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In communication ethics classes, people are taught to never compromise their principles about anything. If they do not agree with someone on something, they should not be agreed to show it. These principles are just extensions of a person’s basic values. Consequently, each person has different principles, because each person has different values. Yet these values remain immensely important and should, and often do, always play a big role in a person’s decisions. The book Media Ethics states "Our values constitute the frame of reference in which theories, decisions, and situations make sense to us" (Christians, et. al., pg. 9). To Fred "Tex" Avery, these values of his figured very much into whether certain decisions made sense to him or not. And to Tex, a certain decision made by one of his bosses made no sense at all. Before we discuss the actual decision, though, it is best to tell a little history as to who Tex Avery is.

Frederick Bean Avery was born on February 26, 1908, in Taylor, Texas. He was a direct descendent of Judge Roy Bean, the famous lawman of the Old West. As a young boy, Avery was often told by his mother, "Don’t ever mention you are kin to Roy Bean. He’s a no good skunk!" Avery was also a descendent of Daniel Boone, someone his mother apparently approved more of. Avery attended North Dallas High School in the 1920s, and it is here that he first became to dabble in the art of cartooning, an art that he would eventually become famous for. He would regularly post humorous drawings on one of the bulletin boards in the school. This gained him praise, and after graduating in 1927, Avery moved to Southern California in 1929. While working in a harbor, he also showed some of his drawings to Walter Lantz, the head of an animation studio. Later in 1929, Lantz hired Avery as an animator.

While he was happy to animate cartoons, his contributions to the studio and its cartoons were rather minor, and in 1936 he took a job under Leon Schlesinger, who was making cartoons for Warner Bros. Studios. It was here that Avery directed his first cartoon (and also received credit for it), entitled Gold-Diggers of ’49, and it was the second cartoon to feature who would become Warner’s first cartoon star, Porky Pig. Almost immediately, Avery’s unique directorial style became apparent. Avery would regularly go against the grain, directing cartoons in a manner he deemed best, and didn’t let Schlesinger interfere very much with his cartoons. It was obvious that Avery was a man whose ethical principles were not to be taken lightly.

Avery didn’t work very much with the usual characters of the Warner Bros. cartoons. After a few cartoons with Porky Pig, Avery concentrated a lot of his attention on "one-shot" cartoons, which are cartoons that feature non-recurring characters. It is while directing these "one-shots" that Avery created a new character, Egghead, who would eventually evolve into the character of Elmer Fudd. Yet, even after he created Egghead, the majority of cartoons Avery directed remained one-shots. When he would direct cartoons with established characters, Avery would often have tremendous success. In 1937, in one of his early Porky Pig cartoons entitled Porky’s Duck Hunt, introduced a character who would become very famous, Daffy Duck. Then, in 1940, Avery directed A Wild Hare. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject, this cartoon was notable for two reasons: It solidified the transformation of Egghead into Elmer Fudd, a transformation that had begun with Avery’s 1938 cartoon A Feud There Was. This cartoon also was the first real Bugs Bunny cartoon. Warner’s had begun toiling with the idea of a screwball rabbit in 1938’s Porky’s Hare Hunt, a cartoon that was a variation on Avery’s own aforementioned cartoon, Porky’s Duck Hunt. A few subsequent cartoons further developed the rabbit’s personality, but it wasn’t until A Wild Hare that the appearance and personality of the Bugs Bunny we all know and love came into being. This was also the first cartoon to feature what would become Bugs’ signature line, "What’s up, Doc?" The term ‘doc’ was used by Avery and his high school friends while he was growing up, and that is why he used it in the cartoon. Consequently, one can say that Avery created Bugs Bunny. It was apparent immediately following the release of A Wild Hare that Warner Bros. had a huge hit on its hands. Bugs Bunny soon became Warner’s biggest cartoon star, and of the very biggest stars (eclipsed only by Mickey Mouse) in Hollywood. Yet, this rabbit would be a factor in the severing of Avery’s ties with Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. For not even Avery’s own baby bunny would make Avery compromise his own ethical principles.

