War and Pieces

While not one of the classics of the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote series, it is a long way from one of the duds.

The animation is beautifully coloured, with both characters being well drawn especially Coyote and expressions and detailed backgrounds. While formulaic, as with most cartoons of the series, the story is lively paced and told with continuous charm and fun.

'War and Pieces' is a very funny cartoon, without being one of the funniest. The pants and invisible paint gags are excellent gags, but the gag with the Chinese Roadrunner is the definite highlight. Both characters come off very well indeed, Roadrunner is a plot device but still very amusing but Coyote has the funniest of the material and is the more interesting and likable of the two.

My only big complaint actually is Bill Lava's score. He has composed worse, but it is lifeless, on the cheap side and somewhat ill-fitting.

In conclusion, with the exception of the music 'War and Pieces' is very nicely done. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoon short was the last helmed by Chuck Jones when he was at the Warner Bros. studio before its closing and also before he was fired for doing something at UPA without permission. He'd return several years later but not before then going to M-G-M for a last round of Tom and Jerry shorts. Anyway, as usual, the coyote and road runner have their scrapes courtesy of various spot gags that come into hilarious results. So that's a recommendation of War and Pieces. One more note, this marked the only time on a Jones series entry the score was composed by Bill Lava, previous composer Milt Franklyn having passed on after the last Road Runner cartoon.

"War and Pieces" was the last classic Road Runner short and director Chuck Jones evidently knew that the studio was about to close, as he began this film with a slow-motion/freeze frame technique similar to the earliest of the series. Jones followed this with his typical fast, fine comic timing, supported by beautifully stylized backdrops. Caninus Nervous Rex (Coyote) is blasted, dropped, dunked, pressed, shot, run down, and sent clear through to China as he tries to catch that bird.

The last Road Runner short directed by Chuck Jones in the classic era before he left Warner Bros. While it's not among his best, it is enjoyable and a fitting end to a great series. The animation is crisp with lovely colors and nice backgrounds. The music, provided by Bill Lava, is better than his average output but still weak compared to previous Looney Tunes composers. The gags are mostly funny. Love the bit where Wile E. Coyote loses his "pants." Other good gags include ACME invisible paint and Secrets of a Harem. The highlight of the short is the ending where Wile E. meets a different Road Runner from the other side of the world and tries his luck at catching that one.

In 'War and Pieces' the Road Runner is introduced as Burn-em Upus Asphaltus and the Coyote as Caninus Nevous Rex. From that moment we see the Coyote using a grenade, himself as an arrow where he loses his pants (you have to see it yourself to understand what that means), a rope and some invisible paint.

Although some of the moments made me smile, like the lost pants, most of the time the gags do not really work here. The invisible paint has some nice touches although I think that some opportunities were missed there. The cartoon is saved in the end where the Coyote has a short visit to China and he encounters a Chinese Road Runner. It is the only real laugh in this short.