The Things We Do in the Interest of Karmic Payback

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Caroline was dying to see “Yogi Bear.” I balked at taking her because it just held no interest for me, but then I realized that when I was the exact same age, my father was game enough to take me to see “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!”, which I haven’t seen since I was eight but am willing to guess did not represent the pinnacle of filmic achievement if one is an adult. So I figured, Ah well…it’s karmic payback. And I took her.

Long story short, if you’re eight years old, it’s incredibly engaging. Caroline was literally bouncing in her seat during the action sequences. The animation’s solid (indeed, Yogi and Boo Boo are more animated than most of the flesh and blood actors) and the 3-D effects are occasionally fun. Plus the nice thing about the 3-D glasses is that you can catnap here and there and, as long as you’re not snoring, the kid won’t notice. And, hey: in front of the main feature was a perfectly entertaining original computer generated Road Runner cartoon that featured the Coyote attempting to employ a newly acquired Segway in his endless pursuit of the high-speed bird, which goes about as well as you can imagine. I’m starting to think it may have actually been Caroline’s first real exposure to the Road Runner because she seemed rather bewildered by the core concept. “Why is he trying to catch him?” she asked. I explained, “Because he wants to eat him.” After about thirty seconds, she said, “That’s too much trouble. He should just go eat something else. This is silly.” If she’d been the daughter of a Warners executive fifty years ago, the series would never have gotten off storyboards.

PAD

55 comments on “The Things We Do in the Interest of Karmic Payback”

  1. “That’s too much trouble. He should just go eat something else. This is silly.”
    .
    Thank you!

  2. I always felt the Road Runner cartoons were far more male-oriented, because men are far more interested in the hunt, than in what they actually catch. That, and man’s love of Three Stooges-style cartoon violence.

  3. Man, the thing about the Road Runner is *almost* enough to send me to the theaters, though I’d leave as soon as it was over. I love the Road Runner cartoons.

  4. Sure Road Runner is silly. That”s what cartoons should be.
    .
    Anyway, it might be on YouTube, but there was a short where Wile E. is actually asked the question your daughter brought up/ he then proceeds to show a chart indicating the Road Runner has about 13 of the tastiest delicasies withing him, each in a different part of his body. One part tasted like ice cream, another like steak, etc. It was amusing.

    1. I remember it well; one of the two kids he talks to about it kept saying he was going to be a pss-sychiatrist. Great bit.

  5. My senior year of high school, whenever my physics teacher was away (which was rather frequently, actually, but I’ve no idea why), he’d have the sub show us a Road Runner cartoon, and then have us figure out things such as how far the Coyote falls off the cliff, the speed of the boulder that lands on top of him, how much force it hits him with (“assuming the boulder is X kilograms”), the angular momentum when he swings down to the tunnel and misses, the g-forces the Road Runner experiences when he comes to a sudden stop, etc.
    .
    I loved Mr. Sullivan’s classes. I loved it even more when he was away, though.
    .
    To this day, I’m still trying to figure out how the Coyote paid for all this Acme stuff. Musta racked up a heck of a credit card debt!

    1. This topic makes me wonder if the TruTV show,
      Man Vs. Cartoon will come back for another season. For those unfamiliar with the show, it’s a simple premise. A group of engineers, sometimes students, sometimes professionals, analyze a Road Runner cartoon, study Wile E.’s plan, and bring it to life to see if the road runner can be caught. Sometimes he can, sometimes he can’t.

      Here’s a new question – Is the Road Runner male or female? Seems to me the comic version used to have 3 children following the mother(?)/father(?) around.

      1. I once read that at one time, Warner Brothers listed the Road Runner’s official name as Mimi, which certainly suggests female. But in the comic version (and also in the BigLittle Books), the three young ones addressed him as ‘Poppa’ (and they all four spoke in rhyme for some reason).

    2. Nah. ACME just has a great return policy. Either that, or Wile E. Coyote jsut sued them a lot for injuries incurred while using their products.

  6. Peter,

    A trusted friend just sent me the ultimate RoadRunner cartoon. Wile E. finally killed the RoadRunner and ate him for dinner with Wile E.’s father was visiting. Wile E. then experienced a major life crisis because he had no more purpose in life.

    Don’t know how to send you the cartoon, but if you can provide me a secure place to attach it I will.

    Thanks for years of superb writing, PAD!

    Gayle Gamble
    Salem, OR

  7. Yeah, the RR cartoons rocked. When I was a kid, I took ’em for granted, but now I see how great they are, in part because of their simple, narrative clarity.
    .
    Wile’s obsession with the RR could’ve been due to the difficulty of acquiring food in the desert, but then that was undercut by his ability to order the Acme Patented Scheme Generator™ in every other episode. 🙂

    1. In at least one interview, Chuck Jones said that they had Wile E.’s falls literally down to a formula – he gets smaller and smaller till he drops out of sight for exactly X frames, there are Y frames of nothing visible and then a puff of dust that lasts precisely Z frames.
      .
      He said that once they got it down, they discovered that varying it more than one or two frames either way didn’t get as big a laugh.

