9 Strict Rules Every 'Road Runner' Cartoon Had to Follow

[A12]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/se...-road-runner-cartoon-had-to-follow/ar-BBijGhh

Try as hard as he might, Wile E. Coyote could never quite catch the Road Runner. Now, the nine rules set for the series by the creator behind the Looney Tunes classic, which stacked the deck against the character, have caused much social media buzz.

Chuck Jones' rules that governed each and every encounter between Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote have gone viral on Twitter after director Amos Posner shared a page from the 1999 autobiography of Jones, Chuck Jones, Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist.

The nine strict rules made sure there was no dialog apart from "beep beep," that every episode was set in the American south west, that Wile E. Coyote only shopped at Acme Corporation despite the appalling success rate of their products and, most tellingly, gravity was to be the coyote's worst enemy whenever possible.

Taken together, Coyote was never going to win.

 

[A12]

Two more things that I learned from an interview of Chuck Jones I watched a long time ago were (it's written somewhere so this is kind of a paraphrase of it and not a good one at that). The "beep, beep" or "meep, meep" came from the copyboy that collected the cartoon cells or drawings from all of the small drawing rooms at WB. Apparently these drawing rooms had a small hallway between them and the doorways in and out of them were kind of blind exits so as the copyboy had been blindsided a few times and run into causing him to drop perfectly collated stacks of these cartoon images/drawings he learned to give everyone notice that he was walking up and down the hallway by announcing himself with a constant "BEEP, BEEP" when he had an armful of drawings. Chuck Jones or someone picked up (pun intended) on that and there in is the road runner's "meep, meep".

 

[A12]

Forgot the second tidbit from Chuck Jones. He said you'll notice that after the coyote fails, crashes, hits the bottom of the cliff, etc., there's that moment of silence and then the sprinkling of small rocks or quiet noise, well Chuck Jones said he always remembered when he was young that when he would crash on his bicycle or fall off of his metal wheel roller skates that is was always quiet and as he was laying on the ground in that quiet he would faintly hear the roller skate wheels still turning or the bicycle wheel and chain still turning making this quiet whirring noise..........you always see that in current movies where there's a car or airplane crash and it was pretty intense up to the moment of the crash and then you hear the hissing of coolant or fluid leaking or wheels still turning or metal creaking. One movie I can remember that used that was the ending of Duel when the semi hit the bottom of the cliff........credit Chuck Jones and the road runner and most all of the Warner Brothers cartoons for that. :applause:

 

[Ranger]

Thanks for that interesting bit of info A12. Makes our beloved cars that much more interesting.

 

[Basketcase]

some of those rules were broken often...
#4 the Coyote talked to the two little boys watching the TY
he talked to Bugs Bunny (and Bugs talked back) in several cartoons
#5 the road runner went into a mine,into a water pipe, on cliffs, definitely off the road
#7 the Coyote got two cars from the desert/or junkyard, built a robot Coyote, none came from Acme

 

[A12]

I think I posted this before about my A12 road runner. The second owner got the "road runner" for an early graduation present from his parents in '71. They bought the "road runner" from a used car lot in Youngstown, Ohio........................I swear the name of the used car lot on the title dated March 24, 1971 is real. Just playing by the rules

 

[Ranger]

Bascketcase, you're obviously a much bigger aficionado (or have a much better memory) than I. :worship:

A12, Acme Motors! How utterly apropos.

 

[Basketcase]

just came from a time when there were good cartoons on Saturday morning.

 

[jays69bird]

It is Saturday Morning,I just surfed through the major network channels, not one cartoon,animated show,or even live action,(like Land of the Lost) show aimed at kids on !:soap:

 

[Ranger]

just came from a time when there were good cartoons on Saturday morning.

Been there

 

[Roadcuda]

I found that in my area the Cartoon Network has all the old Looney Toons, and Tom and Jerry 'toons on Mondays Tuesdays, and iirc Wednesdays mornings starting at 9:30 'till at least 11.

 

[Basketcase]

that's where I watch them.

 

[Budnicks]

68 RR commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt8aeTgY9u8

 

[A12]

Shame on them "Ajax rocket cars". :tisk:

Anyone notice that was a Hemi road runner in the cartoon........

 

[A12]

And that's a good reference for the driver's side door running bird to the '68 road runner door emblem location.