Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner

Jones based the coyote on Mark Twain's book Roughing It,[17] in which Twain described the coyote as "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton" that is "a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry." Jones said he created the Wile E. Coyote-Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional "cat and mouse" cartoons such as MGM's Tom and Jerry.[18] Jones modelled the coyote's appearance on fellow animator Ken Harris.[19]

The coyote's name of Wile E. is a pun of the word "wily." The "E" stands for "Ethelbert" in one issue of a Looney Tunes comic book.[20] The coyote's surname is routinely pronounced with a long "e" (/kaɪˈoʊtiː/ ky-OH-tee), but in one cartoon short, To Hare Is Human, Wile E. is heard pronouncing it with a diphthong (/kaɪˈoʊteɪ/ ky-OH-tay). Early model sheets for the character prior to his initial appearance (in Fast and Furry-ous) identified him as "Don Coyote", a pun on Don Quixote.[21]

The Road Runner's "beep, beep sound" was inspired by background artist Paul Julian's imitation of a car horn.[22] Julian voiced the various recordings of the phrase used throughout the Road Runner cartoons, although on-screen he was uncredited for his work. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, Julian's preferred spelling of the sound effect was either "hmeep hmeep"[23] or "mweep, mweep".[24]

:

The series consists of:

• 50 shorts, mostly about 6 to 7 minutes long, but including four web cartoons which are "three-minute, three-dimensional cartoons in widescreen (scope)".[25]
• One half-hour special released theatrically (26 minutes).
• One feature-length film that combines live action and animation

¹ Re-edited from Adventures of the Road Runner by Chuck Jones and with new music direction from Bill Lava
² Re-edited from Adventures of the Road Runner by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises
³ These cartoons were each shown with a feature-length film. Chariots of Fur was shown with Richie Rich, Coyote Falls was shown with Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,[25] Fur of Flying was shown with Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole,[32] and Rabid Rider was shown with Yogi Bear. Flash in the Pain was shown at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 10, 2014.[29][30]

Zoom and Bored, 1957

The desert scenery in the first three Road Runner cartoons, Fast and Furry-ous (1949), Beep, Beep (1952), and Going! Going! Gosh! (also 1952), was designed by Robert Gribbroek and was quite realistic. In most later cartoons, the scenery was designed by Maurice Noble and was far more abstract.

Wile E. Coyote often obtains various complex and ludicrous devices from a mail-order company, the fictitious Acme Corporation, which he hopes will help him catch the Road Runner. The devices invariably fail in improbable and spectacular fashion.

In August, September and October 1982, the National Lampoon published a three-part series chronicling the lawsuit Wile E. filed against the Acme Corporation over the faulty items they sold him in his pursuit of the Road Runner. Even though the Road Runner appeared as a witness for the plaintiff, the coyote still lost the suit.[33]

Wile E Coyote dinner chart of the Road Runner. Zip Zip Hooray!.

In his book Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist,[34] Chuck Jones claimed that he and the artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules:

