A delightful book, very funny, with insight into the evolution of Bugs Bunny and the animation business including Jones' own thoughts on characterization's role in the Warners stable, Jones autobiography related in the appendix, lots of drawings and photos, I can:t say too much caught part of Chuck Jones' presentation at SIU-Edwardsville many years ago. A conflicting class the instructor felt was indispensable kept me from catching the actual cartoons that he introduced. Excellent book. Photos to include two color photo inserts. ( )

There is no way I could not like this book. Chuck Jones...Bugs Bunny...and (as in the theme song for the first season of Gilligan's Island) the rest. Not only was he brilliantly funny as an animator, some of his life stories he relates here are hilarious. As one of the four fathers of Bugs Bunny - Bob Clampett, Robert McKimson, and Friz Freleng being the other three, I've felt he did the most to develop the character. And he created Pepe le Pew, and Coyote and the Road Runner, and so many more. He brought (animated) life to Dr. Seuss's Grinch and Horton, as well as some Kipling and a Cricket who happened to make music in Times Square. But Daffy was his favorite. (I learned on page 182 that Daffy has a middle name...no spoiling here, though!) It would have been clear even if he hadn't said so explicitly.

The book is filled with page after page of sketches in the margins of the text where he shares not only his story, but glimpses behind the scenes of animation. From storyboarding to the writers and designers and background artists, the music and overall production, there are great things to be learned here.

He ended this book with a perfect anecdote:

Perhaps the most accurate remark about me was uttered by Ray Bradbury at his fifty-fifth birthday party. In answer to the usual question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Ray replied: "I want to be fourteen years old like Chuck Jones."

Perhaps this will be my most apt possible epitaph.

I think I'd like to grow up to be fourteen years old like Chuck. He was a rare one. ( )

Chuck Amuck (and a follow-up volume Chuck Reducks) is the lighthearted but extremely informative autobiography of legendary cartoon animator Chuck Jones. Jam-packed with copious illustrations, Chuck Amuck delves into Jones' early animation career and culminates in the many years he spent working in the animation department at Warner Brothers, helping to create dozens of characters and writing and directing hundreds of classic cartoon characters -- like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvester, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and so many more. Jones has a playful sense of humor, and makes this read as if you were sitting down with an old friend sharing a series of humorous anecdotes. A must-read for classic animation fans, or anyone who grew up watching the classic Warner Brothers cartoons! I will have to admit, though, that I found the first volume far more entertaining than the second.

Originally reviewed for my library's website: http://www.lincolnlibraries.org/depts/bookguide/srec/staffrec08-09.htm ( )

A charmingly disorganized, congenial and funny account of Chuck Jones' life and his role at Warner Brothers Cartoons, where he helped create some of their best cartoons, and created several beloved characters (Henery Hawk, Marvin Martian, Pepe Le Pew, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, among others). There is a lot of affectionate history here about the development of said cartoons; Jones is generous and effusive about his fellow creators (and nicely self-deprecating about his own considerable talents), and uniformly critical of the producers he has worked with, suggesting that their main contributions were to steer Jones and crew into new comic directions by saying "THAT'S not funny!", inspiring Jones and crew to prove them wrong. Jones died in 2002, but he is immortalized by the cartoons he has created and directed, especially the Warner Brothers cartoons, which have been among my favorites since childhood. ( )

Not only is Chuck Jones a fantastic artist and cartoonist, he's actually a damn good writer. His recollections of early childhood and early days at Warner Brothers had me laughing so hard I wet my pants. Damn funny stuff here! ( )