To Beep or Not to Beep

Chuck Jones's 'To Beep or Not to Beep' is one of my least favourite Road Runner cartoons. My favourite thing about the Road Runner series isn't the gags (although they are frequently great) but the way in which they are so beautifully animated. The reactions of the Coyote and his fourth-wall-breaking relationship with the audience turn standard gags into great ones. 'To Beep or Not to Beep' is extraordinarily minimal in its animation and look and, frankly, its ugly. The few genuinely funny gags are underworked, grabbing their quick laughs and moving on. There's no hopeful or sly looks to camera from the Coyote, he simply gets on with the job in a workmanlike fashion, refusing to acknowledge our existence. The cartoon ends with an extended set of gags all based around the same catapult. These longer sequences would often make the Road Runner cartoons more interesting but, like everything else in 'To Beep or Not to Beep', the gags are just knocked out with no energy or flair. The final catapult gag experiments with prolonging the inevitable but, without the usual sense of Jones timing, when the inevitable arrives it's not funny. 'To Beep or Not to Beep' appeared late on in the Road Runner series and it almost feels like Jones is tired and can't be bothered to meet anything but the most minimal requirements. Financial constraints or a failed experiment are more likely reasons for the cartoon's atrocious visuals and pacing but, whichever way you look at it, 'To Beep or Not to Beep' is feeble.

"To Beep or Not to Beep" is one of my all-time favorite cartoon shorts, and possible my favorite of all the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

There is only one reason why I say so: the music. Now, people would say that Bill Lava's music keeps this far from perfect. I strongly disagree to those who think so. I think it is most wonderful, especially, and I mean, ESPECIALLY all of the music of the final catapult gag. (It gets better when it nears the end.) It's my favorite moment of one of my all-time favorite cartoons.

I first saw this on the Warner Home Video VHS release of "Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24-Karat Collection: Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote: The Classic Chase" (Anyone else have this tape?) And while all the cartoons on it stuck inside my head for my entire life, this is the one that is probably the best of the pack, and probably the perfect way to end a video.

This entry into the Roadrunner series of cartoons which began in 1949 with 'Fast And Furry-ous' is one of my favourites. It runs along at a frenetic pace after the initial decision by Wile E Coyote to catch Roadrunner and eat him for lunch. As usual Wile never succeeds, but the ways he tries to do it are genius.

I mean, just how many times can you think of where using a giant catapult to hurl a boulder (in an attempt to squash the fleet little bird) has gone so hilariously wrong in so many different ways?

This cartoon rocks!

This is a Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon. As far as I'm concerned, there has never been a bad one of those. Wile reads a cookbook with a Road Runner recipe. He sets off to catch a Road Runner.

This has been re-edited from a failed TV pilot. The best sequence has to be the catapult. I love that he keeps going back to it. The comedy gets raised with each new iteration of failure. If there is anything missing, it does need some ACME product placement. There is a joke at the end which is connected to that. It would work better if Wile peels off an ACME sticker to reveal the contraption's true origins.

Very good and thoroughly enjoyable Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon, one of their better ones of the 60s in my view. It is not all that surprising as to how it ends(the story is also a fairly formulaic one in the first place), then again the Roadrunner-Coyote series are not about the stories strictly speaking but about the quality of the gags. You do miss Coyote's looks to the camera, which were kind of breaking-the-fourth-wall-without-a-word, and despite the clever overhead shot and with the cactus the falling down the cliff gag has been done to death. The animation has been more detailed before, budget constraints perhaps, but the colours are still really lovely and the drawings and backgrounds are well-rendered. In short, well-done animation considering any potential constraints but not great animation. Bill Lava's music is rousingly orchestrated and has a lot of life and isn't repetitive, his work hasn't always worked in the Speedy cartoons but it works wonderfully here and couldn't be more evident in the final gag. The gags are consistent in how funny they are, the wrecking ball and noose gags do provoke a lot of laughs but the highlight is absolutely Coyote's attempts with a boulder and catapult, as has been noted previously instead of moving on to different methods of catching the Roadrunner it was nice to see Coyote making numerous attempts doing the same thing. And even more importantly, the gag isn't just funny, it's hilarious, the last part of it especially. Roadrunner is good, but Coyote has always been the more interesting and funniest of the two and as always he is sly and amusing, but we also feel pangs of sympathy too. To conclude, a very good Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon and one of their better outings of the 60s. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox