Scrambled Aches

The tenth pairing of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, features the ever frustrated, but never quiting coyote still trying to catch the very elusive bird using such ingenious schemes as fan powered roller skates, a pebble which turns into a boulder with water, and the old reliable combination of boulders, rockets, anvils, and balloons. I found it highly enjoyable, but perhaps I'm a bit biased as Wile E. Coyote is one of my absolute favorite cartoon personalities of all time. This animated short can be seen on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. This cartoon also has an optional music only track.

My Grade: A

Scrambled Aches (1957)

*** (out of 4)

Tenth film in the series has Wile E. Coyote up to the same old stuff but this time out we get a few new tricks with the best one being the dehydrated boulder. This is a pretty routine entry in the series but you can't expect too much out of the tenth film especially considering this was pretty much a one-joke series with the same type of jokes being used over and over again. The action is certainly top-notch as our beloved coyote finds one way after another to hurt himself. The small steam roller and escape hatch are very well done. Another thing to mention is the colors used here, which are extremely warm from start to finish. I'm going to guess this was done on purpose and isn't just the work of the remastered DVD since this short is on the same disc as the others.

Fun Road Runner & Coyote short from Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. This one has Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner with dynamite on a string, a homemade windsurfing contraption, a rocket, an anvil, a steam roller, and the classic ACME Dehydrated Boulder. As usual with this series when Jones was at the helm, the gags are funny and well-executed. The animation is great, with well-drawn characters and backgrounds. Love the colors. The music is also very nice and suits the action perfectly. Some will criticize this series as being formulaic and repetitive, and it certainly does "return to the well" sometimes, but I find that Jones and Maltese do try and do different things with the gags even if they are similar to previous ones. This moves along at a quick pace and probably doesn't linger on a couple of the gags as long as it should. It's fun, though, and definitely worth a look.

After the disappointing 'There They Go-Go-Go', Chuck Jones's 'Scrambled Aches' is an improvement. The cartoon which saw the Road Runner series entering double figures with its tenth outing, 'Scrambled Aches' is another fairly standard Road Runner cartoon but with better gags than its predecessor. What also makes 'Scrambled Aches' notable is that there are a couple of cases in which it looks like the Coyote might finally be successful in his attempts to capture the Road Runner. An early attempt involving a falling anvil seems to be going according to plan but for the Road Runner's keen senses, but it is the climactic, extended gag involving a steam roller in which the Coyote seems to have outwitted the Road Runner with an elaborate bluff. It's a funny but frustrating final sequence which employs an elaborate twisted logic to bilk the Coyote out of his rightful meal. Aside from these gags, 'Scrambled Aches' is not especially worthy of praise but it's certainly worth seeing and guarantees a couple of belly laughs at the very least.

They aren't kidding when they call this cartoon "Scrambled Aches"! The most original gag here, at least in my opinion, is the dehydrated boulder (and you know what happens during combinations of Wile E. Coyote and boulders!). As a previous reviewer noted, a notable aspect of this cartoon is that the backgrounds have an almost mystical feel to themselves. Of course, there's no reason to get all hung up on that when you can luxuriate in WEC getting his just desserts for trying to harm Road Runner. If ever I'm driving through the southwest United States, I'll just keep my eye out in case there is a coyote chasing a road runner; maybe I'll witness the sorts of things that these cartoons portray.

All in all, another classic cartoon.