Wile E. Coyote Information First appearance Fast and Furry-ous (September 17, 1949) Voiced by Male Full name Wile Ethelbert Coyote Aliases The Coyote

Don Coyote

Kelsey Coyote Species Coyote Gender Male Relatives Tech E. Coyote (descendant) Nationality American [Source]

"I am more muscular, more cunning, faster, and larger than you are, and I'm a genius." ―Wile E. Coyote

Wile Ethelbert Coyote is a fictional character from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. In the cartoons, Wile repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner, a fast-running ground bird, but is never successful. Wile, instead of his species' animal instincts, uses absurdly complex contraptions (sometimes in the manner of Rube Goldberg) and elaborate plans to pursue his prey, which always comically backfire with Wile normally getting injured by the slapstick humor.

The character was created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Bros., while the template for his adventures was the work of writer Michael Maltese. The character stars in a long-running series of theatrical cartoon shorts (the first 16 of which were written by Maltese) and occasional made-for-television cartoons. It was originally meant to parody chase cartoons like Tom and Jerry, but became popular in its own right.

Wile appears as an occasional antagonist of Bugs Bunny in five shorts from 1952 to 1963: Operation: Rabbit, To Hare Is Human, Rabbit's Feat, Compressed Hare, and Hare-Breadth Hurry. While he is generally silent in the Coyote-Road Runner shorts, he speaks with a refined accent in these solo outings (except for Hare-Breadth Hurry), introducing himself as "Wile E. Coyote — super genius", voiced with an upper-class accent by Mel Blanc.

To date, 48 cartoons have been made featuring this character (including the three CGI shorts), the majority by Chuck Jones.

TV Guide included Wile E. Coyote in their 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.

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Creation

Jones based Wile E. on Mark Twain's book Roughing It, in which Twain described the coyote as "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton" that is "a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry." Jones said he created the Coyote-Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional "cat and mouse" cartoons such as MGM's Tom and Jerry, which Jones would work on as a director later in his career. Jones modelled Wile's appearance on fellow animator Ken Harris.

The Coyote's name of Wile E. is a play on the word "wily." The "E" stands for Ethelbert. Wile's surname is routinely pronounced with a long "e" (/kaɪˈoʊtiː/ ky-OH-tee), but in one cartoon short, To Hare Is Human, Wile E. is heard pronouncing it with a diphthong (/kaɪˈoʊteɪ/ ky-OH-tay). Early model sheets for the character prior to his initial appearance (in Fast and Furry-ous) identified him as "Don Coyote", a play on Don Quixote.

Acme Corporation

Wile E. often obtains complex and ludicrous devices from a mail-order company, the fictitious Acme Corporation, which he hopes will help him catch the Road Runner. The devices invariably fail in improbable and spectacular ways. Whether this is result of operator error or faulty merchandise is debatable. Wile usually ends up burnt to a crisp, squashed flat, or at the bottom of a canyon (some shorts show him suffering a combination of these fates). Occasionally Acme products do work quite well (e.g. the Dehydrated Boulders, Bat-Man Outfit, Rocket Sled, Jet Powered Roller Skates, or Earthquake Pills). In this case their success often works against Wile. For example, the Dehydrated Boulder, upon hydration, becomes so large that it crushes him, or Wile finds out that the Earthquake Pills bottle label's fine print states that the pills aren't effective on road runners, right after he swallows the whole bottle, thinking they're ineffective. Other times he uses items that are implausible, such as a superhero outfit, thinking he could fly wearing it. (He cannot.)

How Wile acquires these products without money is not explained until the 2003 movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action, in which he is shown to be an employee of Acme. In a Tiny Toon Adventures episode, Wile E. makes mention of his protégé Calamity Coyote possessing an unlimited Acme credit card account, which might serve as another possible explanation. Wile E. being a "beta tester" for Acme has been another suggested explanation. Wile E. also uses war equipment such as cannons, rocket launchers, grenades, and bayonets which are "generic", not Acme products. In a Cartoon Network commercial promoting Looney Tunes, they ask Wile why he insists on purchasing products from the Acme Corporation when all previous contraptions have backfired on him, to which he responds with a wooden sign (right after another item blows up in his face): "Good line of Credit."

