Wile E. Coyote is a Looney Tunes character created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese.
He debuted with his frequent adversary, Road Runner, in 1949's "Fast and Furry-ous". To date, 48 cartoons have been made featuring these characters (including the computer-animated shorts), most of which were directed by Chuck Jones. In each cartoon, to try to catch his prey, rather than his natural guile, Wile E. Coyote utilizes elaborate plans and absurdly complex gadgets, often from ACME, but he fails every time.
Wile E. appears separately as an adversary of Bugs Bunny in five cartoons from 1952 to 1963: "Operation: Rabbit", "To Hare Is Human", "Rabbit's Feat", "Compressed Hare", and "Hare-Breadth Hurry". While he is usually silent in the regular Coyote / Road-Runner shorts, in these solo outings, he speaks with a refined, ego-maniacal, transatlantic accent provided by Mel Blanc.
History[]
Golden Age[]
- Main article: Road Runner#History
Chuck Jones based Wile E. Coyote on Samuel Clemens' book Roughing It, in which Samuel describes the coyote as a "long, slim, sick, sorry-looking skeleton" and a "living, breathing allegory of the desire to want. He's always hungry." Chuck Jones added that he created the Coyote/Road-Runner series as a means of parodying traditional "cat-and-mouse" cartoons much like Tom & Jerry (which the director was to work on later in his career, ironically enough).
Wile E. Coyote's name is an obvious pun on the word "wily." His middle initial, "E", is said to stand for "Ethelbert" in one issue of Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies Comics, but its cartoonist did not intend to make it part of the official continuity, making his middle name non canon to the show. Early model sheets for the character prior to his debut in the 1949 cartoon "Fast and Furry-ous" identify him as "Don Coyote," a pun on Don Quixote.
As Chuck Jones himself was never shy to point out, he stated that he based Wile E. Coyote partly on his own failure in using tools or doing repairs at home.[3]
Wile E. Coyote & Bugs Bunny[]
Wile E. Coyote has also unsuccessfully attempted to capture and eat Bugs Bunny in another series of cartoons from 1952 to 1963: "Operation: Rabbit", "To Hare Is Human", "Rabbit's Feat", "Compressed Hare", and "Hare-Breadth Hurry". In these cartoons, the coyote takes on the guise of a self-described "super genius" and speaks with a smooth, transatlantic accent provided by Mel Blanc. He also makes it very much known that his last name is pronounced in the traditional Latin sounding "Koy-yo-tay" as opposed to the more popular "Kai-oh-tee". While he is incredibly intelligent, he is limited by technology and his own short-sighted arrogance, and is thus often easily outsmarted, a somewhat physical symbolism of "street smarts" besting "book smarts."
In "Hare-Breadth Hurry", Bugs Bunny — with the help of "speed pills" — even stands in for The Road-Runner, who has "sprained a giblet", and carries out the duties of outsmarting the hungry scavenger. This is the only Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote short in which the coyote does not speak. As usual, Wile E. ends up falling down a canyon and fails to catch and eat Bugs. The aforementioned short was originally made for what was a second episode of the rejected Adventures of the Road-Runner television series, but was cut down into a short after the pilot failed to attract television networks for airing.
Post-Golden Age[]
Chuck Jones' 1979 movie The Bugs Bunny Road-Runner Movie features all of the director's characters, including Wile E. Coyote and The Road-Runner. However, whereas most of the featured cartoons are single cartoons or sometimes isolated clips, the footage of Wile E. Coyote and Road-Runner is taken from several different cartoons and compiled to run as one extended sequence.
In a later, made-for-television short, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny" which features a young Elmer Fudd chasing a young Bugs Bunny, Elmer also falls down a canyon. On the way down, he is overtaken by Wile E., who shows a sign telling Elmer to get out of the way for someone who is more experienced in falling. Later in the same short, infant versions of Wile E. and Road Runner make brief cameos in the ending.
Wile E. Coyote and The Road-Runner have cameo roles in Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit, firstly in silhouette form as the elevator goes up, and later during the final scene in Marvin Acme's factory with several other Looney Tunes characters. This is one of several anachronisms in the movie, which is set two years before Wile E. and The Road-Runner debuted.