1. "The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going ‘Beep-Beep!’" This only applies to direct harm; however, the Road Runner is able to indirectly harm Wile E. One of the most common instances of indirect harm was done with a startling "Beep-Beep" that ends up either sending Wile E. off a cliff or up in the air and through a rock above him. Rule 1 was broken twice, once in Clippety Clobbered when the Road Runner drops a boulder on the coyote after painting it with "invisible paint", and again in the episode 'Out and Out Rout' when the Road Runner runs over the Coyote with a steam roller. This rule has also been broken in several CGI shorts from The Looney Tunes Show. Plus, "Fast and Furry-ous" was before this rule. Unless you count that one, the first instance of this rule being broken is "Hip Hip-Hurry!", where he trips Wile E. Coyote. However, the rule wouldn't be broken again until "Rushing Roulette". He would harm him again, the last time being the ending of 2003's "The Whizzard of Ow", discounting the CGI shorts that weren't theatrical. Surprisingly, none of the shorts gave Wile E. direct harm from Road Runner were theatrical, although the shorts seen on The Looney Tunes Show are a different matter.
2. "No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products." Trains and trucks were the exceptions from time to time, as well as the desert environment (boulders, cacti, etc.)
3. "The Coyote could stop anytime — if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: ‘A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.’ — George Santayana)."
4. "No dialogue ever, except 'Beep-Beep!'" Various onomatopoeic exclamations (such as yelping in pain) are seemingly not considered dialogue. This rule was violated in some cartoons, such as in Zoom at the Top where the Coyote says the word "Ouch." after he gets hurt in a bear trap, as well as in shorts such as Adventures of the Road Runner, which do not follow the standard formula. Typically, Wile E. Coyote communicates by holding up one or more signs that read such phrases as "In Heaven's name… what am I doing?", "How about ending this cartoon before I hit?" and "Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him / Now what do I do?", among others. The Road Runner sometimes does this too, having used signs with such phrases as "Road Runners can't read", "Road Runners can't read and don't drink", "I've already got a date", "Road Runners already have feathers", and "I just don't have the heart"/"Bye!", among others. In one particular cartoon, Fastest with the Mostest, the Road Runner responds to the coyote's sign with his own; after the coyote fails another attempt at catching the Road Runner due to cartoon physics, he holds up a sign that reads "I wouldn't mind - except that he defies the law of gravity!" In reply, the Road Runner holds up a sign that reads "Sure - but I never studied law!".
5. "The Road Runner must stay on the road — otherwise, logically, he would not be called a Road Runner." This rule was broken in several shorts, including cactus patches, mines, cliff edges, mountain tops and railways.
6. "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters — the southwest American desert." This rule was broken in Freeze Frame, when Wile E. discovers that Road Runners hate snow and ice, chases the Road Runner onto a snowy summit, and devises various traps there, which, apparently, was right next to the desert. Much to Wile E.'s surprise, the Road Runner did not show any sign of abhorrence. In another episode War and Pieces the Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner by riding a rocket; instead he ends up going through the ground and ends up in China. He sees a Chinese Road runner and tries to grab him but ends up running into a gong. The Coyote falls through the hole all the way back to the American Southwest and faints. The Chinese Road Runner come up through the hole and Beep Beeps in Chinese which change into english letters "The End"
7. "All materials tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation." However, there have been instances in which Wile E. utilizes products not obtained from Acme; in Rushing Roulette, the Coyote uses AJAX Stix-All glue. In Zip 'N Snort, aside from the Acme Iron Pellets, Wile E. also had a box of AJAX Bird Seed. In Fast and Furry-ous, even though one item, the Super Outfit, was from Acme, for some reason the Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes were from "Fleet-Feet". On one occasion, he uses a manual: How to Build a Burmese Tiger Trap (though the publisher is not indicated), hoping to catch the Road Runner. To his shock, the trap works precisely as promised, and actually does catch a Burmese tiger ("Surprisibus! Surprisibus!") who attacks Wile E. {A similar gag to this also happened with Ralph Wolf's tiger Trap]. In To Beep or Not to Beep the coyote repeatedly tries to use a catapult to drop a boulder on the speedy bird, but the catapult continually backfires on him; at the end of the short, the catapult is revealed to be made by the "Road Runner Manufacturing Company — Phoenix * Taos * Santa Fe * Flagstaff and Elsewhere""! In Road Runner a Go-Go the Coyote uses a blueprint of a Greco-Roman catapult to build a giant catapult to try to catch the Road Runner but it backfires every time. The injured Coyote strikes the blueprint with his cane and is cloberbed by a stone of the blueprint catapult; at the end of the short, the camera then zooms down to a label on the blueprint, revealing it to be made by the "Road Runner Blue-Print Co. — Phoenix * Taos * Santa Fe * Flagstaff and Elsewhere".
8. "Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy." For example, falling off a cliff.
9. "The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures."

These rules were not always followed, and in an interview[15] years after the series was made, principal writer of the original 16 episodes Michael Maltese stated he had never heard of these or any "rules" and dismissed them as "post production observation".

As in other cartoons, the Road Runner and the coyote follow certain laws of cartoon physics, peculiar to an animation universe. Some examples:

• Animation vs. Reality Mixing: the Road Runner has the ability to enter the painted image of a cave, while the coyote cannot (unless there is an opening through which he can fall). Sometimes, however, this is reversed, and the Road Runner can burst through a painting of a broken bridge and continue on his way, while the coyote will instead enter the painting and fall down the precipice of the cliff where the bridge is out.
• Gravity: sometimes the coyote is allowed to hang in mid-air until he realizes that he is about to plummet into a chasm (a process occasionally referred to elsewhere as Road-Runnering or a Wile E. Coyote moment). The coyote can overtake rocks (or cannons) which fall earlier than he does, and end up being squashed by them. If a chase sequence runs over the edge of a cliff, the Road Runner is not affected by gravity, whereas the coyote will be subject to normal Earth gravity and eventually fall to the ground below. The Road Runner can also stand upon a platform suspended in midair (such as a hole cut out from a bridge by the coyote) where gravity instead causes everything but that one cut-out area to plummet to the ground.
• The Road Runner is able to run fast enough to go through time.
• If the coyote uses an explosive (commonly dynamite) that is triggered by a mechanism that is supposed to force the explosive in a forward motion toward its target, the actual mechanism itself will shoot forward, leaving the explosive behind to detonate in the coyote's face. On occasion, the explosive sometimes explodes either too early or too late with the Coyote being caught in the explosion (this gag also appeared in other Looney Tunes series).
• Delayed Reaction: (a) a complex apparatus that is supposed to propel an object like a boulder or steel ball forward, or trigger a trap, will not work on the Road Runner, but always does so perfectly on the coyote - when he inspects it after its failure to ensnare the Road Runner. (b) the Road Runner can jump up and down on the trigger of a large animal trap and eat the intended trap trigger bird seed off it and leave unharmed without setting off the trap; but when the coyote places the tiniest droplet of oil on the trigger, the trap snaps shut on him without fail.
• On other occasions, the coyote dons an exquisite Acme costume or propulsion device that briefly allows him to catch up to the Road Runner, but ultimately always results in him losing track of his proximity to large cliffs or walls, and while the Road Runner darts around an extremely sharp turn near a cliff, defying physics, the coyote succumbs to physics and will rocket right over the edge and plummet spectacularly to the ground.
• In what might be called cartoon biology, the Road Runner always runs faster than the coyote, whilst in reality, a coyote can outrun a greater roadrunner.[35]

