Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are fictional characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons, first appearing in 1949 in the theatrical short Fast and Furry-ous. In each subject, the cunning, devious and constantly hungry coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and eat the roadrunner, but is humorously unsuccessful. Instead of animal instinct, the coyote deploys absurdly complex schemes and devices to try to catch his prey. They comically backfire, with the coyote invariably getting injured in slapstick fashion. Many of the items for these contrivances are mail-ordered, primarily from the Acme Corporation, but occasionally from other companies.
The characters were created for Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1948 by Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese, with Maltese also setting the template for their adventures. The characters star in a long-running series of theatrical cartoon shorts (the first 16 of which were written by Maltese) and occasional made-for-television cartoons. Originally meant to parody chase-cartoon characters such as Tom and Jerry, they became popular in their own right. By 2014, 49 cartoons had been made featuring the characters (including four CGI shorts), the majority by Jones. A feature film revolving around Wile E. Coyote, Coyote vs. Acme, was released in 2026. TV Guide included Wile E. Coyote in its 2013 list of "The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time".Bretts, Bruce, Roush, Matt, (March 25, 2013). "Baddies to the Bone: The 60 nastiest villains of all time." TV Guide. pp. 14−15.
History Conception
Jones said he created the Wile E. Coyote-Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional "cat and mouse" cartoons such as MGM's Tom and Jerry. He also cites Frank Tashlin's 1941 adaptation of The Fox and the Grapes as inspiration due to its use of blackout gags. Jones modelled the coyote's appearance on fellow animator Ken Harris.
The Road Runner's "beep, beep" sound was inspired by background artist Paul Julian's imitation of a car horn. Julian voiced the various recordings of the phrase used throughout the Road Runner cartoons, although he was not credited for his work on screen. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, Julian's preferred spelling of the sound effect was either "hmeep hmeep" or "mweep, mweep."
In the main series, Wile E. does not speak, instead portrayed as a mute character who communicates with the use of signs. However he does speak in a few cartoons; when he does, he has a notably upper-class American accent, and often refers to himself as a genius or super-genius. The 1965 short Zip Zip Hooray! is his first speaking appearance, in which he explains his desire to eat the Road Runner, and in another 1965 short, Road Runner a Go-Go, he explains how he sets up his cameras in the desert.
With their formulaic humor, sparse backgrounds and no dialogue, Road Runner shorts could be produced in three weeks or less. When Jones wanted to make a more ambitious cartoon he would sometimes schedule a Road Runner film alongside it to save time and money.
Scenery
The desert scenery in the first three Road Runner cartoons, Fast and Furry-ous (1949), Beep, Beep (1952), and Going! Going! Gosh! (also 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, especially after 1955. It is based on the deserts of the Southwestern United States.
Laws and rules In his book Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, Chuck Jones wrote that he and the artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules: "The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going 'Beep-Beep!'" "No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products." "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)." "No dialogue ever, except 'Beep-Beep!'" "The Road Runner must stay on the road — otherwise, logically, he would not be called a Road Runner." "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters — the southwest American desert." "All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences, must be obtained from the Acme Corporation." "Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy." "The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures."
These rules were not always followed, and in an interview years after the series was made, Michael Maltese, principal writer of the original 16 cartoons, stated he had never heard of these or any "rules" and dismissed them as "post-production observation".The interviews included in the DVD commentary were recorded by animation historian Michael Barrier for his book Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age.
Running gags
In many of the shorts, a cartoon typically starts with Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner in a desperate attempt to catch him, only for the Road Runner to zip away at breakneck speed, much to the coyote's surprise and utter amazement. Also, most pre-1965 shorts assign each character fake Dog Latin names such as "Carnivorous Vulgaris" for the coyote and "Acceleratti Incredibilus" for the Road Runner, as do a few shorts from 1979 to 2000.
One notable running gag involves the coyote falling from high cliffs; after momentarily being suspended in midair, as if the fall is delayed until he realizes that there is nothing below him. The rest of the scene, shot from a bird's-eye view, shows him falling into a canyon so deep that his figure is eventually lost to sight, with only a small puff of dust indicating his impact. In Chuck Jones' cartoons the coyote usually tumbles or falls face up. Either way, he is more fully animated than in his D-FE-era falls, which always show him falling face down and stiff. The Format Productions cartoons cheapen the falls even more by showing the coyote already most of the way down when the overhead shot begins.
