Favorite Bob McKimson Road Runner Short

[The "Chase"]

Yeah, I know I'm beating on the dead horse again, but hey, make it while it's still hot, I say. Besides, I think you guys need something to wash off after that other thread.

Well, after reading that some people actually like Robert McKimson's Road Runner shorts (like Speedy), I ask you, which one out of all of them (yes, I'll include The Road Runner Show bumpers) do you enjoy the most?

Personally, I like Rushing Roulette more. That's the closest we're ever going to get from a Road Runner cartoon that Chuck Jones wasn't involved in.

Sugar and Spies, however, I don't like quite as much. Probably because a lot of the "rules" were broken in this one (seriously, the Road Runner used his brain for the entire short than just one gag!).

As for the bumpers, well, they're bumpers, what did you had in mind? Some of them were nice though.

Well, anything you guys what to add before I get stale? :p

[Brandon Panther]

I voted Rushing Roulette although I don't remember many of the gags from that cartoon. The only thing I remember from that short is that the music was a lot better than in the Larriva shorts.

Even though McKimson directed the gags for "Look Before you Beep", shouldn't Matthew Hunter get a co-direction credit for that?

[Glowworm]

I always had a weakness for "Sugar and Spies" I loved Wile E.'s spy outfit!

[The "Chase"]

I voted Rushing Roulette although I don't remember many of the gags from that cartoon. The only thing I remember from that short is that the music was a lot better than in the Larriva shorts.

Even though McKimson directed the gags for "Look Before you Beep", shouldn't Matthew Hunter get a co-direction credit for that?

Well, maybe THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV5mX0n3Elc) will help!

Personally, I put that title in so some people who saw it on the blog won't be to confused of what I said.

As for direction, I'm not sure. Say Matt, if you're reading this, should I give you a co-director credit on the top post?

[Brandon Panther]

Yeah, Rushing Roulette is about as good as I remembered it. The only scene that stuck in my mind was the gag with the cannon/photo booth. I always thought it was well executed.

McKimson does break the rule of the Road Runner fighting against the Coyote, but honestly, only fool would expect McKimson to follow through with Jones' conventions completely, without going his own way. Besides Jones broke his own RR rules occasionally, something many people tend to forget.

I love the score on the theme for the opening titles. It sounds WAY better here, than it did in any of the Larriva cartoons. I really wish they had used that version of the theme for all the DFE-produced RR shorts.

This cartoon also has some decent animation, and the characters are drawn pretty faithfully to Jones' designs. I'd say Rushing Roulette is the best McKimson RR short IMO.

[J Lee]

Take out the railroad hand car gag, and "Rushing Roulette" does stay faithful to the Jones style and stands up OK to Chuck's lesser RR efforts. It's also got a couple of gag-after-the-gag bits that Jones and Maltese did all the time and that Larriva's cartoons almost always lacked or executed poorly -- the floating photo in the camera/rifle gag and the Coyote's cracking eyes at the end of the mirror gag. (It's interesting that Bob's first RR cartoon, done after all the Jones' efforts, stays close to that style, while his second, coming after the Larriva RRs does the same thing as several of Rudy's cartoons in trying to tie all the gags into a single theme).

[Speedy Boris]

My favorite gag in "Rushing Roulette" is when Wile pushes a boulder off a tall ledge but it keeps chipping off the bottom of his ledge. When he's on the ground, you think he's run over by a truck, but they take the gag even farther by showing that he ducked down the manhole just in time. But even then, he has bad luck because the boulder rolls over the manhole, trapping him inside. :D

Still gotta go with "Sugar and Spies", though. I dig the recurring Walter Greene melodies and I like most of the gags. It's so silly to see a cactus fall asleep from Wile's sleeping gas. I also liked Wile doing loop de loops chasing RR.

One moment always bugged me in "Spies", though: When Coyote ejects himself from the car the first time, he wouldn't keep the same falling momentum as the car's speed and land back in it. I know it's a cartoon, but come on.

