Roadrunner Makes His Debut--With Coyote

Are there days when you feel like Coyote?

Days when no matter what you do, you are thwarted, steamrolled, blown up or squashed?

Of course, in cartoons no one ever dies, which is fortunate for Coyote, who otherwise would have croaked a thousand times over.

It could have been from the ANVIL that landed on his head from high above in the canyon. Perhaps the Acme rocket used to catch Roadrunner that malfunctioned and slammed into the sheer stone face would have done the trick. Or, maybe my favorite is Coyote sheepishly opening a small umbrella over his head, fully aware it would be useless against the bus-sized boulder hurtling his way from above.

For a cartoon series where The Roadrunner is the hero and Coyote the villain, you have to at least admire Coyote’s never-give-up attitude. I’m thinking he must have bought all that Acme crap on credit---considering what he spent, he could have bought 10,000 steak dinners. Acme products often failed, but immediate delivery to the middle of the desert had to the clincher when considering his purchase.

Coyote’s resilience is amazing, unbelievable and unrealistic.
That’s why I love it.

Where else could you be cooked to a crisp, blackened to the wisp of a charcoal cinder—and then in the next frame be plotting your next attempt-without a scratch?

Roadrunner debuted in the Warner Brothers cartoon “Fast and Furry-ous” on this date in 1949. Like the countless other characters, it was Mel Blanc’s voice that provided the cheerful “Beep, beep!”

Here’s a classic sequence of pain :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUq9hynzCVo


When one says “Roadrunner” nowadays, the immediate thought is Time Warner’s internet service (I get it, it’s FAST!), but let us never forget the ORIGINAL Roadrunner.

While it is unlikely that a commercial enterprise will use Coyote as the symbol of their product, you have to at least admire his ingenuity. Who else could, in about 10 seconds, paint a tunnel on the side of a canyon wall, only to have it “work” as such for Roadrunner—and yet remain a wall when Coyote gave it a try? If persistence is a virtue, then Coyote is your “patron saint”.

Beep, beep!

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