Acme Corporation
Wile E. Coyote often obtains various 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 fashion.
In August, September and October 1982, the National Lampoon published a three-part series chronicling the lawsuit Wile E. filed against the Acme Corporation over the faulty items they sold him in his pursuit of the Road Runner. Even though the Road Runner appeared as a witness for the plaintiff, the coyote still lost the suit.
Later cartoons The original Chuck Jones productions ended in 1963 after Jack L. Warner closed Warner Bros. Cartoons. War and Pieces, the last short featuring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, directed by Jones, was released on June 6, 1964. By that time, David H. DePatie and director Friz Freleng had formed DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, moved into the facility just emptied by Warner, and signed a license with Warner Bros. to produce cartoons for the big studio to distribute.
The first DePatie–Freleng cartoon to feature the Road Runner was The Wild Chase, directed by Freleng in 1965. The premise was a race between the bird and "the fastest mouse in all México", Speedy Gonzales, with the coyote and Sylvester the Cat each trying to make a meal out of their respective usual targets. Much of the material was animation rotoscoped from earlier Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales shorts, with the other characters added in. Additionally, the studio produced two cartoons (Zip Zip Hooray! (1965) and Road Runner a Go-Go (1965)) that reuse footage from Chuck Jones' 1962 television pilot Adventures of the Road Runner, with the original audio kept intact. DePatie–Freleng went on to produce 13 more Road Runner cartoons. Two of these shorts were produced in-house and were directed by Robert McKimson (Rushing Roulette (1965) and Sugar and Spies (1966)), while the remaining eleven, directed by Rudy Larriva, were outsourced to Format Films.
Format's Road Runner cartoons, nicknamed the "Larriva Eleven", were characterized for their poorer production quality when compared to DePatie–Freleng, with animation often being reused in nearly every cartoon. The music was also of poorer quality, as the soundtrack (composed by Bill Lava) was relegated to the use of pre-composed music cues rather than a proper score, the only exception to this being Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner (1965) as it was produced with a proper soundtrack. In addition, except for the planet Earth scene at the end of Highway Runnery (1965), there was only one clip of the Coyote's fall to the ground, used over and over again. Jones' previously described "laws" for the characters were not followed with any significant fidelity, nor were Latin phrases used when introducing the characters. These 11 shorts have been considered inferior to the other Golden Age shorts, garnering mixed to poor reviews from critics. Leonard Maltin, in his book Of Mice and Magic, calls the shorts "witless in every sense of the word".
All these Road Runner cartoons can be easily distinguished from Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons because they utilize the "Abstract" WB logo opening and closing sequences, which ironically was the original idea of Jones himself.
Filmation signed a contract to produce an additional series of shorts in 1971, but Warner Bros. cancelled the contract following their disappointment with the Filmation-produced crossover film Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies, in which Wile E. (but not the Road Runner) had appeared.
Post-theatrical appearances
The Road Runner and the Coyote appeared on Saturday mornings as the stars of their own TV series, The Road Runner Show, from September 1966 to September 1968, on CBS. At this time it was merged with The Bugs Bunny Show to become The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Show, running from 1968 to 1985. The show was later seen on ABC until 2000, and on Global until 2001.
In the 1970s, Chuck Jones directed some Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner short films for the educational children's TV series The Electric Company. These short cartoons used the coyote and the Road Runner to display words for children to read.
In 1979, Freeze Frame, in which Jones moved the chase from the desert to snow-covered mountains, was seen as part of Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales.
At the end of Bugs Bunny's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny (the initial sequence of Chuck Jones' TV special Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over), Bugs mentions to the audience that he and Elmer Fudd may have been the first pair of characters to have chase scenes in these cartoons, but then a pint-sized baby Wile E. Coyote (wearing a diaper and holding a small knife and fork) runs right in front of Bugs, chasing a gold-colored, mostly unhatched (except for the tail, which is sticking out) Road Runner egg, which is running rapidly while some high-pitched "Beep, beep" noises can be heard. Earlier in that story, while kid Elmer was falling from a cliff, Wile E. Coyote's adult self tells him to move over and leave falling to people who know how to do it and then he falls, followed by Elmer. This short was followed by the full-fledged Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote short Soup or Sonic.