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner appear as members of the Tune Squad team in Space Jam. There, Wile E. rigs one of the basketball hoops with dynamite to prevent Bupkus from scoring a slam dunk. And during practice before Lola Bunny shows up, Wile E. gets his hands on a basketball, but The Road-Runner steals the ball from him and heads into a painted image. But Wile E. doesn't know it's a painted image, and he runs right into it.
Wile E. appears as an ACME employee in Looney Tunes Back in Action. There, his role is similar to that of Mustafa from the Austin Powers movies.
Wile also makes a brief cameo in Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, being held by the neck by Tasmanian Devil holding up a sign that says the word "mother" before they both fall in the sea.
Wile E. is an employee at Daffy Duck's store in the direct-to-video Christmas film Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas. He is seen staring hungrily at a vending machine but Daffy doesn't allow him to eat during work, which ultimately resulted in Wile E. getting his tongue stuck in the vending machine. By the end of the film, a reformed Daffy then hires chef Francois as Wile E.'s personal chef.
Wile E. Coyote makes a short appearance in What's New Scooby Doo? where he flies past the gang's van on a rocket heading after The Road-Runner. His looks are changed slightly (he has blue eyes and apparently no ears) in this scene, however, Road Runner's are the same.
In 2012, both Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner appeared in a GEICO commercial, in which the wandering gecko tries to make heads or tails of where he is. While he's doing so, he nearly gets crushed with a piano. Just after this happens, Road Runner runs up to him, says his trademark phrase, "Beep beep!" and goes on his way, leaving the gecko wondering what "beep beep" meant. Then, Wile E., chasing the Road Runner, runs up, sees the gecko and imagines him as his dinner, but while he's doing so, he gets driven into the ground by a falling ACME safe. The commercial ends with the gecko concluding, "What a strange place."
In New Looney Tunes, Wile E. is once again pitted against Bugs Bunny, this time depicted as Bugs' smart-aleck neighbor, with his characterization based off his "super genius" persona as seen in Wile E.'s previous outings with Bugs from the classic cartoons. In addition, he once again speaks with a smooth, generic upper-class accent provided by J.P. Karliak.
Spin-Offs[]
In another series of Looney Tunes cartoons, Chuck Jones used the character design (model sheets and personality) of Wile E. Coyote as Ralph Wolf. In this series, Ralph continually attempts to steal sheep from a flock being guarded by the eternally vigilant Sam Sheepdog. Like Wile E., Ralph uses all sorts of wild inventions and schemes to steal the sheep, but he is continually foiled by Sam. In a move seen by many as a self-referential gag, Ralph continually tries to steal the sheep not because he is a fanatic (as Wile E. is), but because it is his job. In every cartoon, he and Sam punch a time-clock, exchange pleasantries, go to work, take a lunch break, and clock out to go home for the day, all according to a factory-like blowing whistle. The most prominent difference between the coyote and the wolf, aside from their locales, is that Wile E. has a black nose and Ralph has a red one.
Comic Books[]
Wile E. is called "Kelsey Coyote" in his comic book debut in Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies #91 (May 1949). He only made a couple of other appearances at this time. The first appearance of Road-Runner in a comic book was in Bugs Bunny Vacation Funnies #8 (August 1958) published by Dell Comics. The feature is entitled "Beep-Beep The Road-Runner" and the story "Desert Dessert". It presents itself as the first meeting between Road-Runner and Wile E. (whose mailbox reads, "Wile E. Coyote, Inventor and Genius"), and introduces Road-Runner's wife, Matilda, and their three newly hatched sons. This story establishes the convention that the Road Runner family talks in rhyme in the comics.
Dell initially published a dedicated Beep-Beep The Road-Runner comic as part of 4 Color Comics #918, 1,008, and 1,046 before launching a separate series for the character numbered #4–14 (1960–1962), with the three try-out issues counted as the first three numbers. After a hiatus, Gold Key Comics took over the character with issues #1–88 (1966–1984). During the 1960s, the artwork was done by Pete Alvarado and Phil DeLara; from 1966–1969, the Gold Key issues consisted of Dell reprints. Afterward, new stories began to appear, initially drawn by Alvarado and De Lara before Jack Manning became the main artist for the title. New and reprinted Beep-Beep stories also appeared in Golden Comics Digest and Gold Key's revival of Looney Tunes in the 1970s. During this period, Wile E.'s middle name was revealed to be "Ethelbert" in the story "The Greatest of E's" in issue #53 (cover-date September 1975) of Gold Key Comics' licensed comic book, Beep-Beep The Road-Runner.
