly sweet and unoriginal. For instance, the African pygmy character in "Porky's Ant" bears a striking resemblance to Inki.
9. Two iconic Looney Tunes characters, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, had a rocky beginning under the early direction of Chuck Jones in cartoons like "Elmer's Candid Camera" and "Elmer's Pet Rabbit." In these early works, Elmer is repeatedly victimized by Bugs—or Happy Rabbit, the prototype version of Bugs in "Elmer's Candid Camera"—without any apparent reason, resulting in consistently poor outcomes for Elmer while Bugs/Happy Rabbit escapes without consequences. Additionally, both cartoons are noted for their absence of the comedic humor that later became a hallmark of the series.
   • Regarding Happy Rabbit, under the direction of Chuck Jones, the character is portrayed as a significantly more bothersome and sadistic figure who torments others without any apparent reason, unlike the portrayal in Ben Hardaway-directed cartoons like "Porky's Hare Hunt" and "Hare-Um Scare-Um." This characterization is evident in both "Prest-O Change-O" and "Elmer's Candid Camera."
   • In "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," directed by Chuck Jones, Bugs Bunny is portrayed quite differently from his usual persona. Rather than the humorous, fun-loving, and karmic trickster familiar to audiences, he is shown as mean, humorless, angry, rude, malicious, ungrateful, aggressive, and arrogant, exhibiting a nearly thuggish demeanor, and he also emerges as a significant Karma Houdini.
     • It's pleasing to observe the transformation of Bugs Bunny into a more likable and sympathetic protagonist in "Hold The Lion, Please." Yet, this shift has taken him from an energetic prankster to a character who is calmer and more reserved.
   • Regarding Elmer Fudd, his initial cartoons often depict him being relentlessly tormented without apparent cause, as seen in "Good Night Elmer" where he is troubled by a simple candle. These episodes typically conclude with Elmer in distress, exemplified by him weeping over his plight as the night progresses into morning in the finale of "Good Night Elmer".
   • Many side characters in these animated shorts are either so underdeveloped that they're forgettable or are predominantly annoying, if not both. Notable examples include the talkative bat Batty from "The Brave Little Bat," the dim-witted ant from "Porky's Ant" and "Porky's Midnight Matinee," and the Henery Hawk-like little bird from "Stage Fright" and "The Bird Came C.O.D."
10. Subpar voice acting, except Mel Blanc and Bernice Hansen. For example, the voice given to Bugs in "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" sounds nothing like the other cartoons he appears in, making him sound like an old man (even though Bugs' voice in a said cartoon is said to be an imitation of Jimmy Stewart's voice).
11. Some cartoons have misleading titles:
    • The title "Stage Fright" suggests that The Two Curious Puppies might experience stage fright while performing in front of a large audience. However, the short film reveals that The Two Curious Puppies never actually encounter stage fright. Instead, the narrative focuses on the puppies' backstage adventures and their interactions with various animals, including a small bird reminiscent of Henery Hawk that emerges from a magician's hat.
    • "Snowtime for Comedy" sets the expectation of a humorous, snow-themed cartoon featuring The Two Curious Puppies. However, the short ultimately falls short of delivering substantial humor.
12. More unfortunately enough, some of the shorts have outdated offensive stereotypes of characters, most particularly African Americans or Native Americans. This is prominently seen in shorts such as the Inki cartoons, "Mighty Hunters", "Porky's Ant", and "Saddle Silly", or brief scenes in shorts such as "Porky's Prize Pony" and "Porky's Midnight Matinee".
13. Several cartoons, particularly "The Bird Came C.O.D.," nearly led to Chuck Jones' dismissal from the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio due to producer Leon Schlesinger's dissatisfaction with the quality of the cartoons upon their release.
    • Overall, Jones' early shorts were one of the factors that caused the 2nd decline of Looney Tunes since the Buddy era.

