Chuck Jones question, About his Tom & Jerry shorts Options

[patgonta]

In many of the late MGM Tom & Jerry shorts, we associate with chuck jones,
the director is "Able Levitow". I had no idea who he was.
apparently he started animating for chuck jones' late WB shorts (including 'One Froggy Evening').

what I don't understand is, why didn't mr. jones let Ben Washam or Ken Harris direct?
they were the two animators notable spicing up his cartoons...

[looneylover2]

He was always sticking with Chuck. He was with him in Warner Bros., made the picture "Gay Purr-e-e-e" with Chuck, then he was with him to the end with Tom & Jerry cartoons. He also made his own shorts like "A Witch's Tangled Hare". He truly stuck by Chuck's side.

[looneylover2]

Well, Chuck let Ken direct. He worked on "Hare-abian Nights". While he also animated that cartoon.

[Studio Toledo]

He was always sticking with Chuck. He was with him in Warner Bros., made the picture "Gay Purr-e-e-e" with Chuck, then he was with him to the end with Tom & Jerry cartoons. He also made his own shorts like "A Witch's Tangled Hare". He truly stuck by Chuck's side.

I think during the '60's he would also be involved in directing some of the TV cartoons for UPA such as Dick Tracy. In the '70s, he joined up with producer David Hanson and created a company called "Hanson-Levitow Films" which mostly worked on TV ads as well as a few B.C. TV specials based on Johnny Hart's strip. The company was renamed Gallerie International a while later and was responsible for the production of the animated sequences and script re-writing of a Japanese cartoon (Gatchaman) for Sandy Frank entitled "Battle of the Planets".

[Gman4ever]

I am certain Lebitow did a few shorts at WB.
On was a Pepe and one, I believe, was a one off about the animal kingdom.

[Semaj]

Ben Washam became Chuck Jones' co-director during the MGM years. Washam directed the last of the Tom & Jerry theatricals, and he helped Jones on several TV specials, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

[thebiach]

here's his directing filmography:

Baton Bunny (1959)
Really Scent (1959)
A Witch's Tangled Hare (1959)
Unnatural History (1959)
"The Dick Tracy Show" (1961) TV Series (supervising)
Lickety-Splat (1961) (co-director)
Nelly's Folly (1961) (co-director)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962) (TV)
Martian Through Georgia (1962)
Jerry-Go-Round (1965)
Puss 'n' Boats (1966)
Filet Meow (1966)
Catty-Cornered (1966)
The A-Tom-inable Snowman (1966)
Surf-Bored Cat (1967)
Rock 'n' Rodent (1967)
O-Solar-Meow (1967)
The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R. (1967)
Guided Mouse-ille (1967)
The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)

[patgonta]

this is still a mystery for me,
in 'extremes and in-betweens' , they pay much attention to maurice noble, mel blanc, washam, harris, and others. but that guy wasn't even mentioned. how did he suddenly become chuck's partner?

[frizilardi]

this is still a mystery for me,
in 'extremes and in-betweens' , they pay much attention to maurice noble, mel blanc, washam, harris, and others. but that guy wasn't even mentioned. how did he suddenly become chuck's partner?

OK, first Abe Levitow had been an assistant animator for years with Chuck (see the picture in "Chuck Amuck" of him and the staff in 1943 dressed in their "P.U." outfits while making "The Dover Boys." He became an a full animator when Phil Monroe left in the early '50s. Interstingly, Jones must not have thought he was a particularly "flowing" animator; he is quoted as saying his animation of Porky's belly jiggling with laughter in "Robin Hood Daffy" (1958) was his first really good piece of animation-and he'd been animating for most of the decade! (Note: Chuck had the same comment about Ben Washam, too; he didn't think he really blossomed until "The Phantom Toll Booth" and he'd been animating since '42.) He started codirecting with Chuck in the late '50s, directed segments of "The Bugs Bunny Show" (as did Ken Harris and others), did one or two solos at Warner's before going to UPA, then came back to Chuck at MGM. So...I have no idea why he wasn't mentioned more in "Extremes And In-Betweens," except that some people didn't like his angular drawing style, thinking it was more aprpos to UPA than Warner's. All of you are hinting at another area---what makes an animator and what makes a director? It always got me that a great animator like Ken harris didn't do more animating, or why many great director's were not he best animators. That's a whole topic in itself!

[frizilardi]

It always got me that a great animator like Ken harris didn't do more animating, or why many great director's were not he best animators. That's a whole topic in itself!

I meant to say it intrigued me that a great animator like Ken Harris didn't do more DIRECTING. I guess a great animator doesn't necesarily make a good director (see: Robert McKimson, Howard Swift, Bob Wickersham, Art Babbitt, etc.) Ooooh, now I'm opening up a can of worms!