This pops up online occasionally, and I love it so much that I wanted it archived for my own benefit. It’s cartoon genius Chuck Jones’s Rules for Every Road Runner vs Coyote cartoon. I was, and remain, a massive fanboy of the Coyote and I think this goes some way towards explaining why.
1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "meep, meep."
2. No outside force can harm the Coyote -- only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products. Trains and trucks were the exception from time to time.
3. The Coyote could stop anytime -- if he were not a fanatic.
4. No dialogue ever, except "meep, meep" and yowling in pain.
5. The Road Runner must stay on the road -- for no other reason than that he's a roadrunner.
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters -- the southwest American desert.
7. All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
10. The audience's sympathy must remain with the Coyote.
11. The Coyote is not allowed to catch or eat the Road Runner.
Number ten is the clincher. I didn’t realise as a kid that my sympathies were always with the carnivore, but they were. I think the coyote’s existential struggle and inevitable failure is all of our lives reduced to essences, gravity and dynamite.
Was it Family Guy that did a riff on the Coyote catching the Roadrunner, and documented his existential collapse in the wake of finally achieving his goal?
The enduring nature of the format indicates the part it plays in making people laugh, young and old, for decades. The endlessly different scenarios, that the road runner and the hapless coyote have to re-enact Ad infinitum, which in any other show would have entailed giving it a shot in the arm, such as jumping the shark with the fading Fonz or Harrison Ford avoiding the nuclear explosion by getting inside the refrigerator, are a true acid test of the shows durability.
Seems that the coyote really needed cocaine bear's help over all those years
Was it Family Guy that did a riff on the Coyote catching the Roadrunner, and documented his existential collapse in the wake of finally achieving his goal?
Ah yes, here it is:
https://youtu.be/B69ew9FtRF0
"If he catches you, you're through." has stuck in my head for eons.
Think Sylvester and Twitty Bird
The enduring nature of the format indicates the part it plays in making people laugh, young and old, for decades. The endlessly different scenarios, that the road runner and the hapless coyote have to re-enact Ad infinitum, which in any other show would have entailed giving it a shot in the arm, such as jumping the shark with the fading Fonz or Harrison Ford avoiding the nuclear explosion by getting inside the refrigerator, are a true acid test of the shows durability.
Found it.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1990/02/26/coyote-v-acme
Somewhere on the googlenet is the letter to ACME from the Coyote's lawyers. I always enjoy that.
when will learn that he's never gonna slow him down.....