In Whoa, Be-Gone!, after successfully avoiding being hit by his own rocket, the coyote is run over by an "ACME" truck emerging from a tunnel.

The company name was likely chosen for its irony (acme means the highest point, as of achievement or development). Also, a company named ACME would have shown up in the first part of a telephone directory. Some people have said ACME comes from the common expansion A (or American) Company that Makes (or Making) Everything, a backronym of the word. The origin of the name might also be related to the Acme company that built a fine line of animation stands and optical printers; however, the most likely explanation is the Sears house brand called Acme that appeared in their ubiquitous early 1900s mail-order catalogs.

In two Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short films, Ajax was used instead of Acme Corporation. In some others, the names "A-1" and "Ace" and "Fleet-Foot" are used.

Later cartoons

The original Chuck Jones productions ended in 1963 after Jack L. Warner closed the Warner Bros. animation studio. War and Pieces, the last Wile E. Coyote short directed by Jones, was released in mid-1964. By that time, David DePatie and veteran director Friz Freleng had formed DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, moved into the facility just emptied by Warner, and signed a license with Warner Bros. to produce cartoons for the big studio to distribute.

Their first cartoon to feature the Wile was The Wild Chase, directed by Freleng in 1965. The premise was a race between the bird and "the fastest mouse in all of Mexico," Speedy Gonzales, with Wile and Sylvester the Cat each trying to make a meal out of his usual target. Much of the material was animation rotoscoped from earlier Coyote and Gonzales shorts, with the other characters added in.

In total, DePatie-Freleng produced 14 Wile E. Coyote cartoons, two of which were directed by Robert McKimson (Rushing Roulette, 1965, and Sugar and Spies, 1966). Due to cuts in the number of frames used per second in animated features, many of these final Wile E. Coyote features were cheap looking and jerky. Also, the music was very different and of poorer quality than the older features (a byproduct of incoming music director Bill Lava, who replaced the suddenly deceased Milt Franklyn and retired Carl Stalling and whose style clashed noticeably with his predecessors). That was disappointing to fans of the original shorts, and many felt it was the final death knell for animation.

The remaining eleven were subcontracted to Format Films and directed under ex-Warner Bros. animator Rudy Larriva. The "Larriva Eleven", as the series was later called, lacked the fast-paced action of the Chuck Jones originals and was poorly received by critics. In Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin calls the series "witless in every sense of the word." In addition, except for the planet Earth scene at the tail end of "Highway Runnery", there was only one clip of Wile's fall to the ground, used over and over again. These cartoons can easily be distinguished from Chuck Jones' cartoons, because they feature the modern "Abstract WB" Looney Tunes opening and closing sequences, and they use the same music cues over and over again in the cartoons, also by Lava. Only one of those eleven cartoons — "Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner" — had music that was actually scored instead of the same music cues. Another clear clue is that Jones' "Laws" for the characters were not followed with any significant fidelity, nor were there Latin phrases used when introducing the characters.

With Bugs Bunny

Wile E. Coyote has also unsuccessfully attempted to catch and eat Bugs Bunny in another series of cartoons. In these cartoons, Wile takes on the guise of a self-described "super genius" and speaks with a smooth, generic upper-class accent provided by Mel Blanc. While he is incredibly intelligent, he is limited by technology and his own short-sighted arrogance, and is thus often easily outsmarted, a somewhat physical symbolism of "street smarts" besting "book smarts".

In one short (Hare-Breadth Hurry, 1963), Bugs — with the help of "speed pills" — even stands in for Road Runner, who has "sprained a giblet", and carries out the duties of outsmarting the hungry scavenger. That is the only Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote short in which Wile does not speak, and to use the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoon formula. As usual Wile E. Coyote ends up falling down a canyon and fails to catch and eat Bugs Bunny, much like how he fails to catch and eat the Road Runner.

In a later, made-for-TV short, which had a young Elmer Fudd chasing a young Bugs, Elmer also falls down a canyon. On the way down he is overtaken by Wile E. Coyote who shows a sign telling Elmer to get out of the way for someone who is more experienced in falling.

