Pelado y Apurado

The first of the Roadrunner cartoons sets things up nicely. We get to see some of the precious moments that will appear throughout their "careers." There are refrigerators, rockets, painted tunnels, and on and on. We also get to see the coyote stunned by the speed of the roadrunner when he sees him run for the first time.

The Road Runner films form one of the most famous theatrical cartoon series ever. They are also some of the most hilarious in terms of visual comedy, and never get old. Though there is just a simple formula that is exploited throughout, and it is repetitive, it never goes bland. This also means no cartoon stands out, nothing particularly memorable. But this cartoon does shine brighter, not only because of its greatness as entertainment but because it was the debut of both stars, and the makers were not short of ideas. The usual facial expressions and high-quality - though slightly outlandish due to the early date - animation is combined with fresh and new gags, which were at the time not dated and only the cream of the crop of ideas were used. Highly recommended.

Fast and Furry-ous (1949)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

The first ever Coyote and Road Runner film turns out to be a very enjoyable one. As would become the norm, the Coyote is hungry and wanting to eat the Road Runner but he's simply not fast (or smart) enough to catch him. This first short has plenty of wonderful laughs as the violent action is constantly finding hilarious ways to injure the Coyote. One of my favorite gags in the film is when the Coyote pants the side of a mountain to appear like a road so that the Road Runner will kill himself by running into it but things don't work out as planned. Another funny jokes includes the Coyote making a ski machine to build up speed but of course this doesn't go as planned either. Director Jones was a fan of silent movies and that's easy to see with these shorts.

Fast and Furry-ous is Chuck Jones' first cartoon starring the Road Runner and While E. Coyote. It was originally supposed to be a one-shot but there was so much demand that a sequel was made four years later which then became a series. Since this was the first one, I noticed a few differences. One, the backgrounds were more detailed than in subsequent ones. Also, when the bird sticks out his tongue a few times, you don't hear the sound effects that Treg Brown provided on later entries. And only once as the Coyote falls do you then see the ground from a sky-view before some smoke appears. Otherwise, there's the spot gags that are similar to other series entries like the scenery While E. paints over a rock formation that the Road Runner runs right through but the Coyote bumps into hard! And there's some Acme products, of course! Very funny first entry to a classic, if formulaic, series. By the way, Road Runner is described as Accellleratii Incredibus while the Coyote is Carnivorous Vulgaris.

The first Road Runner and Coyote cartoon ever made (and their only one made in the 1940s). It's directed by Chuck Jones with a story by Michael Maltese. This team would be responsible for most of the great Road Runner and Coyote shorts. This first one sets the template for the rest of the series. The concept was always the same in that Wile E. Coyote tries various devices and traps to catch the Road Runner but constantly fails, typically in hilarious fashion. Here we have the basics already on display: boomerangs, dynamite, a roadblock, disguises and costumes, rockets and jets, running off a cliff, and classic ACME gadgetry. Chuck Jones would use a variation of every gag in this first short over and over throughout the series. The animation is beautiful with great colors and well-drawn backgrounds. The Road Runner and Coyote look slightly different than they would look later, but that's true of pretty much all the Looney Tunes characters in their first appearances. It's a fun, fast-paced short that begins one of the best and most consistently creative and funny series in the Looney Tunes library. It's one every fan should see at least once. A classic by every definition.