Catapulting to Failure

The basic premise of a Roadrunner cartoon:

1. The Coyote has some kind of contraption to catch the Roadrunner.
2. The contraption begins to backfire.
3. The Coyote looks at the audience.
4. The Coyote plummets down a cliff or is otherwise smashed.

But there were times when you knew what was going to happen to Wile E. You just didn’t know how. And that made those cartoons worth watching.

One great example is a cartoon released near the end of the Warners studio, based on a Mike Maltese gag in the 1957 Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon Zoom and Bored. Chuck Jones and co-writer John Dunn came up with the idea of Wile E. setting up a catapult with a boulder designed to smash the Roadrunner in To Beep or Not to Beep (1963). The difference from the earlier cartoon is they try all kinds of variations on the idea. You know the boulder’s going to land on the Coyote, but because Jones and Dunn use more than one gag, you don’t know exactly how the situation is going to play out.

After five failures, the Coyote goes through a long sequence that starts with the rope that’s supposed to set off the catapult falling off. Wile E. is overly cautious while testing it to make sure he doesn’t get smashed with the rock, but then throws away caution as he investigates why the catapult didn’t work.



More Jones poses as it takes some time for the Coyote to realise what’s happening.



There it goes.



Note the animation shortcut. Jones has the Coyote on a cel that goes behind an overlay.



After an 11-frame hold, Jones cuts to Wile E., the bluff and the boulder. What happens next?



The whole sequence is excellently timed by Jones.

But it’s not over. There’s a post-script, a completely logical one. Jones trucks in on the catapult, then dissolves to a close-up. The final gag is summed up in these frames.



Dick Thompson, Bob Bransford, Tom Ray and Ken Harris are the animators, with Phil De Guard painting the backgrounds and Bill Lava supplying a decent score.