EXCLUSIVE ANIMATION BREAKDOWN: "The Adventures of the Road-Runner" (1962) (Patreon)

Note: If you have difficulty playing the Google Drive embed, click to this direct link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CqOSCC5VX4PfH_1d9_JtR5NctTM6hTI4/view 

Out on the desert early in the morning, see the happy Road Runner burning up the roads! 

On occasion, in devising a new story for their cartoons at Warner Bros., director Chuck Jones and his main writer Mike Maltese would joke around as they discussed different variations of predator on the hunt for prey. They wanted to deviate from chases that involved a cat and a mouse, or a hunter and wild game, the latter of which was the case of the studio’s own Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. As a result of these conversations, Jones had directed a cartoon that culminates in a long chase that almost acts as a parody of the template, Fair and Worm-er (1946; story credited to Maltese and Tedd Pierce), where a worm, a crow, a cat, a dog and a dogcatcher pursue each other. 

Later, Jones and Maltese expanded their idea with a hunt more ambiguous than the usual fare—a half-starved coyote and a roadrunner that possesses hyper-accelerated speed. (In reality, roadrunners only reach up to a speed of 20 mph, whereas an adult coyote can read up to 35-43 mph in pursuit.) In accordance with surviving story conference notes from many of Jones’ cartoons, the “jam session” for this first story might have occurred in either June or July 1947. The session for production #1089, Frigid Hare (1949), occurred on May 28, 1947, and meanwhile, Fast and Furry-ous (1949), the debut of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, was two cartoons ahead in production order. Early model sheets of the characters dating from this period reveal the Coyote’s original name as “Don Coyote”. 

Throughout the series, the Coyote’s incompetence leads to his own defeat as various traps and contraptions fail in every instance. This set the series apart from other chase cartoons, where the intent is to root for the persecuted creature. As Jones stated in an interview with Mike Barrier, “The sympathy always had to be with the Coyote. The Coyote was never hurt or in pain, he was insulted, as most of us are when we suffer misfortune." In his first (of five) appearances with Bugs Bunny, Operation: Rabbit (1952) Wile E. Coyote has spoken dialogue—unlike the Road Runner series—boastfully touting himself as a genius. Near the end of the film, he labels himself a “super genius,” a title he relishes with sheer delight. 

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Jones directed nineteen subsequent cartoons with the Coyote and Road Runner. Because of their familiarity with the characters, Jones and his creative team were able to complete each title in a shorter amount of time than his other cartoons. During the latter period, besides theatrical shorts, the Warners animation department went into television production with the half-hour Bugs Bunny Show, as well as commercials for General Foods. Its first season aired on the ABC network from October 1960 to the following October of 1961. 

Sometime in 1961, Jones developed an animated pilot for the ABC network called The Road Runner Show. As indicated in the production draft, the film is labeled by sequence from A-L (though “J” was omitted during production). Since the production numbers for Warners cartoons are neatly catalogued, it is easy to determine the amount of animation repurposed for the pilot. For instance, the scenes such as the Coyote loading himself into a bow and inserting a grenade onto a model airplane are excerpts from Zip n’ Snort, released January 1961. 

The production draft reveals an interesting note involving other sequences used in the pilot. Scenes mentioning production #1608 includes scenes with the Coyote and a lasso, and an extended series of backfires involving a boulder-throwing catapult. These sequences were intended for To Beep or Not to Beep, which did not reach theaters until December 1963. These scenes could have been proposed just for the pilot, but as the documentation indicates, aside from the 1963 cartoon designated a production number, the animation had already been completed by October 1961.

In the new animation intended for the pilot, Jones gives his supervising animators Ken Harris, Ben Washam and Dick Thompson on their own sequences. However, in sequence “A”, Bob Bransford is given credit in the production draft for the opening scenes, while also using some lifted footage from Hip Hip-Hurry! (1958). The only difference is the fade-in of the desert sunrise, as the camera pans over to singing birds and blossoming desert flowers before the Road Runner speeds into frame. Harris animates sequence “B” with the Coyote waiting behind a speed limit sign not realizing the Road Runner is right beside him. 

Dick Thompson is largely credited for the animation in sequence “D”— Wile E. Coyote watches and analyzes his failures through a film projector, and directly addresses the audience his intentions to correct these errors. Thompson had previously trained under Ken Harris as his assistant, promoted as a full animator in Jones’ unit a decade earlier, in 1950. Later in the sequence, the first instance when the transcontinental truck passes through catching the Coyote’s lasso, dragging him along the way, this footage lifts from an earlier Coyote/Road Runner, Stop, Look and Hasten! (1954). 

