War and Pieces

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War and Pieces

Directed By: Chuck Jones Maurice Noble Produced By: David H. DePatie Released: June 9, 1964 Series: Looney Tunes Story: John Dunn Animation: Ken Harris Richard Thompson Bob Bransford Tom Ray Layouts: Dave Rose Backgrounds: Philip DeGuard Film Editor: Treg Brown Voiced By: Paul Julian Music: Bill Lava Starring: Wile E. Coyote Road Runner Preceded By: The Iceman Ducketh Succeeded By: Hawaiian Aye Aye War and Pieces

War and Pieces is a 1964 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.

Title

The title is a pun on the Leo Tolstoy novel War and Peace.

Plot

Wile E. Coyote (Caninus Nervous Rex) pursues Road Runner (Burn-Em Uppus Asphaltus) and hurls a hand grenade which rebounds off a saguaro. Later attempts by the coyote include a bow, a hydraulic press activated by an electric eye, invisible paint, and a disguised shotgun. Finally, he rides a rocket, which goes the wrong way and sends him to the home of the Chinese Road Runner.

Availability

• DVD - Inside Daisy Clover
• Streaming - Boomerang App

Censorship

• The ABC version of this cartoon cuts the sequence where Wile E. Coyote disguises a double-barrel shotgun as a peep show (called "Secrets of a Harem") and ends up getting shot. Also cut was an early scene where a hand grenade ricochets back to Wile and blows him up (surprisingly, the end in which Wile E. Coyote ends up in China with a Chinese Road Runner was not cut, despite a similar scene being edited when ABC showed the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Tweety and the Beanstalk")
• The Merrie Melodies Show on FOX shows the "Secrets of a Harem" sequence, but replaces the part where Wile gets shot with a frozen scene of the Road Runner looking down from a cliff.

Notes

• This was Chuck Jones' last Road Runner cartoon, and the last Chuck Jones-directed Warner Bros. cartoon to be released in the classic era. Not until 1979 did he direct a new WB short film called "Freeze Frame" which was originally in the TV special "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales". This was also the last Road Runner cartoon of the classic era to use character taxonomy.
• Warner Bros. fired Jones for moonlighting for rival company UPA's Gay Pur-ee in violation of his exclusive contract with Warner.
• A Roland and Rattfink cartoon shares the same title; it is a remake of "Captain Hareblower" (1954).
• The Road Runner going in slow motion after his faux scientific name appears is a throwback to the duo's debut cartoon, "Fast and Furry-ous" (1949).

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