The Wind-Up. Or: How Chuck Jones commented on the creative process… and a whole lot more.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

What a wash of nostalgia I get when I just type those three words.

The magical way the big networks transformed each weekend, and devoted nearly all of their broadcasting to Kid Stuff, from maybe 7 to around 10 -- until golf and things like that took over their air, and until the parental calls to come help with the yardwork took over OUR air – that 3 hour space was just bliss.

That zone? It was the stuff of TV in thematic pajamas. And colored cereal milk. And singalong commercial jingles. My brother and me, as kids of the 80s, we sorta lived for it.

And we were rangey. I mean, we celebrated cartoon diversity. The Superfriends, but also Scooby Doo. The Flintstones, but: The Jetsons. The Chipmunks and The Smurfs. Captain Caveman and Pac-Man. GI Joe and Richie Rich and (when we were looking for something a bit more Internacionále) Voltron. The list never stopped. We gobbled it all down like the TV junk food that it was.

But the best of all were the classics. Tom & Jerry, Popeye, and, of course:

Looney Tunes.

The whole cast, from Elmer Fudd to Marvin the Martian to the Roadrunner. Those had some unique appeal that I couldn’t quite name. I knew they were good – like, uniquely good – but I couldn’t say what made them so special.

These days, I might do better.

Because those shows, those characters, those storylines… they were DEEP. And way more people with far more insight into animation and narrative than I’ve got have said tons about what works of Real Art they are, and what a genius Chuck Jones is.

But there’s one kind of scene – one particular gag, you might say -- that has, over time, become kind of revelatory. There’s a connection between this one cartoon moment and life itself that I never spotted as a kid. (Shocker.) And even though it took me awhile to notice it, now that it’s there: I just can’t unsee it.

And it’s this:

The Wind-Up.

At least, that’s MY name for it. I looked around on the web and couldn’t find a better one, so I’m sticking with that moniker.

There it is: The Wind-Up.

My minimal sports savvy allows me to borrow this name from the action we all know in baseball (or softball), wherein a pitcher readies himself (or herself) to hurl the ball across the plate. The Wind-Up is essentially a one-person Dance of Effort-Preparation. It is a literal and magical Conjuring Of Energy, achieved through sheer will and by spring-loading your body, screwing-together all your limbs and your torso, so that you can unleash this one little object with power and purpose.

But if you ask me: that sporty version, while impressive, is way less interesting than its companion in the cartoons. Because the Wind-Up, as it exists in cartoons, takes that basic idea and runs wholesale off the rails. And in the process: it finds Human Truth.

Stick with me here.

Go ahead and picture it: Daffy Duck. Or Elmer. Or Wile E. Coyote, facing some formidable obstacle. Readying for something big. Maybe they are in a forest. Or the desert southwest. Likely there’s an ACME product around. The details don’t matter. Point is, it’s the calm before the storm, and they’re gonna bring it.

And no matter what, here’s what they do:

They look. They assess. They steel themselves.

The Wind-Up has begun.

Arms crank back. A neck gets all hilariously strained. Eyebrows furrow with determination. Then, the most telltale and meaningful prerequisite act of all good cartoon Wind-Ups:

They take a few deliberate, hyperdramatic steps back.

This would be enough, ostensibly. Should be enough. The energy is set. They are coiled. Poised. Ready.

But it’s in the next move that Chuck Jones, the creative mastermind behind the Looney Tunes canon, cracks open the human condition for me to see (now that I’m no longer watching in footed PJs).

Because what every cartoon Wind-Up follows with… is another Wind-Up.

Unconvinced that there’s enough punch or power or tension loaded into their setup… our hero repeats the whole outlandish thing. Arms. Neck. Eyebrows. And, crucially: a few more steps back.

NOW we’re ready, folks!

A beat.

And then (of course): Back they go. Again.

And back. And back.

So much getting ready.

Until finally, mercifully, the gag has to pay off, as it always had to: with sublime and glorious failure awaiting our hopelessly over-prepared character… in some elaborate and excruciating fashion that they hardly deserved.

Every Saturday, I’d watch a character back themselves into their own doom – quite literally, when they took enough steps in reverse to end up standing over a bottomless gorge, or something similar. Poof. They’re gone. Cue the puff of dust.

The poor bastard. When will they ever learn?

That’s what I thought.

Only I was missing something.

Because a few years ago, it dawned on me:

I know this gag. I know this move, this habit, this guaranteed road to an unsatisfying outcome.

I know it, because I’ve lived it. For years… for decades even… I have regularly become my own version of Wile E Coyote. I have, essentially, been stuck in the Wind-Up.

Preparation. Assessment. Readying. Adjusting.

And then a few steps back again: Preparation. Assessment. Readying… An endless loop of non-progress. Getting oh-so-close-to-action… striking a pose that sure makes it look and feel like forward movement is imminent -- and then stepping back a few more paces.

You know: just to be sure.

In my own head, it made perfect sense. I could even make it sound respectable. Responsible. It looks just enough like grown-up, rational behavior that I would sometimes even pat myself on the back for it.

Except for the part where nothing actually COMES of it.

Which, to be frank, is not the world’s most grown-up or rational yield on a whole lot of energy spent.

At its most innocent, the Wind-Up looks a lot like classic procrastination. I’ve seen it in creative endeavors all my life. We all have, I’m betting, if we’re honest about the experience of making things:

-Yes, I’m gonna get going on this project. And now. I just need to clean the ol’ desktop first. Freshly scrubbed desktop – that’ll guarantee a great kickoff.

-OK, I am ready for this thing. Time to GO. Just need to scour two-thirds of the internet first, to see if anyone has ever done anything that’s even vaguely related to my topic.

-Which reminds me: I should probably review all of the client materials again.