[J. A. Boschen]

Its a toss up or me as there not really anyting special the way Jones' are, but music score related I would have o go with Sugar and Spies.

[AardvarkDog]

I'd go for Super and Spies. It had some better animation and faster pacing than the rest of the series as well as a wholly original music score.

[oceansoul]

Wow, the post-64 WB hype at its best again. :rolleyes:

[speedy fast]

I voted for Sugar and Spies.

[angilbas]

One moment always bugged me in "Spies", though: When Coyote ejects himself from the car the first time, he wouldn't keep the same falling momentum as the car's speed and land back in it. I know it's a cartoon, but come on.

This gag spoofed a series of Hertz commercials ("Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat!"). In the example below from around 1964, the people glide in at the end.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLSKtgf5AD4


-Tony

[Sogturtle]

Take out the railroad hand car gag, and "Rushing Roulette" does stay faithful to the Jones style and stands up OK to Chuck's lesser RR efforts. It's also got a couple of gag-after-the-gag bits that Jones and Maltese did all the time and that Larriva's cartoons almost always lacked or executed poorly -- the floating photo in the camera/rifle gag and the Coyote's cracking eyes at the end of the mirror gag. (It's interesting that Bob's first RR cartoon, done after all the Jones' efforts, stays close to that style, while his second, coming after the Larriva RRs does the same thing as several of Rudy's cartoons in trying to tie all the gags into a single theme).

J Lee and all~

Although something in me has always liked the silly notion of 'Wile E. as a 60's parody super spy':p, "Sugar And Spies" is barely distinguishable to me from a Larriva Road Runner. (But hey! One minute of spy-parody TV series 'Get Smart' is far preferable to all of "Sugar And Spies";) ).
Like the Larriva toons "Sugar And Spies" breaks the style laid down by Jones over and over (despite whatever good gags there are). Think back, was there EVER a Jones Coyote & Road Runner cartoon where the Coyote WORE a costume for the ENTIRE cartoon??!?!:eek: The answer is no there wasn't, just a scene here or there, but NEVER an entire cartoon. Soooo the whole underlying premise of "Sugar And Spies" breaks with Chuck's style in the "real" series of cartoons. And looking at it dispassionately I don't see much to distinguish the animation from that in the Larriva cartoons (my hunch has been that it was meant to be made at Format by Larriva but that something happened).

And a LARGE part of "Sugar And Spies" similarity to the Larriva/Format output is easily laid at the door of the storyman who was not a regular Warner (or DePatie-Freleng) writer, but instead one Tom Dagenais. Nothing like throwing an unfamiliar storyman at a pair of characters where the slightest deviation LEAPS out from the screen.

Compare this to the fact that the storyman for "Rushing Roulette" was authentic (former) Warner man David Detiege (yeah he was probably the worst WB storyman ever;) ). But in the case of "Rushing Roulette" he showed that he had been paying close attention to Jones' classic cartoons and came through with a pretty-darned-good imitation for McKimson to work from. I've long been of the opinion that if you remove the credits from "Rushing Roulette" and showed it to an AVERAGE AUDIENCE along with authentic Jones' Road Runners that most audience members wouldn't detect the difference (except perhaps to say it wasn't quite as funny).

With all that :p in mind, I have to rate "Rushing Roulette" as the easy winner over "Sugar And Spies". And to be blunt I rate the compiled 'bumpers' cartoon "Look Before You Beep" as being FAR better than "Sugar And Spies".

[*I failed to ever compliment Matthew Hunter for his fine job of assembling "Look Before You Beep", that was something that had screamed out to be done for forty years:cool: . So hopefully you're reading this, Great job Matthew!!!:cool: ]

[The "Chase"]

J Lee and all~

Although something in me has always liked the silly notion of 'Wile E. as a 60's parody super spy':p, "Sugar And Spies" is barely distinguishable to me from a Larriva Road Runner. (But hey! One minute of spy-parody TV series 'Get Smart' is far preferable to all of "Sugar And Spies";) ).
Like the Larriva toons "Sugar And Spies" breaks the style laid down by Jones over and over (despite whatever good gags there are). Think back, was there EVER a Jones Coyote & Road Runner cartoon where the Coyote WORE a costume for the ENTIRE cartoon??!?!:eek: The answer is no there wasn't, just a scene here or there, but NEVER an entire cartoon. Soooo the whole underlying premise of "Sugar And Spies" breaks with Chuck's style in the "real" series of cartoons. And looking at it dispassionately I don't see much to distinguish the animation from that in the Larriva cartoons (my hunch has been that it was meant to be made at Format by Larriva but that something happened).