Both animals were typically introduced in a similar fashion; the action would slow to a halt, and a caption would appear with both their common name and a mock genus/species name in pseudo-Latin (for example, in Zoom at the Top, the Road Runner was classified as "Disappearialis Quickius", while the coyote was identified as "Overconfidentii Vulgaris").

The original Chuck Jones productions ended in 1963 after Jack L. Warner closed the Warner Bros. animation studio. War and Pieces, the last Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner short directed by Jones, was released on June 6, 1964. By that time, David H. DePatie and director Friz Freleng had formed DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, moved into the facility just emptied by Warner, and signed a license with Warner Bros. to produce cartoons for the big studio to distribute.

Their first cartoon to feature the Road Runner was The Wild Chase, directed by Freleng in 1965. The premise was a race between the bird and "the fastest mouse in all Mexico," Speedy Gonzales, with the coyote and Sylvester the Cat each trying to make a meal out of their respective usual targets. Much of the material was animation rotoscoped from earlier Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales shorts, with the other characters added in.

In total, DePatie-Freleng produced 14 Road Runner cartoons, two of which were directed by Robert McKimson (Rushing Roulette (1965) and Sugar and Spies (1966)). Eleven of these shorts, directed by Rudy Larriva (often referred to as the "Larriva Eleven"), were subcontracted to Format Films and suffered from severe budget cuts; due to a significant drop in the number of frames used per second in animation, the "Larriva Eleven" were somewhat cheap-looking and jerky. The music was also of poorer quality than the older features; this was a by-product of music director Bill Lava (who had replaced the recently deceased Milt Franklyn three years prior) being relegated to the use of pre-composed music cues - due to the previously mentioned budget cuts - rather than a proper score, as heard with The Wild Chase, Rushing Roulette, and Run Run, Sweet Road Runner (the third being the only one of the "Larriva Eleven" to have a proper score). These 11 shorts have been considered inferior to the other Golden Age shorts, garnering mixed to poor reviews from critics. In Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin calls the series "witless in every sense of the word." In addition, except for the planet Earth scene at the tail end of "Highway Runnery", there was only one clip of the coyote's fall to the ground, used over and over again. Jones' previously described "laws" for the characters were not followed with any significant fidelity, nor were Latin phrases used when introducing the characters.

There They Go-Go-Go!

In another series of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons, Chuck Jones used the character design (model sheets and personality) of Wile E. Coyote as "Ralph Wolf". In this series, Ralph continually attempts to steal sheep from a flock being guarded by the eternally vigilant Sam Sheepdog. As with the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote series, Ralph Wolf uses all sorts of wild inventions and schemes to steal the sheep, but he is continually foiled by the sheepdog. In a move seen by many as a self-referential gag, Ralph Wolf continually tries to steal the sheep not because he is a fanatic (as Wile E. Coyote was), but because it is his job. In every cartoon, he and Sam Sheepdog punch a timeclock and exchange pleasantries, go to work, stop what they are doing to take a lunch break, go back to work and pick up right where they left off, and clock out to go home for the day and exchange pleasantries again, all according to a factory-like blowing whistle. The most obvious difference between the coyote and the wolf, aside from their locales, is that Wile E. has a black nose and Ralph has a red nose.

