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Adventures of the Road-Runner is an animated film directed by Chuck Jones and co-directed by Maurice Noble and Tom Ray. It was the intended pilot for a television series starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, but was never picked up; instead it was later released theatrically in its entire featurette form alongside with the full-length Warner Bros. live-action feature film Lad: A Dog (1962).

It was then split into three further shorts. The first one was "To Beep or Not to Beep" (1963), which was re-edited by its original director Chuck Jones and with its original music score by Milt Franklyn replaced by new re-orchestrated music by William Lava. The other two were assembled by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1965 after they took over the Looney Tunes series, albeit with no alterations in the audio and footage whatsoever unlike the former due to lower budgets. The remainder split-up shorts were titled "Roadrunner a Go-Go" and "Zip Zip Hooray!"

Summary[]

Wile E. Coyote is reviewing his past attempts at catching Road Runner (in the form of stock footage from previous Coyote/Road Runner shorts), and making new, revised plans to catch him - which go just as wrong, if not more so than the first attempts.

In a mostly unrelated story, as two children (one of them Ralph Phillips) watch the Coyote on television, Ralph is talking about how much trouble he has concentrating on things and gets caught up in his daydreams (re-using footage from Jones' earlier short "From A to Z-Z-Z-Z") when his friend gave him a psychiatry session when Ralph constantly imitates Road Runner's sounds like "Beep-Beep! Zip-Bang!" After the session, Ralph declares he will never think of anything imaginative ever again before making the Road Runner sound once again when he rushes back to the TV. The other boy finally gives in to Ralph's imitations by saying that psychiatry isn't infallible and that Road Runner Phobia was one of the most difficult ones to break before making the Road Runner sound like Ralph was doing.

The two stories briefly link up when the Coyote breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses the kids on why he wants to eat Road Runner. This sequence features a television commercial for "The Acme Batman Outfit! The only Batman outfit worn by bats!", which is newly narrated stock footage from "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z".

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Notes[]

  • The short contains what would most likely have been the series' opening sequence, closing sequence (including Road Runner speeding through the sleeping Coyote's digs and taking his entire bed with him), and theme song, titled "Out on the Desert". When Jones later produced the Tom and Jerry series, the format of the Coyote reviewing his past adventures would be copied in the short "Shutter Bugged Cat", which Tom Ray also directed.
  • Clips from this film were later included in the ToonHeads special The Lost Warner Bros. Cartoons.
  • This short contains archive footage from both "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z" and "From A to Z-Z-Z-Z", as well as reused animation from "Zip 'n Snort", "Hip Hip- Hurry!" and "Stop! Look! And Hasten!".
  • This is the first time Wile E. Coyote talks, as well as the first Road Runner cartoon to contain dialogue, as opposed to the usual non-verbal nature of the series, except for some vocal effects.
    • While subsequent Road Runner cartoons would revert back to the usual nonverbal format, except for a few exceptions such as "The Wild Chase" and "Little Go Beep", Wile E. would speak more often in the Road Runner cartoons produced for New Looney Tunes many years later.
  • Wile E. Coyote has a chart on his wall at home labeled "Genius Chart". Positions 1-4 are occupied by Wile E. Coyote, 5 is Albert Einstein, 6 is Sir Isaac Newton, 7 is Galileo and 8 is Leonardo Da Vinci.

Gallery[]

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The Looney Tunes films
Featurette
Adventures of the Road-Runner
Behind-the-scenes documentaries
Bugs Bunny: Superstar | Chuck Amuck: The Movie
Greatest Hits retrospectives
Centering on Bugs Bunny
The Bugs Bunny Road-Runner Movie | Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie | Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales | Looney Tunes Hall of Fame
Centering on Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island | Daffy Duck's Quackbusters
Original cinematic material
Space Jam | Looney Tunes Back in Action | Space Jam A New Legacy
Direct-to-video releases
Tweety's High-Flying Adventure | Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas | Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run | King Tweety | Taz: Quest for Burger
Cameos
Two Guys from Texas | My Dream Is Yours | It's a Great Feeling | A Political Cartoon | Who Framed Roger Rabbit | Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Justice League: The New Frontier
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