And a LARGE part of "Sugar And Spies" similarity to the Larriva/Format output is easily laid at the door of the storyman who was not a regular Warner (or DePatie-Freleng) writer, but instead one Tom Dagenais. Nothing like throwing an unfamiliar storyman at a pair of characters where the slightest deviation LEAPS out from the screen.

Compare this to the fact that the storyman for "Rushing Roulette" was authentic (former) Warner man David Detiege (yeah he was probably the worst WB storyman ever;) ). But in the case of "Rushing Roulette" he showed that he had been paying close attention to Jones' classic cartoons and came through with a pretty-darned-good imitation for McKimson to work from. I've long been of the opinion that if you remove the credits from "Rushing Roulette" and showed it to an AVERAGE AUDIENCE along with authentic Jones' Road Runners that most audience members wouldn't detect the difference (except perhaps to say it wasn't quite as funny).

With all that in mind, I have to rate "Rushing Roulette" as the easy winner over "Sugar And Spies". And to be blunt I rate the compiled 'bumpers' cartoon "Look Before You Beep" as being FAR better than "Sugar And Spies".


And this is why I don't like Sugar and Spies and perfer Rushing Roulette. Thanks Soggie, you explain why I can't put my finger (no, not there!) on that cartoon.

I mean, after seeing it again, giving it a chance, pretty much the only good thing about this one was that the animation was nice to look at, and the music was refreshing, but seeing the Road Runner being the reason the Coyote keep failing in this one (2/3rds of the cartoon) just doesn't feel right for me. Then again, like you mention, this was written by one of the story guys from Format Films (same guy who did Chaser on The Rocks, for one thing), so it should be no surprise.

And hey, it's helps that Dave actually worked on a Chuck Jones short (COMpressed Hare).

From the Hare to the Tortoise.

[angilbas]

I prefer Rushing Roulette over Sugar and Spies -- the former has better animation and storytelling. When Wile E. is about to try his solar mirror on the rushing bird, his eyebrows wriggle better than they do after he takes possession of the spy kit in Sugar (not that the latter is without merit -- McKimson's timing makes even the lamer gags bearable, and he slips in the Univac computer from To Hare Is Human). Both films have better backgrounds than any Larriva RR -- almost as if Maurice Noble did a little uncredited coaching.

In Rushing, Warren Batchelder was the only animator from McKimson's pre-1964 era. I think he animated Wile E. posing at the cannon, worked over the "Sproing Boots" sequence, and let the bird startle him off the handcart. In Sugar, he may have done the bit where the bird ducks under Wile E.'s stool to let the missile blast someone.


-Tony

[oceansoul]

I believe, that the Road Runner series were excellent until the '54 shutdown. This means the first 7 shorts from "Fast and Furry-ous" to "Guided Muscle" were indeed great. I think the series should have ended there, a good ending about the Coyote fed up by chasing "Mimi".

"Gee whiz-z-z" started a new era from Jones, and the animation became minimalist, and most jokes became too predictable and repetitive. While I like that cartoon itself, the follow-ups were less than satisfying. After Gee whiz-z-z, I can think of only 3 good Road Runner shorts in general. One of them is definately "Zoom and Bored", the yellow sky era starter, which have some nice spins in the series, also a very memorable entry. Than we had "Hopalong Casualty", which is only good at one gag (and especially one moment, when the coyote recognises what went wrong with the pills) and then the Oscar-nominee "Beep prepared", with its very good atmosphere.