Sequence “E” reveals the antics of the Coyote and the Road Runner watched on television by Ralph Phillips and another child named Arnold, as the latter is listed in the production papers. Ben Washam handles all the new animation with Ralph and Arnold, voiced by Dick Beals and Nancy Wible; the two recorded their dialogue track in early November 1961. This sequence has a commercial break promoting the famous “Bat-Man” costume from Gee Whiz-z-z-z (1956), announced by Dick Tufield. Ralph Phillips had appeared as a child in two cartoons directed by Jones, the first of which, From A to Z-z-z-z (1954), plays in its entirety, when Arnold acts as a psychiatrist to his daydreaming patient, and the cartoon follows. 

In the next sequence, the psychoanalysis does not take effect on Ralph as he does a Road Runner-like exit back to the television set, to which Arnold surrenders and performs the same action. Ralph then asks the important question which other children must have wondered throughout watching the series: why exactly does the Coyote want to eat the Road Runner? Instead of the more logical answer being the Road Runner is the Coyote’s only means of sustenance in a barren landscape, the Coyote produces a chart that reveals different types of flavor profiles, from sweets, candies, vegetables, cheeses, cold cuts and even a dry martini! The finale of the sequence later became partially reused for the opening scenes of To Beep or Not to Beep, sans dialogue. 

In Sequence “H,” the Coyote demonstrates his last method to capture his meal by using a Greco-Roman catapult. The scenes that occur before (iron wrecking ball and boulders) and after (various catastrophes with the catapult) are much of the rest of the footage used from To Beep or Not to Beep. In the production draft, the animator assignment for the new animation in Sequence “H”— likewise for the small scene of the Coyote’s anger towards the blueprint in Sequence “I”—are not filled, but the scenes are undoubtedly Ken Harris’ work. The author is uncertain about which animator is responsible for the scenes of the Coyote asleep in his cave and awakened by the Road Runner dashing into the projector screen at the end of the film. (This information will be added in a later edit, if possible.) 

The ABC network ultimately rejected the pilot for The Road Runner Show, so Jones chose to release it as a theatrical featurette entitled The Adventures of the Road-Runner. Naturally, the original debut episode would have mentioned sponsored commercials within the program, including the scene with “Bat-Man” costume.  The draft page for Sequence “B” reveals two more scenes omitted from the featurette, possibly since it would have followed with genuine commercial airtime, and not footage from an earlier cartoon. 

The film was released June 2, 1962, featured on a double bill with the live-action feature Lad: A Dog. Though he is credited for story under the main titles, Mike Maltese was working as a writer at Hanna-Barbera. John Dunn, a former Disney concept artist/writer hired at the studio in early 1960 to write bridging material for The Bugs Bunny Show, is also credited for story along with its director Chuck Jones. With the new material intended for the cancelled pilot, Dunn undoubtedly wrote the dialogue, possibly with input from Jones. 

Tom Ray is not listed in the production draft, possibly because of his involvement as a co-director on the film. However, his credit as a regular animator under the main titles with Bob Bransford, along with the aforementioned supervising animators might account for the footage that ultimately became To Beep or Not to Beep.  

Milt Franklyn, credited for the opening song, “Out on the Desert,” passed away a few weeks before its release on April 26. In turn, To Beep or Not to Beep was re-scored by studio house composer Bill Lava, with new sound effects added. Matt Hunter has made a comparison to the two scores in this video.

The production number for the Road Runner Show pilot is designated as #1663. This later shifted to a different theatrical short, Hare-Breadth Hurry, the last pairing of Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote released in June 1963, with Bugs Bunny assuming the part of the Road Runner! The featurette was later cut into two shorts, which were not released theatrically—Road Runner A Go-Go and Zip Zip Hooray, both later released in 1965. Eventually, The Road Runner Show did emerge, but it was merely a syndicated Saturday morning package of cartoons for CBS (and later, on ABC) that ran in the late 1960s and early 1970s. CBS also paired The Road Runner Show with The Bugs Bunny Show, known as The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, which lasted into the mid-1980s. 

It's understandable if the content leaves much to be desired for most people, but unfortunately, many of the production drafts related to Chuck Jones are from his films from the 1960s, with little to none from the Warners studio. Still, it's still quite a rare thing for a draft from a Jones cartoon to surface, isn't it? As for the breakdown video, the notations on the upper left corner are only given to the new sections intended for the original Road Runner Show pilot. 

The master sheet and the production draft can be seen at this link. 

Special thanks to author/historian Kurtis Findlay for lending the production materials from this film. Additional thanks to Michael Barrier and Keith Scott for their help.