Road Runner and Wile E. also make appearances in the DC Comics Looney Tunes title. Their appearances in these comics are more similar to their cartoon shorts. Wile E., however, did speak in a few of these comics like he did when he appeared with Bugs.
Television[]
Road-Runner and Wile E. 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-Road Runner Show, running from 1968 to 1985. The show was later on ABC until 2000, and on Global until 2001.
In the 1970s, Chuck Jones directed some Road-Runner short films for the educational children's TV series The Electric Company. These short cartoons used the Coyote and Road Runner to display words for children to read, but the cartoons themselves are a refreshing return to Chuck's glory days. These shorts were also different than the Looney Tunes shorts such as the Coyote suffered no physical violence since these shorts are geared towards a much younger target audience.
"Freeze Frame", in which Jones moved the chase from the desert to snow covered mountains, was part of Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales.
At the end of 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 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. This was followed by the full-fledged Runner/Coyote short, "Soup or Sonic." Earlier in that story, while kid Elmer was falling from a cliff, Wile E. Coyote's adult self tells him to move over and let falling to people who know how to do it and then he falls, followed by Elmer.
In the 1980s and 1990s, ABC began showing many Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, but in highly edited form, because the unedited versions were supposedly too violent. Many scenes integral to the stories were taken out, including scenes in which Wile E. Coyote lands at the bottom of the canyon after having fallen from a cliff, or has a boulder or anvil actually make contact with him. In almost all W.B. animated features, scenes where a character's face is burnt and black, resembling blackface, were removed, as were animated characters smoking cigarettes, or even simulated cigarettes. Some cigar-smoking scenes were left in. The unedited versions of these shorts (with the exception of ones with blackface and other racial stereotypes) were not seen again until Cartoon Network, and later Boomerang, began showing them again in the late-1990s, early-2000s, 2009, 2010, and from 2011-2016. Since the release of the W.B. archive of cartoons on DVD, Boomerang has stopped showing the cartoons in 2007, presumably to increase sales of the DVDs. Boomerang, however, began re-airing the shorts since 2013.
Wile E. is referenced by Bugs Bunny in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue; when Bugs uses a time machine, he states that he borrowed it from "some coyote".
Wile E. and Road Runner later appeared in several episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures. In this series, Wile E. (voiced by Joe Alaskey) is the dean of ACME Looniversity and the mentor of Calamity Coyote, while Road Runner serves as mentor to Little Beeper. In the episode Piece of Mind, Wile E. narrates the life story of Calamity while he is falling from the top of a tall skyscraper. In the direct-to-video film How I Spent My Vacation, Road Runner finally gets a taste of humiliation by getting run over by a mail truck that "brakes for coyotes."
The two also make cameos in Animaniacs. They are together in two Slappy Squirrel cartoons: "Bumbie's Mom" and "Little Old Slappy From Pasadena". In the latter, Road-Runner gets another taste of humiliation when he is outrun by Slappy's car, and holds up a sign saying "I quit" — immediately afterward, Buttons, who has been launched into the air during a previous gag, lands squarely on top of him. Wile E. appears without the bird in a Wizard of Oz parody, dressed in his bat-suit from a previous short, in a twister (tornado) funnel in "Buttons in Ows".
In Freakazoid! episode 11, "Next Time, Phone Ahead!", Wile E. and Road Runner appear in footage from the 1958 short "Whoa, Be-Gone!"
In a Cartoon Network TV ad about The ACME Hour, Wile E. Coyote utilizes a pair of jet roller skates to catch Road Runner and quite surprisingly doesn't fail. While he is cooking his prey, it is revealed that the roller-skates came from a generic brand. The ad said that other brand isn't the same thing.
Wile E. and Road Runner appear in their toddler versions in Baby Looney Tunes, only in songs. However, they both had made a cameo in the episode, "Are We There, Yet?", where Road Runner appeared outside the window of Floyd's car with Wile E. chasing him.
