Very good and thoroughly enjoyable Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon, one of their better ones of the 60s in my view. It is not all that surprising as to how it ends(the story is also a fairly formulaic one in the first place), then again the Roadrunner-Coyote series are not about the stories strictly speaking but about the quality of the gags. You do miss Coyote's looks to the camera, which were kind of breaking-the-fourth-wall-without-a-word, and despite the clever overhead shot and with the cactus the falling down the cliff gag has been done to death. The animation has been more detailed before, budget constraints perhaps, but the colours are still really lovely and the drawings and backgrounds are well-rendered. In short, well-done animation considering any potential constraints but not great animation. Bill Lava's music is rousingly orchestrated and has a lot of life and isn't repetitive, his work hasn't always worked in the Speedy cartoons but it works wonderfully here and couldn't be more evident in the final gag. The gags are consistent in how funny they are, the wrecking ball and noose gags do provoke a lot of laughs but the highlight is absolutely Coyote's attempts with a boulder and catapult, as has been noted previously instead of moving on to different methods of catching the Roadrunner it was nice to see Coyote making numerous attempts doing the same thing. And even more importantly, the gag isn't just funny, it's hilarious, the last part of it especially. Roadrunner is good, but Coyote has always been the more interesting and funniest of the two and as always he is sly and amusing, but we also feel pangs of sympathy too. To conclude, a very good Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon and one of their better outings of the 60s. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox
