Coyote vs. Acme

“Coyote vs. Acme” like its title character, has proved to be unstoppable. This delightful tribute to the madcap and enduringly popular world of Looney Tunes was originally conceived as a humorous New Yorker essay by Ian Frazier in 1990. Frazier was a fan of the publication “American Lawyer” and decided to compose a legal complaint filed on behalf of Coyote against the company that was a serial offender in the categories of safety and effectiveness of consumer products. “Mr. Coyote states that on eighty-five separate occasions he has purchased of the Acme Company (hereinafter, “Defendant”), through that company’s mail-order department, certain products which did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labelling.” 

It was optioned for a movie but nothing happened for more than 30 years, when it was filmed by the studio behind the Looney Tunes cartoons, Warner Brothers.

And then Warner CEO David Zaslav did to the movie what Acme’s products did to Coyote: he blew it up, deciding it was better for the balance sheet as a tax write-off than as a theatrical release. Outraged fans protested. The film was picked up for distribution by plucky newcomer Ketchup Entertainment, later joined by Legion M.*

The movie is enormous fun, with deep understanding and affection for Looney Tunes, its characters and its absurd exploration of the eternal struggles of existence. Fudd will never shoot Bugs. Sylvester will never catch Tweety. And perhaps the saga of Coyote and Road Runner is the most existential, stripped down with no dialogue and always set in the spare southwestern desert.

Chuck Jones’ rules for Wile E. Coyote and Road Runners are legendary and deceptively simple. Coyote could stop any time, but he is, in today’s terms, obssessed with the Road Runner he will never catch. His failures are always the result of his own efforts, even hubris. Road Runner does nothing but run on the road and say “Beep Beep.” He never tries to outsmart Coyote or harm him in any way, as, for example, Bugs Bunny does to would-be hunter Elmer Fudd. Coyote is failed every time by the company that provides all of his equipment, Acme. The super-magnet. The parachute. The rocket-powered roller skates. Every time, they fail in spectacular fashion, often leaving Coyote falling off a cliff. Sometimes he is briefly suspended in the air before realizing that once again he is about to plummet. We stay at cliff level while he falls until we witness a puff of dust far, far below.

Coyote hires a personal injury law firm headed by Kevin Avery (“SNL” alum Will Forte). Their specialty is defective products from Acme, and they settle all cases quickly for a few hundred dollars. When a clerk mistakenly files suit for hundreds of purchases instead of just the rocket roller skates, it escalates to the attention of Acme general counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and CEO Foghorn Leghorn (Eric Bauza, who, like his predecessor Mel Blanc, provides almost all of the voices). This threat to the company must be extinguished.

A lot of the classic Looney Tunes characters show up, and I won’t spoil which one is called as a witness to discuss Acme’s secret “Project Sisyphus,” the name a sly referene to Coyote’s perpetual inability to achieve his only objective. The integration of the cartoon and real-life characters and environments is seamless, truly impressive. The human characters are bland and underwritten compared to the cartoon characters (Lana Condor and Tone Bell are sadly wasted) and the film would benefit from being a little shorter. But it is colorful and often hilarious and its satire about the state of capitalism is just the kind of insoucient, make fun of the hand that feeds you humor that the denizens of Termite Terrace specialized in. Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Frank Tashlin and others would love this and be very glad that we never have to say, “That’s All, Folks!” to the antics of Looney Tunes.

*I have a small investment in Legion M, along with tens of thousands of other movie fans.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of cartoon violenct, but, as discussed in the film, all the cartoon immediately bounce back from whatever happens to them. There is some schoolyard language and brief potty humor.

Family discussion: Why did law school classmates Kevin and Buddy have such different careers? What do you think about Foghorn Leghorn’s explanation for Project Sisyphus? How should products be tested? Which is your favorite Looney Tunes character and why?

If you like this, try: “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and of course the Looney Tunes cartoons