-Maybe I should turn those notes into a more pleasingly formatted setup?

-Is my hard drive space cleared out enough?

But as much as I’d like to think so, this is not a practiced ritual of great creative output.

This is Fear. Fear of that first inkling of creative action and commitment, masquerading as Preparation. It is in fact a Wind-Up, sending you ever backwards, further from your real starting point, and (just like Daffy Duck) nearly guaranteeing that something’s gonna get pulled too tight, or that you’re just gonna end up standing over the business end of a cliff.

Happily, I have finally begun to loosen myself from the prison of the creative Wind-Up. One of my design heroes, Bruce Mau, inspires me every day with the words he once wrote down in a manifesto: “Begin Anywhere.” (To be fair, he further passes credit to John Cage for that 2-word Mantra.) This is sound advice, and I’ve finally learned to breathe and head forward sooner than later on projects that I'm leading.

Which is progress I warmly embrace.

But here’s the thing: the Wind-Up has been more than simple project-procrastination. At least, for me it has.

Procrastination, after all, delays a project. But what do you call it when the Wind-Up has you backing away from bigger things, all under the auspices of Not Being The Right Time? When you allow the Wind-Up to represent something broader than just those first hours or days on a gig?

At this very moment, I have ideas for (in no particular order) a podcast, a new business, an animated short, a dark quasi-superhero story, some t-shirt designs, a few on-stage talks, a number of stand-up comedy bits, and any number of other narrative bits and pieces. I say that not to brag, but to make a point.

Because they are not brand new. Each has been clanging around in my mind in various stages of development for months or years. Or, if I’m honest: more.

But for some reason, I have issued myself the same warning, over and over:

Not yet.

It’s not the right time.

I don’t have the right to do that kind of thing yet.

I’m not experienced enough for that.

I need to back up. Prepare more. Gain more experience. Focus and develop a few skills yet. Watch some other people do it first.

Back up. Prepare.

Back up. Assess.

Prepare. Adjust. Second-Guess. Repeat.

What have I been doing? And why? Or, more to the point: What have I NOT been doing? And why NOT?

I'm curious: Am I the only one who’s been here, in the Wind-Up?

I think I owe a huge amount of this realization to my girlfriend, who helped me by swinging a likely fatal blow to my reasoning… finally pointing at my Wind-Up and calling it what it was: Fear, hiding as imagined maturity.

We were talking about travel. She loves to travel. And I do too… now, finally. But we were early in our relationship, and amidst courtship, we were toying with the idea of a trip. Together. Big step!

So, she asked: Where did I think we ought to go?

I stopped. Thought. Weighed options. And then, in all of my worldly wisdom, I offered:

The California Foothills.

Which, to be fair, is a lovely and worthy place to go. We’ve actually been there, a few times now, and it’s a terrific weekend getaway. Locals: I recommend it.

But this was a weeklong space looking to be filled.

The Foothills?

She asked me… how about somewhere a little more… exciting? Exotic? Far-flung? What if we went to somewhere in South America, or Europe?

And here’s where the Wind-Up reveals itself. Because this was, honest to god, the essence of my reply:

Well, I plainly can’t do that. I can’t go to Europe, or any other place that far off, until I’ve explored all of America. And I REALLY shouldn’t head to places around the states until I’ve fully explored California. We should start here, you know?

You know?

Yeah. I know.

This is quite possibly the weakest, most miserable and least rational reply to an invitation to travel the globe with a beautiful woman ever given.

But it was MY weak and miserable answer. And it had a kernel of logic hiding inside of it. You start locally, cover all the ground you need to, and THEN branch out. Logic! (No. Fear.)

Thankfully, I heard a slightly different rationale from my partner:

So, you wanna wait until you’re 80 to go to, say, Morocco or New Zealand? You have to check every box in California before you even see some of those great little towns in the Southern States? How will that ever work? When will you be done, or ready, or whatever? Is that even possible?

No. Obviously no. What I thought was logic was nothing more than the Wind-Up, Trojan-Horsing its way into my life again.

Take a big trip?? Go far away?? Totally! It’ll just require me to do some work first.

Some preparation.

Some readying.

Some backing up.

I’m happy to report that our first weeklong trip together was not to the Foothills. It was to Slovenia, and Croatia, actually. Which is empirically way the hell better!

With my girlfriend’s perspective, and a freshly minted passport, I began to recognize the Wind-Up for what it was, and how damaging it could be. And how much it could keep from actually happening.

So, without fully throwing all caution to the wind in every aspect of my life, I have determined to spend far less time in the Wind-Up.

Enough backing up.

Enough doing that thing with my arms that Daffy does when he’s getting ready to make some impact.

Time for some positive motion.

Look, the cliff could be waiting for you on either end. Why waste time backing yourself over one?

I never figured that so much could be hiding in a cartoon gag. But there it is.

And, having earned not very much cred in the advice-giving category, and having only Elmer Fudd and Daffy and Wile E. as our role models, I hope you’ll indulge me.

Got somewhere you think you might like to go? Please: pack a quick bag and go. The local places will still be here.

Interested in trying something that might not look like or relate to all the stuff you've done before? Go at that something. See what it's about.

Have an idea that wants out of your head? By all means, write it down, and then share it. Out loud.

Want to make a thing? Absolutely give yourself permission to make that thing. Then have someone come take a look at it.

Feel sure you’re not yet at that precisely ideal just-right starting point for that project or plan? Move ahead anyway.

Because just like me, you will never be perfectly prepared or readied or trained or anything else to do the thing that you are eager to do. All the boxes will never get checked, and all of the Winding Up we try to do will not get us there.

That time will simply never come.

For myself: I have backed up enough.

It’s possible that you have too.

So here’s a thought:

Forward.