Wile E. Coyote has a cameo as the true identity of the alien hunter, a parody of Predator, in the Duck Dodgers episode "K9 Quarry", voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. In that episode, he is hunting Marvin the Martian to add him to his collection of stuffed cartoon characters which include the mounted remains of Hanna-Barbera characters such as Yogi Bear, Honk Kong Phooey, Top Cat, and Huckleberry Hound. Throughout the short, K-9 constantly tries to impede the Alien Hunter from killing his master, and by the end succeeds after pushing him off a cliff in true Looney Tunes-fashion. Upon crashing, Marvin comments upon seeing the formidable Alien Hunter's demise that he prefers his adversaries to be of the feathered variety; the crushed alien hunter then takes off his helmet and reveals himself to be Wile E. Coyote and agrees with Marvin on preferring his enemies to be of the feathered variety.
In Loonatics Unleashed, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner's 28th-century descendants are Tech E. Coyote and Rev Runner. Tech E. Coyote is the tech expert of the Loonatics, inspired by the past cartoons with many of the machines ordered by Wile E. from ACME, and has magnetic hands and the ability to molecularly regenerate himself, inspired by the many times in which Wile E. painfully failed to capture Road Runner. Tech E. Coyote speaks but does not have a Scottish accent as Wile E. Coyote does. Rev Runner is also able to talk, although extremely rapidly, and can fly without the use of jetpacks, which are used by other members of the Loonatics. He also has super speed, also a take off of Roadrunner. Ironically, the pair gets on rather well, despite the number of gadgets Tech designs in order to stop Rev talking. Also, they have their moments where they don't get along. When friendship is shown it is often only from Rev to Tech, not the other way around; this could, however, be attributed to the fact that Tech has only the bare minimum of social skills. They are both depicted as being smart, but Tech is the better inventor and at times Rev is shown doing stupid things. References to ancestor's past are seen in the episode "Family Business" where the other Runners are wary of Tech, and Tech relives the famous falling gags done in Coyote/Runner shorts.
Wile E. Coyote has made appearances in The Looney Tunes Show, New Looney Tunes, Looney Tunes Cartoons, Bugs Bunny Builders, and Tiny Toons Looniversity.
Filmography[]
- Main article: List of Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner cartoons
Voice actors[]
- Mel Blanc: 1949-89
- Paul Julian: Zipping Along; Ready.. Set.. Zoom!, The Road Runner Show bumper; Road Runner's Death Valley Rally
- Joe Alaskey: Tiny Toon Adventures, Judge Granny
- Keith Scott: Spectacular Light and Show Illuminanza, The Looney Tunes Radio Show
- Bob Bergen: Bugs Bunny's Learning Adventures
- Seth MacFarlane: Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
- Dee Bradley Baker: Duck Dodgers
- Maurice LaMarche: Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor
- Jess Harnell: The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!
- James Arnold Taylor: Scooby-Doo! & Looney Tunes Cartoon Universe: Adventure
- J.P. Karliak: New Looney Tunes
- Martin Starr: Robot Chicken
- Eric Bauza: Looney Tunes World of Mayhem
- Keith Ferguson: Bugs Bunny Builders
Gallery[]
- Main article: Wile E. Coyote/Gallery
Notes[]
- Although Wile E. Coyote is usually silent, he makes yawning noises at the beginning of "Ready.. Set.. Zoom!", screams painfully and beeps like Road Runner in "Zipping Along", "Fastest with the Mostest", "Zip 'n Snort", "To Beep or Not to Beep", and "Chariots of Fur", pants in "Fastest with the Mostest" and "Beep Prepared", laughs in "Lickety-Splat", "Zoom at the Top", and "Chariots of Fur", cries at the end of "Zoom and Bored", and even howls like his real species in "Highway Runnery". These vocal effects of the Coyote were provided by Mel Blanc.
- The song "Dance of the Comedians" from the opera "The Barthered Bride" by Bedřich Smetana was used in some Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts.
- In "Zip Zip Hooray!," "Roadrunner a Go-Go," and in most of his appearances with Bugs Bunny- "Operation: Rabbit", "To Hare Is Human", "Compressed Hare", and "Rabbit's Feat"- Wile E. speaks in a Scottish accent.
- Wile E. Coyote has "died" in three cartoons: "Hip Hip- Hurry!", "Beep Prepared", and "The Wild Chase." Co-incidentally, Wile E. died from explosions in all instances.
References[]