Warner Bros. is developing a live-action/animation hybrid film centered on Wile E. Coyote titled Coyote vs. Acme, produced by Warner Animation Group, with The Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay on board to produce.[42][43] The film is said to be based on The New Yorker short story "Coyote v. Acme" by author Ian Frazier.[44] Published in 1990, the piece imagined a lawsuit brought about by Wile E. Coyote against the Acme Company who provided him with various devices and tools to aid in his pursuit of the Road Runner. The devices frequently malfunctioned, leading to the humorous failures, injuries, and sight gags the Road Runner cartoons are known for.[45] Jon and Josh Silberman were originally set to write the screenplay.[42] On December 18, 2019, it was reported that Dave Green will direct the project.[43] It was also reported that the project is looking for a new writer, with Jon and Josh Silberman instead co-producing the film alongside McKay;[43] however, by December 2020, McKay departed the project while Jon and Josh Silberman left their roles as producers and resumed their screenwriting roles, with Samy Burch, Jeremy Slater, and James Gunn also writing the film. Gunn will also co-produce the project alongside Chris DeFaria. It was also announced that the film is scheduled to be released on July 21, 2023.[46] In February 2022, it was announced that John Cena would star in the film.[47] In March 2022, Will Forte and Lana Condor were added to the cast.[48]

Several Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner-themed video games have been produced:

A mural of Wile E. Coyote smashed into the wall of the Rotch Library at MIT. Due to differences in floor height in connected buildings, this hallway unexpectedly ends in a wall.

Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner have been frequently referenced in popular culture. Some explamples:

In the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "Lights! Camera! Cobra!", Shipwreck kicks away a coyote before going "Beep Beep".

There are two scenes in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of The Shining where Danny Torrance and his mother, Wendy Torrance, are watching the cartoons.

Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner appeared in the 1988 Touchstone/Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They are first seen silhouetted by the elevator doors in Toontown, and then in full in the ACME Factory during the final scene with other characters.

Wile E. Coyote has appeared twice in Family Guy: his first episode, "I Never Met the Dead Man", depicts him riding in a car with Peter Griffin; when Peter runs over the Road Runner and asks if he hit "that ostrich", Wile E. tells him to keep going.[66] His second appearance was in "PTV", in which Wile E. attempts to get a refund for a giant-sized slingshot at an ACME retailer where Peter works. The DVD-exclusive episode "Partial Terms of Endearment" features a gag that parodies the Wile E./Road Runner cartoons where Peter lures Lois with free Grey's Anatomy DVDs (in the vein of Wile E. luring the Road Runner with free bird seed) and attempts to terminate her pregnancy by firing a boxing glove at her from a crossbow atop a cliff; this fails, and Peter ends up falling off the cliff in Wile E.-fashion.

Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner appeared in Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy in the short "Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die". In this short, Wile E. crushes the Road Runner with a large boulder and eats him, but then struggles to find purpose in life, having not trained for anything else other than chasing the Road Runner. Ultimately, after a short-lived job as a waiter in a local diner, and a suicide attempt (by way of catapulting himself into a mountain at close range), Wile E. finally realizes what he is to do with his life, and reveals he is now an advocate for Christianity.

Both Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner have appeared in Robot Chicken on multiple occasions. One sketch sees Wile E. faking his own suicide and then torching the Road Runner with a flamethrower when he shows up at Wile E.'s "funeral". Another sketch shows Wile E. teaching a college course on how to get away with murder, using the Road Runner's murder as an example; the students trace the mail orders for the ACME products used to commit the murder to Wile E., who is executed by electric chair for the crime. Another sketch sees Wile E. presenting his iconic "fake tunnel" at an art auction, and another reveals why Wile E.'s ACME products always fail - the ACME Corporation is run by multiple Road Runners.

Guitarist Mark Knopfler created a song called "Coyote" in homage to the cartoon shows of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner on the 2002 album The Ragpicker's Dream. The Tom Smith song "Operation: Desert Storm", which won a Pegasus award for Best Fool Song in 1999, is about the different crazy ways the coyote's plans fail.[67]

Dee Snider, lead singer of the glam metal band Twisted Sister stated in his Congressional testimony before the PRMC hearings on adding Parental Advisory labels in music and music videos, that the music video for the band's signature song "We're Not Gonna Take It" was based heavily on the cartoon.[68]

Humorist Ian Frazier created the mock-legal prose piece "Coyote v. Acme",[69] which is included in a book of the same name.[70]

During a scene in The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, the Drawn Together cast accidentally run over and kill the Road Runner with Foxxy Love's van. Upon noticing this, Wile E. Coyote runs up to the Road Runner's corpse and declares "Without you, my life really has no meaning", before shooting himself with a "Bang!" flag gun.

• Coyotes in popular culture
• Coyote (mythology)
• Road Runner High Speed Online
• Calamity Coyote
• Little Beeper
• Plymouth Road Runner
• Arizona Coyotes, an NHL team whose AHL affiliate is the Tucson Roadrunners

• Wile E. Coyote on IMDb
• Road Runner on IMDb
• Wile E. Coyote at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on January 19, 2017.
• Road Runner at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on January 19, 2017.
• Looney Tunes—Stars of the Show: Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (official studio site)
• "That WASN'T All, Folks!: Warner Bros. Cartoons 1964–1969", by Jon Cooke
• All about Wile E. Coyote on Chuck Jones Official Website.
• All about Road Runner on Chuck Jones Official Website.