Fast and Furry-ous

Not knowing this until I came to this title page, I thought, "This would be a good introduction to anyone who hasn't seen "Roadrunner" cartoons." Now I see it WAS the first Road Runner cartoon.

Right off the bat, we see the road runner zipping down roads. Then they stop the action, freeze it and show the graphic "Road Runner (Accelleratii Inncredibus). Moments later, we see the coyote, who is watching our speedy hero from a pair of binoculars on cliff high above. He's licking his lips in anticipation and is described as "Coyote (Carnivorous Vulgaris).

Coyote puts on a bib, grabs and knife and fork, and speeds down the hill to catch the road runner. He immediately discovers he can't outrun the bird, so he hatches a number of inventive plans......and so goes this cartoon and many others to follow as coyote's meal plans are frustrated time and again.

Some of many coyote schemes to catch his prey are simple (falling boulders) to inventive (jet-propelled sneakers) to very elaborate. Almost all of them are funny. This animated short set the tone for all the good ones which followed. Good stuff!

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.

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.

This short marks the first appearance by either Wile E. Coyote or The Road Runner on-screen. Wile E. is really the star here and a more interesting character, to be sure, but their relationship is really a symbiotic one. Without each other, neither would have had success in films. This short more or less sets the tone for the series: lots of sight gags and a probable increase in Wile E. insurance premiums, while his insurance agent lives on antacids and his agent checks on his remaining hit points with each accident. Most certainly a gem and worth watching. Recommended.

Most of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons are great fun to watch, although the series generally ran out of gas in the 60s. Fast and Furry-ous is their debut and to this day is still one of their best and funniest cartoons.

The animation is great, some of the best of the series in fact. The colours are beautiful and vibrant, the backgrounds are simple but still very detailed and attractive, the physical comedy is all tightly edited and the character designs, while more elaborate for Coyote here than with his later and more famous look, are very nicely done and smooth. Music is courtesy of the consistently brilliant Carl Stalling, it doesn't disappoint here and I prefer his livelier and more richly orchestrated scoring to that of Bill Lava's in the later cartoons.

Fast and Furry-ous is also incredibly funny, one of the funniest of the entire Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons and this is all with no dialogue at all. The physical comedy is impressively animated and is never less than amusing, at its best hilarious, while the sight gags are equally terrific, the highlight being the refrigerator gag, one of the most original, elaborate and ingenious gags of any of the Roadrunner and Coyote series. The painting-the-tunnel-on-the-stone-wall gag works well too, even if it was repeated numerous other times throughout the series, and the razor sharp pacing helps. Who can't help love the Oliver Hardy-esque looks into the camera too? The story avoids being too repetitive or formulaic and the fresh material, as well as that it's their first cartoon, helps give a sense of originality.

Both characters work great together. Roadrunner is one-dimensional, but amusing and never annoying, but it is Coyote who is the funnier and more interesting character. Cunning yet very easy to sympathise for and with priceless facial expressions, he's one of Chuck Jones' best creations. Overall, a wonderful cartoon in all regards, and one of the best of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. 10/10 Bethany Cox