If it were not for members of the “Looney Tunes” blazing a path with their ACME explosives, there might not have been “Scooby Doo,” “The Flintstones” or “Tom and Jerry.”

The success of Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and the fame of Bugs Bunny brought laughs to thousands and respect to the craftsmanship of animation. When it comes to pride and craftsmanship, there was nobody who cared about his animated characters more than “Looney Tunes” creator Chuck Jones.

Jones died Feb. 22 at the age of 89. Jones’s death, along with the Feb. 2000 passing of legendary “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, marked the final curtain for what was called the golden age of animation.

Jones would’ve been found most hours of his life hunched over a drawing board stroking his long beard or adjusting his glasses. His head was not topped by an Elmer Fudd hunting cap or a Marvin the Martian army helmet, but by a Stetson hat.

He took the art of animation very seriously. The greatest lesson he received about animation and cartoons came from a boy who was introduced to him. The boy had said to Jones, “You don’t draw Bugs Bunny. You draw pictures of Bugs Bunny.”

The statement stuck with Jones and confirmed in him that the characters of his imagination had become real. Jones breathed life into every character he put down on paper from the stuttering Porky Pig, to the conniving Wile E. Coyote to the lovelorn Pepe Le Pew.

After his Sept. 21, 1912, birth in Spokane, Wash., Jones grew up in Hollywood where he observed the talents of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton while occasionally working as a child extra in innovative filmmaker Mack Sennett’s comedies.

After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (now California Institute of the Arts), Jones drew pencil portraits for $1 apiece on Olvera Street. Then in 1932, he got his first job in the fledgling animation industry as a cel washer for former Disney animator Ubbe Iwerks. Four years later Jones became an animator for the Leon Schlesinger Studio, which was later sold to Warner Bros.

There, he was assigned to Tex Avery’s animation unit, joining the Warner Bros. team that made “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” in a back-lot building that he and other Warner animators and directors nicknamed “Termite Terrace.” It was there that the personalities and characteristics of Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were developed and produced. In 1966, Jones directed one of the most memorable holiday television specials ever produced, with “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

In a career spanning more than 60 years, Jones has made more than 300 animated films and has earned two Academy Awards, including an Honorary Oscar in 1996.

Cels from “Looney Tunes” with his signature price between $1,000 and $1,500 a piece. You can find cels for sale at www.chuckjones.com and at www.animationgallery.com, which carries hundreds of cels for sale.

Jones always will be remembered with reverence and adoring love. Even though the flame that blazed for 89 years has gone, there always will be the laughter.

The passing of Jones does not mean the end of Bugs Bunny and the rest of the “Looney Tunes.” No, Bugs still will take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and Porky Pig still will have trouble with his m’s and b’s. Jones and the life he breathed into his characters will live forever.