Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • "Operation: Rabbit", where he tried to chase Bugs Bunny—the rare cartoon where he had lines, and he turned out to be a Wicked Cultured Smug Snake with a massive superiority complex ("Wile E. Coyote.... Suuuuper Geniusssss!"). Naturally, this made his total annihilation even funnier than usual, culminating in an incident involving a shack full of nitroglycerin-filled carrots and an oncoming train.
    • It gets better; right before the train strikes his shack, he realizes what's happening, and quickly pulls down the window shade.
    • "Sorry, Mac, but the lady of the house ain't home, and besides, we mailed you people a check last week!"
  • "To Beep or Not to Beep". Catapults that fail in ways that break the laws of physics.
    • Put the two together, and what do you get? "Hare Breadth Hurry", a Road-Runner cartoon where Bugs Bunny fills in for our favorite speedster. What follows is a hilarious mix of both kinds of cartoon.
  • "Zoom and Bored", where Wile E Coyote had built an enormously complicated contraption to drop a bomb onto the Roadrunner. They spend about three minutes just panning up the thing. When we finally get to Wile E Coyote at the top, he lights the bomb... and it instantly blows up in his face.
  • A similarly CMOF contraption showed up in the finale of "Hook, Line and Stinker", and ended up pounding Coyote into the ground with his own cannonball.
    • This was referenced in Ian Frazier's short story, Coyote v. Acme. Which would be a Crowning Moment of Funny if it weren't just the plaintiff's opening statement of a civil suit against Acme...
  • Also from "Zoom and Bored", the very end. Wile E. Coyote is catching his wheezing breath on the clifftop after getting dragged through the desert and then hit by a train. Enter Roadrunner, who displays a sign reading "I just don't have the heart".
  • In "Stop, Look, and Hasten!", Wile E. builds a Burmese Tiger Trap-which catches a Burmese Tiger.(Suprisibus! Suprisubus!)
  • A taut cable from the top of a bluff to the road below, and a helmet with a caster bolted on top...
  • A hot air balloon with a garbage wagon gondola with an anvil tied on...and no consideration of what would happen when the anvil was released.
    • But, based on the behaviour of previous gadgets, who would expect this one to follow the laws of physics?
  • Let's not forget the scene where Coyote is so relieved at just having avoided falling off a cliff, that he strides off in the opposite direction... you guessed it... straight over another cliff.