This September, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner will turn 70 years old. I’m telling you this now so you don’t have to wait until the last minute to get them presents – I do not know if there’s an Acme Prime. They were created by director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese as a response to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s Tom and Jerry, which MGM sandwiched in between the trailers and the A-movies at your local neighborhood theater back in a time when there still were local neighborhood theaters.

Both Tom and Jerry and Coyote and Road Runner were quite successful; both received Oscar nominations, although only the cat and mouse copped a statuette. Amusingly, when Bill and Joe discovered the flip book and left MGM to produce vaguely animated cartoons for television, Chuck moved over from Warner Bros’ withering termite terrace to take their places.

O.K. I’m not a big fan of Hanna-Barbera. Sue me. Hang in there; I’ll get back to the Endless Chase in a moment. But first…  Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #022: Road Runner, Coyote, Ripley & Hubris” →