There are some nice moments in other cartoons, for example I think "Hip Hip Hurry" and "Lickety Splat" are decent ones, but nothing is really great.

IMO Coyote should have "died" in Beep Prepared forever, everything came after that was a medicrity at the very best. Neither McKimson nor Larriva did a good enough job to keep the series' standards, so this is just a talk now which is more tolerable. Talking about "good" in relation to post-64 RR shorts is a huge euphemism.

[Speedy Boris]

Than we had "Hopalong Casualty", which is only good at one gag (and especially one moment, when the coyote recognises what went wrong with the pills) I would also add to that the bit at the very end when he FINALLY recovers from his earthquakes, composes himself, and then happily walks to the right... only to immediately fall off a cliff. Not only is it hilarious because of the timing and the music choice, but it's funny because you think he's finally going to catch a break but, nope. :D

[larriva9/11]

Personally, I've found that "Sugar & Spies" registers as a trendier, more stylish followup to "Clippety Clobbered"--spy kit substituted for chemistry kit.

I've long been of the opinion that if you remove the credits from "Rushing Roulette" and showed it to an AVERAGE AUDIENCE along with authentic Jones' Road Runners that most audience members wouldn't detect the difference (except perhaps to say it wasn't quite as funny).

Well, other than the not-quite-as-funny business, they might on several counts: Lava's music, the absence of Latin terms, and a noticeably "tighter" pace and tone.

But of course, if there's any one, all too easily taken-for-granted (especially here) detail that has ensured the immortality of "Rushing Roulette" among average MM/LT fans, it's that it--as opposed to anything by Jones--is the RR short with the "Those Endearing Young Charms" piano gag--and perhaps the most perfectly, memorably pared-down rendition of the gag (i.e. no extraneous dialogue) in WB history.

[Marty26]

I believe, that the Road Runner series were excellent until the '54 shutdown. This means the first 7 shorts from "Fast and Furry-ous" to "Guided Muscle" were indeed great. I think the series should have ended there, a good ending about the Coyote fed up by chasing "Mimi".

"Gee whiz-z-z" started a new era from Jones, and the animation became minimalist, and most jokes became too predictable and repetitive. While I like that cartoon itself, the follow-ups were less than satisfying. After Gee whiz-z-z, I can think of only 3 good Road Runner shorts in general. One of them is definately "Zoom and Bored", the yellow sky era starter, which have some nice spins in the series, also a very memorable entry. Than we had "Hopalong Casualty", which is only good at one gag (and especially one moment, when the coyote recognises what went wrong with the pills) and then the Oscar-nominee "Beep prepared", with its very good atmosphere.

There are some nice moments in other cartoons, for example I think "Hip Hip Hurry" and "Lickety Splat" are decent ones, but nothing is really great.

IMO Coyote should have "died" in Beep Prepared forever, everything came after that was a medicrity at the very best. Neither McKimson nor Larriva did a good enough job to keep the series' standards, so this is just a talk now which is more tolerable. Talking about "good" in relation to post-64 RR shorts is a huge euphemism.

Wasn't There They Go-Go-Go! actually the cartoon that started the Yellow Sky trend?

Anyway, I disagree. I really like Whoa, Be-Gone! for both its childhood memories and some rather catchy music. Lickety-Splat is notable for its great running gag. And Zoom At The Top would've also been okay if it weren't for that annoying main theme song (one of Milt Franklyn's most irritating IMO).

[Marty26]

I would also add to that the bit at the very end when he FINALLY recovers from his earthquakes, composes himself, and then happily walks to the right... only to immediately fall off a cliff. Not only is it hilarious because of the timing and the music choice, but it's funny because you think he's finally going to catch a break but, nope. :D

The Christmas present joke was also great. The way Wile E., while wrapped in that gift box, got back up and walked "back to the drawing board" was hilarious.

