Whoa, Be-Gone!

Some people ask themselves where Wile E. Coyote gets the money to buy all those Acme products. Probably by not spending any money on food. He starts off "Whoa Be Gone" well prepared on top of a rocket with cutlery in hand. Too bad he did not take the nearby tunnel into account. Or the fact that the rocket was a heat seeking one. This installment features more inventive ideas than usual, and one of the funniest details in any Road Runner cartoon: every time Wile E. falls of a cliff, he lands in exactly the same spot, but in a different position, leaving a mark on the ground.

Credit is due to Wile E. for always being willing to learn new skills, such as upside down tightrope walking. Nor is he afraid to try out new products, like a box of one thousand Do-It-Yourself Tornado's (Acme water gun to make them grow sold separately). You would thing he should know better. Especially with an abandoned army mine field nearby....

8 out of 10

Chuck Jones's 'Whoa Be Gone', the twelfth Road Runner cartoon, is at its best when it's playing with new ways to hurl the Coyote off a cliff. Early on in the cartoon, this is established as a running gag with the Coyote landing next to previous splat marks from earlier plummets and finally erecting a trampoline over the spot to save him from further falls (needless to say, it doesn't work). Where 'Whoa Be Gone' goes wrong is in backing down from this potentially brilliant running gag. The potential for a cartoon based around nothing more than different ways to get the Coyote to plummet off the same cliff onto the same bit of ground is enormous. Instead, 'Whoa Be Gone' leaves behind this premise and opts for some more standard gags, some of which are funny and some of which aren't. At the very least, the cliff falling gag should have been revisited for the finale. Instead, we get a very abrupt, weak and frankly strange ending in which the Road Runner drops from the sky dragging the That's All Folks screen on a drawstring. It doesn't work and acts as a disappointing climax to a cartoon that could have been so much more than the run of the mill effort that it is.

Excellent Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote short from Chuck Jones. Really vibrant, energetic animation in this one. The colors are bright and lush. The characters and backgrounds are well-drawn. The action scenes are just dynamite. The music is lively and upbeat. The best part of any Road Runner and Coyote cartoon are the wonderful gags, often featuring the products of the good people at ACME. Some of the better ones we have this time are a hilarious high wire stunt, ACME tornado seeds, and a recurring falling gag that never stops being funny. It's a great short and one of the best looking of the series. Chuck Jones fans will no doubt love it.

We come to the twelfth pairing of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (and the last on the Golden Collect Volume 2 sadly). And the overt familiarity doesn't detract at all with the humor. It's like watching the Stooges you KNOW all three will have some sort of hideous pain inflicted upon them. as always 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

Despite some duds in the later years (mid to late 60s), when the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote series was at its best it was brilliant, even with the more-of-the-same stories they're mostly well-made, are very funny (uproariously so in the case of the best gags) and Coyote is one of Chuck Jones' best ever creations.

While not one of the best of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote series, Whoa Be-Gone! is still a great cartoon and very close to being a classic. The animation is very good, the colours are beautiful and rich, the gags and the reaction shots look great still and both characters look good, especially Coyote. The scenery and backgrounds are handsomely rendered too and there are very clever overhead shots that are both well-animated and priceless in humour. As always, Whoa, Be-Gone ! is wonderfully scored by Milt Franklyn as always, orchestration is sumptuously lush, rhythmically it's lively but never too busy, use of instruments is clever and appropriate and it's not just a good fit but adds a good deal to what's going on too.

Apart from ending ever so slightly abruptly, the sole fault of the cartoon, Whoa, Be-Gone! Is a very funny and at its best hilarious cartoon. The gags are not the most original, for this particular series they're pretty standard really, but with the imaginative they feel fresh. The tornado and especially barrel of dynamite gags are particularly strong. The story is formulaic, but very energetically paced and never feels dull or overly-predictable. The two characters fare wonderfully and work against each other just as well. Roadrunner is one-dimensional but very amusing (thankfully not annoying as one might fear), but Coyote has always been the funnier and more interesting of the two and he's on top form here, one of those characters where even just a facial expression is enough to split the sides laughing and he is easy to empathise for even for one as cunning as he is.

To conclude, a great cartoon that will be a treat for Roadrunner and Coyote fans. 9/10 Bethany Cox