  8. Btw, you can order your own Acme Patented Scheme Generator™ by transferring the sum of $10,000 (plus shipping and handling) to the First National Bank of Nigeria.
    .
    .
    Please allow 6 – 8 weeks for delivery.

  9. If he’d just look down in the phonebook, he’d see that ad for Acme Chinese Food, free delivery (small surcharge for desert addresses), kung pao roadrunner a specialty.

  10. The Coyote chases the Road Runner when he can just buy food with the money he uses on gadgets. That used to seem strange and convoluted to me, too.
    .
    Then I found out that some people hunt wolves from helicopters. Now The Coyote doesn’t seem so unbelievable.

    1. It makes about as much sense as all those super-villians not cashing in on their super-gadgets legitimately. Particularly the Flash rogues.

      Now, I’ve never been a big fan of the Road Runner cartoons. Why? Because aside from maybe the one where the Coyote finds the spy kit, they all seemed the same to me. Same scenery. Same gags, etc. For the longest time I had never known that they had made more than two of those.

      1. I enjoyed all the WB cartoons as a kid, but I think the Road Runner cartoons were the first ones I got tired of as I got older. I like when the Coyote’s tricks fail because they’re overly elaborate, or he forgets something, or it’s just a terrible product from ACME that fails. What I don’t like is when the laws of physics just change so that the catapult spins around a point in midair and smacks into the Coyote. That always felt cheap to me.

    2. Jeez, Jason, I’ve never heard of wolves from Helicopters. Siberian, Grey, Were, yeah, but helicopter? Must be a new breed.

  11. Back when David Letterman was on NBC (this relates, I’ll get there) they did a fake bit where he filmed a “promo” for Italian television where Dave & Company dropped various fruits and items from the top of a building onto the lot below. They they picked up a plush Wile E. Coyote doll, and we got to see it plummet to the ground from way up high, from several camera angles. It was terrific! Except for missing the small puff of dirt at the end, naturally…

    1. That was a running segment on Letterman for awhile. I don’t remember it having anything to do with Italian TV.

  13. A Yogi comment.
    .
    As to the Road Runner, while Bugs Bunny remains my favorite, the Road Runner is in the top five. Probably because when we were kids, my Aunt always took us to a show at Christmas time that featured both a man who made balloon animals and road runner cartoons. I may have actually first encountered the Road Runner on the big screen at that venue.
    .
    Rick

  14. Okay, to give a more substantial Yogi comment, I always tended to like the Yogi cartoons I saw as a kid. Or if there were ones I didn’t like, I’ve blocked them from my memory.
    .
    Don’t recall if I ever saw Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!, but I’d be willing to take my 8-year-old nephew to see this new movie. I have no idea if he’d be interested. I’m not sure if he’s even heard of Yogi Bear. He does want to see The Green Hornet, though. Apparently, he liked the trailer (one of the thousands that played prior to the start of Tron Legacy.
    .
    Of course, if I do take him to see The Green Hornet I’ll play an episode of the radio show en route to the theater.
    .
    Rick

  15. I’ve enjoyed the Coyote/Road Runner cartoons, but they were never my favorites. though my wife loves them. I’m always forced to remember something Bob Clampett is reputed to have said about the Road Runner cartoons (and to be fair, he had a bit of a rivalry with Chuck Jones, who was responsible for all the original Road Runner ‘toons). Clampett essentially said he didn’t like the Road Runner ‘toons because there were essentially unfair in that the Universe hated the Coyote. Given that the laws of reality in these cartoons frequently bend to favor the Road Runner, one can perhaps see his point.

    1. From what I recall hearing, the Road Runner cartoons were kind of designed to be a parody of the Tom and Jerry shorts. Take two animals and place them in a chase of sorts, but twist it around by making the predator his own worst enemy.

      1. I was a big Tom and Jerry fan as a kid, but I don’t think I ever warmed up to the Road Runner cartoons. Jerry’s cruelty and sadism were somehow always more palatable than Road Runner’s casual indifference.

      2. To be fair to Jerry and the Road Runner, how would you respond if a predator that you have done no harm kept trying to kill you, only to have the universe pay him back for his agression? Yeah, you can say that Tom and the Coyote are just following their nature, but so is the prey.

        .

        Poor little Road Runner never bothered anyone

        .

        (Those tongue stick outs are perfectly justified. Check out Tom Smith’s song about them some time)

        .

        Also :

        .

        “If you’re on a highway and Road Runner goes beep-beep!
        Just step aside, or you might end up in heap!
        Road Runner, Road Runner runs on the road all day.
        Even the Coyote can’t make him change his ways.
        Road Runner, that Coyote’s after you!
        Road Runner, if he catches you, you’re through!
        Road Runner, that Coyote’s after you!
        Road Runner, if he catches you, you’re through!
        That Coyote is really a crazy clown!
        When will he learn that he never can mow him down?
        Poor little Road Runner never bothers anyone.
        Just running down the road is his idea of having fun!”