[Matthew Hunter]

[B][I][COLOR=#0000ff][*I failed to ever compliment Matthew Hunter for his fine job of assembling "Look Before You Beep", that was something that had screamed out to be done for forty years:cool: . So hopefully you're reading this, Great job Matthew!!!:cool: ]

Thanks, Sogturtle. I had a lot of fun editing that stuff together. I think the real credit goes to Jon Cooke for somehow obtaining all those little clips and sending them to me so that I could compile them. I only hope that the original source material can be found and edited in a similar way by Warner Bros. for DVD someday.

That said, I think "Sugar and Spies" was McKimson's best Roadrunner, though "Rushing Roulette" was good too. I know Chuck Jones had a set of "rules" for the series, but I think McKimson breaking those rules and giving the cartoon a "theme" was refreshing.

And to refresh the memories of those reading this, here is the Roadrunner bumper cartoon:

"Look Before You Beep" (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x621bl_look-before-you-beep_shortfilms)

-Matthew

[Speedy Boris]

And Zoom At The Top would've also been okay if it weren't for that annoying main theme song (one of Milt Franklyn's most irritating IMO). Aw man, I like the frenetic title card for Zoom at the Top.

[oceansoul]

Wasn't There They Go-Go-Go! actually the cartoon that started the Yellow Sky trend?

Anyway, I disagree. I really like Whoa, Be-Gone! for both its childhood memories and some rather catchy music. Lickety-Splat is notable for its great running gag. And Zoom At The Top would've also been okay if it weren't for that annoying main theme song (one of Milt Franklyn's most irritating IMO).

Neither of them are impressive for me. I always found the overrated helmet gag too artifical and pretentious in Whoa-be-gone. Zoom at the top? I can't think any memorable moment of that one quite frankly.

Actually, Gee Whiz-z-z used the yellow sky at first, but for some unknown reason Chuck changed the palette consistently throughout that cartoon. There they... had a yellow sky, but it was Zoom and Bored which definately introduced the modern style. Not just the yellow sky, but the crescent shaped bushes, white milky clouds. The next seven cartoons didn't use more than three colours in the background.

[Dave Mackey]

Definitely "Sugar and Spies" - mostly for its peppy Walter Greene score. Greene generally kicked all the series he worked on in the pants with his more modern orchestrations.

The McKimson Roadrunners also benefitted from having the regular DePatie-Freleng crew members (as opposed to the Format Films gang) on board, including two of his old WB crew, Warren Batchelder and Ted Bonnicksen.

[Sogturtle]

Thanks, Sogturtle. I had a lot of fun editing that stuff together. I think the real credit goes to Jon Cooke for somehow obtaining all those little clips and sending them to me so that I could compile them. I only hope that the original source material can be found and edited in a similar way by Warner Bros. for DVD someday.

That said, I think "Sugar and Spies" was McKimson's best Roadrunner, though "Rushing Roulette" was good too. I know Chuck Jones had a set of "rules" for the series, but I think McKimson breaking those rules and giving the cartoon a "theme" was refreshing.

And to refresh the memories of those reading this, here is the Roadrunner bumper cartoon:

"Look Before You Beep" (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x621bl_look-before-you-beep_shortfilms)

-Matthew

Matthew~

Yeah I know that Jon was greatly to credit for having recorded the RR bummpers and supplying them to you, but you were the one to assemble them together (as any number of us had wanted to see done). Hence my credit to you... But hats off to our good friend Jon as well!

Hmmm... If the 'Teletoon' logo was erased off of them then they'd be even closer to 'real'.


NOW, when are you going to tackle assembling those RR clips that Jones made for "The Electric Company" into one (or two) coherent "new" Chuck Jones Coyote and Road Runner cartoon(s)??? ;) Then after that comes the group of RR 'psa's' that Chuck made in the early '70's, just BEGGING to be put together...:cool:

[I'm suddenly having a mental image of Warners becoming aware of the finished "new but authentic classic Warner director RR cartoons" and 'borrowing' them kit and kaboodle first for theatrical release and then on to DVD!!! (It'll give their legal dept. some work clearing the ownership of those clips!:D ]