Good Qualities

1. Chuck Jones learned from his early experiences and began directing much funnier and improved cartoons, starting with "The Dover Boys" in 1942. He continued this trend with works like "My Favorite Duck," "Case of the Missing Hare," and "The Unbearable Bear." However, during 1943-1944, he occasionally directed some slower-paced cartoons, such as "Angel Puss."
   • "The Dover Boys" is often cited as the first cartoon in which Chuck Jones found his comedic style, but it was "The Draft Horse" that marked his initial foray into directing fast-paced and humorous cartoons, following a series of slower-paced works from 1938 to 1942. However, this style did not become characteristic for Jones until "The Dover Boys" was released.
   • At this juncture, Sniffles' character underwent a dramatic transformation from a sluggish, timid simpleton to a shrewd, quick-witted trickster, reminiscent of Bugs Bunny or the early Daffy Duck. A similar evolution can be observed in Inki, subject to one's perspective.
     • By that time, Sniffles has been drastically recast as an incessant chatterbox (in the vein similar to Friz Freleng's Blabbermouse character from "Little Blabbermouse" and "Shop, Look and Listen" and the Batty character from Chuck Jones' "The Brave Little Bat") which serves more of a nuisance than a cute protagonist.
       • While Sniffles being a chatterbox could be annoying at times, at least he is funny and not cringy unlike his brother, Batty from "The Brave Little Bat".
2. Decent animation and music by Carl Stalling, along with gorgeous and lavish backgrounds.
   • Rod Scribner, Ken Harris, Rudy Larriva, Robert Cannon and Phil Monroe also occasionally provide quality animation.
3. Some of his earlier works during this time are decent, such as:
   • "The Night Watchman" (his directorial debut)
   • "Robin Hood Makes Good"
   • "Prest-O Change-O" (Jones' first Happy Rabbit cartoon)
   • "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" (his very first Daffy Duck cartoon)
   • "Old Glory" (the very first short to feature the current design of Porky Pig in color)
   • "Snowman's Land"
   • "The Little Lion Hunter"
   • "Tom Thumb in Trouble"
   • "Ghost Wanted" (thankfully to Tex Avery's voice-over performance as the jolly laughing ghost)
   • "Bedtime for Sniffles"
   • "Joe Glow, the Firefly" (his first Looney Tunes short)
   • "Inki and the Lion"
   • "Porky's Prize Pony"
   • "Dog Tired"
   • "Conrad the Sailor"
   • "The Draft Horse" (the first time Jones started directing fast-paced cartoons)
   • "Hold the Lion, Please" (Jones' first Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs is likable)
     • Likewise, while they are not the better shorts "The Good Egg", "Naughty But Mice" and "Saddle Silly" are still passable at best, even if some of those are forgettable shorts.
     • Jones' final four cartoons of this era from "The Draft Horse" up until "Fox Pop", while still far from perfect, were somewhat better than the rest of his older cartoons, though that isn't saying much.
4. Unlike Bugs Bunny and Henery Hawk, the characters Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Happy Rabbit (in Prest-O Change-O), and Elmer Fudd remained likable under Chuck Jones' early direction, despite the latter character being treated like a Butt-Monkey way too much.
   • Chuck Jones eventually learned from his mistakes and started recasting Bugs Bunny as a likable and more sympathetic protagonist beginning with "Hold the Lion, Please", and made Elmer Fudd less of an Butt-Monkey than his first three shorts in "To Duck or Not to Duck".
   • Speaking of Henery Hawk, his creation in 1942 marked director Chuck Jones' first ever attempt at breaking away from creating Disney-inspired characters, even though Jones would have much better luck at doing so when creating Hubie and Bertie the following year in The Aristo-Cat.
     • He did get slightly funnier once Robert McKimson started pairing and retooled him with Foghorn Leghorn beginning with Walky Talky Hawky unlike Jones did.
       • Jones returned to using Henery Hawk only once in You Were Never Duckier in 1948 and uses McKimson's retooled version of the character despite that Jones flanderized Daffy.
   • The only character that did work right from the start is The Minah Bird, from the Inki shorts.
   • While Tex Avery and Bob Clampett had depicted Daffy as completely insane, irrational, and uncontrollable in their previous cartoons with the character, Jones depicted Daffy here as somewhat more thoughtful and calculating, which is nice.
5. Even the weaker shorts have their funny moments like Conrad's fall from a stepladder in "The Bird Came C.O.D.", the "TURN OUT THAT LIGHT!!" running gag in "Elmer's Pet Rabbit", Joe's "GOOD NIGHT!!" in "Joe Glow, The Firefly", "WAITER!! WAITER!!" in "Porky's Cafe", "That I did, but I didn't tell you to say, AHHHH!" in "The Draft Horse", and the entire running gag involving the lovebirds in "Dog Tired".
6. It's fair to say that Chuck Jones isn't responsible for the shortcomings of his early cartoons since he was not the writer, but only the director.
7. Although the voice acting is considered subpar, Mel Blanc performs admirably in voicing Daffy and Porky during this period, which is noteworthy since he will also voice Bugs Bunny along with these two characters in the following years.

