Wile E. Bird

You know how Wile E. Coyote used to paint a tunnel on the side of the rock and the Roadrunner would be able to go through it but Wile E. smashed himself when he tried to do it? Well, Mike Maltese didn’t come up with that gag.

The same kind of thing can be found in “The Early Bird Dood It,” the first cartoon assigned to Tex Avery to direct at MGM, with Rich Hogan getting the story credit.

The boid (Frank Graham) zips to the hole of the worm (Kent Rogers) and covers it up.



Then he paints a hole on the ground and hides.



The worm jumps into the “hole.” The bird reacts with about three times as many drawings as Avery would use a few years later. I’ve only posted one.



The bird tries leaping into the “hole.” You know what happens next. Notice how Avery makes the impact seem bigger by replacing the background drawing for one frame with a bright colour card. He does it elsewhere in the cartoon.



Irv Spence, Preston Blair, Ed Love and Ray Abrams are the credited animators.