I'm preempting Sesame Street Tuesday this week in favor of a new favorite I introduced to the Omer kids - Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner:
This stuff just kills me. The end result (that everything the Coyote tries will backfire) is never in doubt, but I love the endlessly inventive ways that Chuck Jones et al. play around with logic and the laws of physics to hit us with constant surprises. This short contains my all-time favorite Coyote gag: at the 4:33 mark we get this elaborate setup that builds our expectations for an equally elaborate payoff, but instead the punchline is just thrown away and we move on to the next gag, all within a span of about ten seconds. Genius.
It makes me a little sad every time that I discover that my nieces and nephews are completely unaware of something that I consider to be timeless and wonderful, such as Road Runner cartoons. The world is so flooded with content and information that it can be very difficult to dig through it all and uncover something like a sixty year-old cartoon, especially when you're six and you don't even know what to look for. As an uncle, I get a lot of satisfaction out of giving them a little nudge, and that is the same impulse that lead to the establishment of Sesame Street Tuesday in the first place.
However, it's inevitable that some things that are timeless and of high quality will eventually be repackaged in a 21st Century-friendly format (whether the new version is any good is a different question). My sister Emily told me that she took her son Dallin to see Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, before which they played a brand new CG Road Runner cartoon*. He was cracking up all during the short, and when he got home afterward he didn't say a word about Cats & Dogs, but couldn't stop talking about the Coyote and the Road Runner. Hopefully that small taste will lead him to the classic 2D originals (which are easier to see now than ever thanks to the internet).
Happy Tuesday - Meep meep!
* It is reported that several other upcoming kids movies (Yogi Bear, Happy Feet 2, The Jetsons**) will have new Road Runner cartoons.
** Yet another example of the old being made new.
15 years ago
3 comments:
Yes! The Road Runner cartoons were always my favorite.
Really cool! Thanks!
I tried commenting on this last week but my computer was being a bum. I love Wile E. Coyote! This is a great, clip, too. I'm glad these are being brought back! :) I'll have to tell you sometime about how I likened faith unto Wile E. Coyote. ;)
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