    2. I think the inherent unfairness of the universe is what makes the Coyote cartoons so great. Haven’t we all felt like the Coyote at some point?

  17. I’m certain my Mom endured much kiddie fare for me as well, well-done “Dad”. Has the new film, in any way, sparked an interest in the classic Yogi cartoons with Caroline?

  18. .
    I have two words that make any other “Karmic Payback” a walk in the park by comparison.
    .
    Care Bears.
    .
    God help me.

      3. .
        That should have been…
        .
        .
        .
        “Worse than Barney?
        Dinosaur Train AND Cailou”
        .
        It’s no longer a guess. Now I know you’re insane.

    2. Believe it or not, I still remember taking one of my daughters–had to have been Shana–to a screening of a Care Bears movie that was being held for licensees (of which Marvel was one at the time.) It was the film that introduced the Care Bear cousins, including a lion. And there was a sequence where the villains showed up and the lion was just tearing them apart. Seated behind me was Marvel’s head financial guy, Barry Kaplan, and I remember Barry saying in actual admiration, “Whoa, that lion doesn’t take crap from anybody.”
      .
      PAD

      1. I remember the Care Bear cousins. My sister still has the toy elephant. My niece play with it now.
        .
        I currently endure a lot of The Wiggles videos and songs. My song made me put them so much that sometimes I start singing their songs when I am at work.

      2. I shoud have written “my son” not “my song”. I need to stop posting here in a hurry when I am at work.

      3. I believe that would be Proudheart Lion, but don’t quote me. It’s been a long time. I dug the Care Bears when I was about 3 or 4, I think.

    3. Yeah, every so often when Brian is feeling…I don’t know, nostalgic? Secure? Insecure? Something. Anyway, he’ll ask to watch a Care Bears movie. Jerry, brother, I feel your pain.

  19. I immediately remembered the scene in PREACHER, where a young Jesse and his childhood friend are discussing this very question. Of course, the answer offered to the question of “Why is he trying to catch him?” is what you’d expect in a Garth Ennis comic.

  20. The Road Runner and Coyote Cartoons have always been about fanaticism.
    I have a poster from an Animation gallery exhibit of Chuck Jones’. The poster is of Wile E. Coyote chasing after the Road Runner with a stream of signs flowing past that say “A fanatic is someone who redoubles his effort after he has forgotten his aim”.
    To quote another character with a small twist: “The coyote is so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn’t stop to think if he should.”

    I have always loved the roadrunner cartoons (especially the Chuck Jones directed shorts), they are right up there with the Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck shorts about Duck Season and Wabbit Season, along with any of the operatic parodies that the Looney Tunes have featured.

  21. The Road Runner cartoons served another purpose–they allowed Jones and crew to spend more on other projects. When a WHAT’S OPERA DOC went wildly overbudget they could make it up with a roadrunner cartoon, which, with it’s limited backgrounds, was relatively cheap to produce.
    .
    Chuck Jones came and spoke at my college and was an absolute delight. Always great to see one of our living legends live long enough to see how loved they are, there are few things more heartbreaking than seeing someone die in obscurity only to be rediscovered afterwards.

  22. The appeal of the Road Runner cartoons may also be the simple psychological truth: The harder something is to get, the more you want to get it. I’ve been looking for the coffee table book to the movie BURLESQUE for two or three months now, and either it’s amazingly popular or amazingly under-printed because it’s sold out online and not in any major bookstore or retail store around me. It’s nothing amazing like a new Harlan Ellison novel, finalizing like the end of SANDMAN, or even (as) prurient as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit collection. And I wasn’t a fan of the movie either — gave it a D. But because I’ve kept looking and still haven’t seen it anywhere, I’ve gone from wanting it to reeeeeeeeeally wanting it.

    Same with the Road Runner. Yes, Wile E. could probably find easier prey, or order from a take-out place instead of Acme (which, if existed today, would have the worst customer feedback on its website). But the more that coyote fails to get this one particular bird, the more he wants this one particular bird.

      1. Thanks for the leads, PAD and Kath. I put in a bid, and while I’m the high bidder right now I have to maintain that status for 3 days and 22 hours before I can buy the book.

        Kath, don’t worry about the local Borders: It’s not local for me (I’m in North Carolina) and when it’s available online (if eBay fails) I can use that Barnes & Noble gift certificate I got for Christmas.

        I’m still amazed how hard this is to find. The movie was recent enough it shouldn’t be out of circulation, but not popular enough it should have been selling out as soon as it comes in. Ah well, I can be patient…

      2. Well, James, if you put a maximum bid of the book’s cover price, then you won’t be out anything if you don’t get it, plus it may put you in a better position for the auction.
        .
        PAD

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