Reception

Chuck Jones was a renowned and influential cartoon director, with much of his Looney Tunes work receiving acclaim from critics and audiences alike. However, his earliest works from 1938 to mid-1942 are not as fondly remembered. They have been criticized for overly emulating Disney's style of the era, lacking the comedic edge and wild antics found in cartoons by contemporaries like Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Critics also compared Jones' early characters unfavorably to those from Warner Bros.' less successful Disney-like musical cartoons from 1933 to 1935. Despite this, the animation quality in Jones' early cartoons has received mixed to positive reviews.

Chuck Jones was critical of his early cartoons, particularly "Elmer's Candid Camera," to the extent that he expressed a desire to burn the negatives if he had been allowed.

He even regretted having produced "Elmer's Candid Camera", which Jones himself referred that cartoon as "a textbook example of how not to create a cartoon".: "In (that) cartoon we find Bugs stumbling, fumbling, and mumbling around, vainly seeking a personality on which to hang his dialogue and action, or— in better words than mine—"walking around with his umbilical in his hand, looking for someplace to plug it in." It is obvious when one views this cartoon, which I recommend only if you are going to die of ennui, that my conception of timing and dialogue was formed by watching the action in the La Brea tar pits. It would be complimentary to call it sluggish. Not only Bugs suffer at my hands, but difficult as it is to make an unassertive character like Elmer Fudd into a flat, complete shmuck, I managed. Perhaps the kindest thing to say about “Elmer's Candid Camera” is that it taught everyone what not to do and how not to do it."

Although Chuck Jones' early shorts were not well-received by many fans, they were not universally disliked. Notably, cartoon critic Anthony from Animation Talk praised several of Jones' works, listing "The Night Watchman," "Snowman's Land," "Bedtime for Sniffles," "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," and "Inki and the Lion" among his favorites.

Trivia

• Only five of the shorts from this era were produced in black and white for the Looney Tunes series. Every other short are in the Merrie Melodies series.
• All the Inki shorts, "Mighty Hunters", "Porky's Ant", and "Saddle Silly" no longer air on US networks due to racial stereotypes of the characters, although some of these shorts still air on international feeds.
• Before the release of the HBO Max streaming service in 2020 and MeTV airing cartoons on their network in 2021, all Sniffles cartoons, his cartoons during 1939-mid 40, his Porky Pig cartoons, "Conrad the Sailor" and "The Draft Horse" were the only cartoons restored from Chuck Jones' early directional years.
  • After the release of the HBO Max streaming service, the rest of the Curious Puppies cartoons, "Robin Hood Makes Good", "Snowman's Land", "Good Night Elmer", "Elmer's Pet Rabbit", "Saddle Silly" (albeit removed), "The Bird Came C.O.D.", "Hold the Lion, Please", "The Squawkin' Hawk" and "Fox Pop" were restored for HBO Max, with restored versions of "The Good Egg", "Joe Glow, the Firefly" and "Porky's Prize Pony" also airing on MeTV.
  • As of 2021, the Inki shorts, "Mighty Hunters" and "Ghost Wanted" are the only shorts from Chuck Jones' early works that remain to be restored ("Ghost Wanted" can appear on HBO Max, while it is unknown what will be of the Inki shorts and "Mighty Hunters" due to the prominence of offensive stereotypes).
• The short "The Good Egg" shares its name with a 1945 Mr. Hook cartoon, which is even worse then the 1939 version.
• Most of the cartoons from this era (mostly the color Merrie Melodies) were sold to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) package for television distribution in 1956, while the very few black-and-white Looney Tunes cartoons of this era "Joe Glow, the Firefly", "Porky's Prize Pony", "Porky's Ant", "Porky's Midnight Matinee" and "Porky's Café" were instead sold to Sunset Productions/Guild Films for television distribution the previous year. Co-incidentally, all of Chuck Jones' early cartoons from both TV packages are later reunited under the same ownership of Warner Bros. following the Time Warner-Turner Entertainment merger in 1996.
• The ToonHeads episode "The Early Works of Chuck Jones" suggests that Jones' early cartoons closely emulated Disney's style primarily because he was quite daunted by the prospect of directing an animated cartoon. Jones later admitted that this apprehension greatly influenced the storylines of his initial works.

References

1. ↑ https://archive.org/details/Toonheads_204_The_Early_Works_Of_Chuck_Jones

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