Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Directors

From Eccentric Flower

Cartoons Listed by Director and Year

Charles "Chuck" Jones

Chuck Jones joined the Schlesinger studio in 1933, and in 1935 became an animator under Tex Avery's unit (see below). Jones moved to working under Bob Clampett (below) after Clampett was given his own unit. In 1938 Jones was given his own unit after Frank Tashlin's departure, and continued as an animation director until being fired from Warner for exclusivity violations in 1962. (See Chronology.)

While Jones is mostly considered these days to be the greatest of the Warner cartoon directors (a legend Jones himself helped boost in his later years), it's worth noting that his cartoons most generally regarded as brilliant all appeared after 1950, e.g. in the latter third or so of his Warner career. His output in the early years was not highly regarded by Schlesinger or the other "Termite Terrace" staff; they felt that while it was visually accomplished, it was not especially funny. Jones himself described his breakout cartoon, 1942's The Dover Boys, as the point "where I learned how to be funny."

After leaving Warner, Jones worked as an independent and for MGM, eventually forming his own studio in 1970. Among his most recognizable non-Warner work is the cartoon feature "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," a work made possible by an association with Theodore (Dr. Seuss) Geisel that had begun back in World War II when they worked together on Private Snafu features for the U.S. Army. In the 1990s Jones even did a few more cartoons for Warner featuring the classic Warner characters.

Isadore "Friz" Freleng

Friz Freleng (so nicknamed because of his frizzy hair) was the long-haul workhorse of Warner animation. He was an animation director for Warner cartoons from the beginning (when Harman-Ising were still doing the cartoons) to the very end (when the cartoons were contracted out to DePatie-Freleng), with the sole exception of a two-year stint with MGM from 1937-1939 which he realized quickly was a mistake.

It's difficult to know what to say about Friz. He didn't have the distinctive visual style of Jones, Clampett or Avery. You can tell one of their cartoons immediately just from the way the characters are drawn; then, if it's none of them and yet it doesn't suck, it's probably Friz. While few of his cartoons are as outright brilliant as Clampett's, or Jones' in later years, few of his cartoons are ever mediocre or outright bad (unlike Robert McKimson's), and almost none of his second-tier work was before the early 1960s, by which point he had already been turning out cartoons steadily for thirty years.

Friz was the glue. His long, consistent tenure for Warner brought a continuity to the output that would otherwise have been missing. He directed more cartoons than any other director in the history of Warner cartoon operation, and won more Academy Awards (four) than any other.

Friz continued working as an executive producer of cartoon features - including some for Warner - into the 1980's.

Fred "Tex" Avery

Tex Avery arrived at the Schlesinger studios in 1935. He convinced Schlesinger to let him run his own animation unit, which was placed in the decrepit building that came to be called "Termite Terrace" because (officially) there was no space in Schlesinger's main building for another unit or (an alternate version goes) because Schlesinger didn't want Tom Palmer to know his unit was going to be replaced by Avery's.

In the six years that Avery was active with Schlesinger, his unit (which included young animators Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett) essentially defined the Warner cartoon short, its pacing and wildness. They took Porky Pig from an ensemble player to being the new star that Schlesinger badly needed after Harman and Ising's departure (see Chronology); created Daffy Duck; evolved Elmer Fudd from a character called Egghead; and evolved Bugs Bunny from a number of earlier "proto-Bugs" rabbits. Oh, yes, and originated the catchphrase "What's up, Doc?"

Despite all this, Avery's work for Schlesinger was relatively subdued compared to his output after leaving in 1941. (Avery walked out because Schesinger ordered him to change the ending of The Heckling Hare - which see.) When you compare his Warner cartoons with such madness as "Red Hot Riding Hood" and "King-Sized Canary," you begin to see some justification in Avery's (reported) feeling that Schlesinger stifled his creativity.

Robert "Bob" Clampett

Bob Clampett began his Warner career as an animator under Friz Freleng in the Harman-Ising years (see Chronology). He and Friz both stayed with Schlesinger after the Harman-Ising break. He helped codify the character of Porky Pig (who began as an ensemble player in I Haven't Got a Hat). In 1935 he moved to Tex Avery's new animation unit in the "Termite Terrace" building.

