Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Good old times: The Road Runner

A coyote and Greater Roadrunner were created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Bros. The desert scenery in the first two Road Runner cartoons, Fast and Furry-ous (1949) and Beep, Beep (mid 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 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 ways. Whether this is result of operator error or faulty merchandise is debatable. The coyote usually ends up burnt to a crisp, squashed flat, or at the bottom of a canyon  (some shorts show him suffering a combination of these fates). Occasionally Acme products do work quite well (e.g. the Dehydrated Boulders, Bat-Man Outfit, Rocket Sled, Jet Powered Roller Skates, or Earthquake Pills). In this case their success often works against the coyote - for example, the Dehydrated Boulder, upon hydration, becomes so large that it crushes him, or the Coyote finding out that the Earthquake Pills bottle label's fine print states that the pills aren’t effective on road runners, right after he swallows the whole bottle, thinking them duds. Other times he uses items that are implausible, such as a superhero outfit, thinking he could fly wearing it (he cannot).






LAWS of Cartoon!

  1. Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "beep, beep."
  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. (Repeat: "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." —George Santayana).
  4. No dialogue ever, except "beep, beep" and yowling in pain.
  5. 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 the road runner.

First aired episode of Road Runner.


and one random episode:



I hope you liked this post. Enjoy!!!!!!!



31 comments:

  1. this made me so nostalgic, I loved the series.

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  2. This is beyond nostalgic. Used to watch this next to Tiny Toons every afternoon.

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  3. i also nostalgiaed HARD... watching those episodes made my morning!

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  4. the music on this homepage scared the crap out of me!
    i want my coffee back!

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  5. First thing I thought of was "Internet"

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  6. I used to love this show so much :D

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  7. Do they even still play these on cartoon network?

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  8. road runner is also an internet provider.

    NOW YOU KNOW!

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  9. I never understood why Coyote didn't just buy food, and not all the failing equipment..

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  10. ahh, nostalgia! ive alwayys watched it :)

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  11. You just made my day. I haven't watched a Roadrunner cartoon in a very long time. Thanks.

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  12. I watched this cartoon on WB when i was little "D

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  13. Great cartoon, I loved the acme stuff!

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  14. I've always loved the road runner cartoons. Great post.

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  15. THE BUGS BUNNY AND TWEETY SHOW! I used to love the roadrunner.

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  16. it'd be depressing if I was actually able to figure out how many hours (or days for that matter) I spent infront of a TV watching this show

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  17. I always wanted him to catch the road runner. He must be starving by now.

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  18. this cartoon taught kids a valuable lesson: they can blow themselves up with explosives and crush themselves with large rocks and they will be unharmed.

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  19. I much rather root for the studious coyote than that illiterate bird.

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  20. very cool post. i loved that cartoon as a kid. btw the law prerequisites were hilarious.

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  21. I always wanted the predator characters to get the prey characters at least once. It was so satisfying watching Elmer finally get Bugs Bunny in a Family Guy skit.

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  22. I've always been a fan of the Coyote growing up

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