Beep, Beep

This second pairing of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner is a great as the first. Predictable maybe, but I don't care and still laugh so much whenever I see it. The Wile E./Road runner shorts always had the most special place in my heart. So knowing that the second disc of the Golden Collection would not only feature 11 of this, BUT they would be in chronological order (2 through 12, the first episode was on Volume 1), made me get misty eyed. I LOVE this stuff. This animated short can be seen on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. It also features an optional commentary by Micheal Barrier.

My Grade: A+

Beep, Beep (1952)

*** (out of 4)

Second film in the Road Runner/Coyote series is a pretty good one as the dumb but always trying Coyote comes up with new tricks as he tries to catch his meal. The highlight of these new tricks is a long running sequence where the two are inside a dark mine and we can only see them from the lights on their helmets. I'm not a die-hard fan of the series but I am watching them again in the order that they appear on Warner's second disc in their second volume of Looney Tunes shorts. Seeing them in order might have me changing my mind but this one here is a pretty good short from start to finish as the action is always at a feverish pace and we get many good gags including the before mentioned mine sequence but there's also another good one dealing with water.

One of the first truly great Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote shorts by the legendary Chuck Jones. There's no plot really, just Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner and failing over & over. Beautiful animation with well-drawn backgrounds. Love the colors. Energetic music from Carl Stalling. Many funny gags, including "free drink of water," ACME aspirin, and rocket-powered roller skates. The highlight of the short is the sequence that takes place in an underground mine. As with all of the Road Runner cartoons, there is an element of predictability to it but it works so well. Chuck Jones was a master at the sight gag and it shows in this series more than any other. It's not the best of the Road Runner and Coyote series but it is a great one.

OK, so in any Wile E. Coyote-Road Runner cartoons, we know that WEC is going to set up all sorts of traps for RR, but always maim himself in various ways. That certainly happens in "Beep, Beep". Predictable? I guess that it is, but when you think about it, these cartoons show how the more you try to harm someone else, the more you get harmed; sort of like how Daffy Duck always tries to undermine Bugs Bunny's integrity but Bugs sees around it.

Overall, this is another classic from the Termite Terrace crowd. Sometimes, I think that if we really had wanted to ease Cold War tensions, we could have just let the Soviet Union see Looney Tunes cartoons; I'm sure that they would have loved them. Another great one.

PS: I learned on "Jeopardy!" that Wile E. Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert.

This is more of the same thing that made this cartoon popular.....but who's complaining? It's always fun to see the poor coyote try various contraptions to get the Road Runner, and then get pulverized by every one of those inventions.

The underground cave chase was different from the normal fare and was clever. It gave us an aerial view of the chase in a maze-like structure. I didn't say it was hilarious; just different from the normal above-ground antics.

This one, along with some other Road Runner shorts, are featured on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 and the transfers of them are spectacular. The colors are magnificent.