Clampett was promoted to director in 1937 and really let loose. His cartoons are generally agreed to be the physically wildest, most extreme, rubberiest ever produced under the Warner name. (You can tell a Clampett cartoon because faces wrinkle and fold and distort like a Gahan Wilson drawing.) It's entirely possible that without Clampett to cut loose, the Warner cartoons would be remembered today as tame Disney clones. When Avery departed in 1941, Clampett took over his unit and his unfinished work. Clampett himself departed in 1945. Some versions of this event are more positive to Clampett than others, but they distill to the same thing: In 1944 Schlesinger had sold the studio and Ed Selzer, the new boss, was not inclined to give Clampett the same freedoms he had had under Schlesinger. Also, Selzer was far more dislikable and difficult to work with (even Clampett enemies, such as Chuck Jones, stipulate this.)

Clampett could be difficult to work with as well, and one of the last survivors of this lot - and therefore the person most able to influence the historical record - was Chuck Jones, who had some unforgivable but unspecified grudge against Clampett. Thus the waters are quite muddy. The only real mention Jones makes of Clampett in his entire quasi-autobiography Chuck Amuck is one sentence in the Appendix (the Appendix is the actual biographical portion of the book): "[Leon Schlesinger] sent Mr. Clampett and me to Ub [Iwerks'] studio to act as child co-directors .... By some peculiar alchemy I do not yet understand, the co-directorship disappeared and I found myself animating for Bob Clampett."

No one denies that Clampett had an ego. Apparently, despite his almost ridiculously self-effacing autobiography, so did Jones. Clampett was apparently a bit of credit-stealer (some folks say so were Jones and Freleng) and a "golden boy" (his mother was apparently a good friend of Schlesinger's). The counterargument is that Clampett was undeniably brilliant, whereas Jones was considered something of a plodder in his early years even by his own lights (see above). Some people have theorized that Jones was simply jealous of Clampett.

I prefer not to speculate further - I figure 1) they were both pretty brilliant 2) they both had egos - almost a survival necessity! 3) they both were difficult to work with and very protective of their reputation. If it turns out they were both assholes, well, so what? They both made good cartoons, and how much ill shall we speak of the dead, anyway?

For an interesting perspective on Jones and Clampett from people who had first-hand contact with them, try this fascinating document from Michael Barrier and this essay from Milt Gray.

Robert McKimson

I suppose I should be kinder to Robert McKimson. After all, it can't be easy being the third animation unit in a studio with Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. McKimson first became an animation director when Frank Tashlin (see below) got tired of making cartoons in 1945 - but that only lasted until 1946, when he was effectively demoted back to animator under Bob Clampett. In 1949 when Art Davis, who had been given McKimson's unit, left, McKimson became a director again - and stayed that way until the bitter end of Warner animation (and beyond - he went to work for DePatie-Freleng).

McKimson - whose name shows up as an animator in these cartoons' credits long before it shows up as a director - was apparently a very good animator and draftsman - in fact he drew the definitive Bugs Bunny model sheets. It is only as an animation director, who is responsible not just for guiding the animation but also supervising story and characterization - that he lacks excitement. McKimson's worst cartoons all share the fault of having no apparent driving force behind them, no sense of forward motion to speak of. Of course he did occasionally have his good moments as well (Hillbilly Hare is a particular favorite of mine). On the good side, he created the Tasmanian Devil character; on the bad side, he created Speedy Gonzales. (The difference between Road Runner cartoons and Speedy Gonzales cartoons - two bodies of cartoons where every cartoon in the set has the same plot - is instructive.) Foghorn Leghorn, which he also created, is a tossup.

If the Warner cartoon credits often seem chock-full of McKimsons, it's because his younger brother Charles and his older brother Thomas were also both animators, and both worked for Warner animation at one point or another - sometimes animating their brother's cartoons.

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