In 1941, Avery completed his third cartoon, and Warner’s fifth overall, which featured Bugs Bunny. Entitled The Heckling Hare, it featured Bugs being hunted by Willoughby the dog. At the end of the cartoon, both Bugs and Willoughby fall off of a cliff. After a long sequence of them falling through the sky, they land safely on the ground. Bugs then says to the audience, "Fooled ya, didn’t we?" Bugs and Willoughby then proceed to accidentally walk off of another cliff. Right before he falls through the sky again, Bugs says to the audience, "Hold on to your hats, folks. Here we go again!" Then the cartoon irises out, and the familiar "That’s All Folks!" end title appears. Yet, this ending is not the one that appeared in theaters, nor is it the one that is shown on television. Leon Schlesinger originally approved of the ending, but then he screened the cartoon for Jack Warner, one of the heads of Warner Bros., who screened all cartoons before their release. Warner did not like the ending. He did not state why he didn’t like the ending, just that it had to be changed. It has been suggested that Warner thought the line "Hold on to your hats" was too topical a joke, and could become dated rather quickly. However, that argument doesn’t make much sense as, back in 1941, there was little reason to believe that any cartoon would have a life span beyond six to eight weeks, as that was the usual length of time they were in the movie theaters. Television had not caught on yet, and while there was a possibility a cartoon may be re-released to theaters a few years later, topicality in cartoons seldom was a very big issue. It has also been written that Warner did not like the idea of Bugs Bunny, his newest, and by far his biggest, cartoon star falling to an uncertain fate. This is a more likely possibility for Warner’s rejection of the ending.

Regardless of his reasoning, Jack Warner made it clear to Leon Schlesinger that he did not like the ending of The Heckling Hare, and he wanted it changed. Schlesinger then ordered Avery to change the ending. It was here that Avery’s ethical principles came into play. Avery saw nothing wrong with The Heckling Hare and he vehemently refused to change the ending. This led to a heated argument between Avery and Schlesinger. This was not the first time Avery and Schlesinger had clashed. They also clashed over the naming of Bugs Bunny. Tex wanted to dub his creation ‘Jack Rabbit’ or ‘Jack E. Rabbit,’ because, as he said, "I thought it would please my Texas friends." The name ‘Bugs Bunny’ stayed, though, partly because Avery probably recognized that it was a catchy name, one that would stick in people’s minds. After all, look at the names ‘Porky Pig’ and ‘Daffy Duck.’ While they could compromise on Bugs Bunny’s name, Avery could not agree with Schlesinger on the ending of The Heckling Hare. Avery could not see that anything was wrong with the ending, and it was his cartoon. He would not violate his work of art. To Schlesinger, though, it was not a work of art. It was just a cartoon, and Schlesinger’s boss, Jack Warner, ordered him to change the ending of the cartoon. Still, Avery would not compromise his artistic principles. Ultimately, it became clear that Schlesinger was not going to relent in his decision. Instead of bowing down and changing the ending of the cartoon, Avery just walked out of the studio. Schlesinger slapped Avery with a six-week suspension, and then, following the suspension, fired him outright.

Of course, there was still the matter of the ending of The Heckling Hare. Rather than appoint a new director to the cartoon to change the ending, Schlesinger did just about the most uncreative thing one could think of. He cut the last sixty feet of film out, and the cartoon abruptly faded to black after Bugs says his "fooled ya, didn’t we" line. It was this version of the cartoon that Schlesinger released, and he released it, as well as another Avery cartoon, Aviation Vacation, in the six-week suspension of Avery. After Avery was fired, there were still three cartoons he had completed that had not been released yet. Schlesinger simply released these cartoons with no director credit given. Ironically, considering that it was a Bugs Bunny cartoon that ultimately led to his walkout, it was a Bugs Bunny cartoon, All This and Rabbit Stew, that was first released without his credit. Releasing films and cartoons without their proper credit seems unethical, but Schlesinger seemingly did not care. As for the animators in Avery’s directing unit, Schlesinger promoted Bob Clampett from animator to director, and he essentially took over for Avery.

None of this bothered Avery all that much. He was through with Warner Bros., and he took his directorial skills over to Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) animation studios. There, he was given free reign over cartoons, as eager MGM executives where hopeful that Avery could give them another star as big as Bugs Bunny. Avery never did (although he did create Droopy Dog, he was hardly as big a star as Bugs), but that did not stop his cartoons at MGM from being wild masterpieces. From his very first cartoon, the 1942 excellent piece of World War II propaganda called The Blitz Wolf, it was obvious that Avery would be going against the grain just as much as he did at Warner Bros. At MGM, though, his genius was recognized, and his ethical principles were never interfered with. There was never a Leon Schlesinger-type to tell Avery what he should and should not do with cartoons. Avery and his ethical values, at least as far as his theatrical cartoons were concerned, were seldom tampered with again. Avery died August 26, 1980. In the end, it turned out that his steadfast attitude regarding his principles was one of the main reasons he was such a success. Tex Avery was a man who did not compromise his ethical principles, even if it cost him his job. That is why he is such a big idol in the world of communication ethics.

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