Chaser on the Rocks

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Highway Runnery	The Astroduck

Airdate:
25 December 1965

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:
21141

Copyright Renewed:

22 November 1993

Starring:

Wile E. Coyote
Road Runner

Crew

A
B
C
D

Chaser on the Rocks is a 1965 Merrie Melodies short directed by Rudy Larriva.

Plot[]

Wile E. Coyote is chasing Road Runner. Road Runner zooms off, and Wile stops. He looks up at the sun, and Road Runner enters and does the same. The hot sun continues to beam down on them, and Road Runner zooms away again. The Coyote sees Road Runner in an oasis and jumps in. The oasis turns out to be a mirage, and Wile falls between two cliffs. After landing, he sees another oasis, but he thinks that this one is a mirage as well. It turns out that this oasis is real, as Wile falls in. As he sinks, Wile holds up one hand and counts to three on his fingers as he goes under.

1. Wile paints a TNT stick to look like a glass of lemonade. He puts a straw and a lemon slice in it as well. Road Runner approaches and drinks the "lemonade". Wile E. presses on the detonator, but nothing happens. Wile takes the "lemonade" and starts to drink it when it explodes!

2. A sign says "FREE BIRD BATH". Wile E. is setting up the birdbath. Road Runner approaches, and Wile E. climbs up on a diving board attached to a rock above the birdbath. Road Runner reads the sign and jumps into the birdbath. Wile jumps off the diving board, hoping to catch the Road Runner. Road Runner jumps out of the birdbath, and Wile gets stuck in it. After this, Wile falls off a cliff. While falling, he gets out of the birdbath, and after he lands, it lands on him.

3. Wile sees an emergency fire hose, which he tries to use to get a drink. He hardly gets any water from it at first, but Road Runner turns it on maximum. The hose gets out of control, sending the Coyote flying! He sticks his finger in the nozzle, but it gets stuck. The water pressure pops it out and sends him falling off a cliff.

4. Finally, Wile sets up a "DETOUR" sign pointing to a tunnel with a cannon at the end. He hears Road Runner approaching, and enters the tunnel. Road Runner enters the tunnel, and Wile sees him. He fires the cannon, and the cannonball misses Road Runner and hits a rope, which sends the cannonball back through the tunnel. Wile enters the tunnel to see what happened, and he (possibly) ends up swallowing the cannonball. He enters the cannon, and Road Runner fires it. Wile E. goes through the tunnel, hits the rope, goes back through the tunnel and into the cannon, which Road Runner fires again.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Censorship[]

On ABC, the dynamite drink sequence (gag number one) was cut.
On CBS, staring in 1984, the detour-into-cannon sequence (gag number four) was cut.^[1]
When this cartoon was streamed on HBO Max (now called "Max") before all the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts made after 1950 were taken down, the end card was removed.

Notes[]

In his 1989 book Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros Cartoons, Jerry Beck erroneously described the ending to this cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote is shot from a cannon into the sun, which led to rumors that the ending was altered and/or cut when aired on television. Beck later corrected this error on his Cartoon Research blog.
The lobby card depicts a scene from "Shot and Bothered" instead of anything from this short.