Other appearances

Chuck Jones' 1979 movie The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie features many of Jone's characters, including Wile E. and Road Runner. However, whereas most of the featured cartoons are single shorts or sometimes isolated clips, the footage of Wile E. and Road Runner is taken from several different cartoons and compiled to run as one extended sequence.

Wile E. and the Road Runner have two cameo roles in Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit first silhouetted when the elevator maneuvered by Droopy goes up, and then during the final scene in Marvin Acme's factory with several other studio characters.

Wile E. and the Road Runner appear as members of the Tune Squad team in Space Jam. There, Wile E. rigs one of the basketball hoops with dynamite to prevent one of the Monstars from scoring a slam dunk. And during practice before Lola Bunny shows up, Wile E. gets his hands on a basketball, but the Road Runner steals the ball from him, and heads into a painted image. But Wile E. doesn't know it's a painted image, and he runs right into it.

Wile E. appears as an employee of the Acme Corporation in Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Wile E. also makes a brief cameo in Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, being held by the neck by Taz holding up a sign that says "Mother" before they both fall in the sea.

Wile E. is an employee at Daffy Duck's store, in the film Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas. He is seen staring hungrily at a vending machine but Daffy does not allow him to eat during work hours.

Wile appeared in many different advertisements for Shell, Honey Nut Cheerios and adverts for the Energizer Bunny. In 2012, both Wile E. and Road Runner appeared in a GEICO commercial, in which the wandering gecko is lost. While he is doing so, he nearly gets crushed with an anvil, and then a piano. Just after this happens, Road Runner runs up to him, says his trademark phrase, "Beep beep!" and goes on his way. The gecko then gets confused about the Road Runner's catchphrase by saying "Meep, meep." Suddenly, Wile E., chasing the Road Runner, runs up, sees the gecko and imagines him as his dinner, but while doing so, is driven into the ground by a falling ACME safe. The commercial ends with the gecko concluding, "What a strange place."

Wile also appeared in the webtoons "Wild King Dumb", "Judge Granny: Case 2" and "Wile E. Coyote Ugly" on looneytunes.com.

Wile E. appears as a defendant on the show Night Court and is subjected to a stern lecture by Judge Harold T. Stone, who tells him to "go to a restaurant, a supermarket, but leave that poor bird alone!" and finds Wile E. guilty of harassment.

Spin-offs

In another series of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons, Chuck Jones used the character design (model sheets and personality) of Wile E. Coyote as "Ralph Wolf". In this series, Ralph continually attempts to steal sheep from a flock being guarded by the eternally vigilant Sam Sheepdog. As with the Road Runner and Coyote series, Ralph Wolf uses all sorts of wild inventions and schemes to steal the sheep, but he is continually foiled by the sheepdog. In a move seen by many as a self-referential gag, Ralph Wolf continually tries to steal the sheep not because he is a fanatic (as Wile E. Coyote was), but because it is his job. In every cartoon, he and the sheepdog punch a timeclock, exchange pleasantries, go to work, take a lunch break, and clock out to go home for the day, all according to a factory-like blowing whistle. The most prominent difference between Wile and Ralph, aside from their locales, is that Wile E. has a black nose and Ralph has a red nose.

Comic books

Wile E. was called Kelsey Coyote in his comic book debut, a Henery Hawk story in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies #91 (May 1949). He only made a couple of other appearances at this time and did not have his official name yet that was used since Operation: Rabbit (his second appearance). The first appearance of the Road Runner in a comic book was in Bugs Bunny Vacation Funnies #8 (August 1958) published by Dell Comics. The feature is titled "Beep Beep the Road Runner" and the story "Desert Dessert". It presents itself as the first meeting between Beep Beep and Wile E. (whose mailbox reads "Wile E. Coyote, Inventor and Genius"), and introduces the Road Runner's wife, Matilda, and their three newly hatched sons (though Matilda would soon disappear from the comics). This story established the convention that the Road Runner family talked in rhyme in the comics (The Road Runner also talked in rhyme in many children book adoptions of the cartoons).

Dell initially published a dedicated "Beep Beep the Road Runner" comic as part of Four Color Comics #918, 1008, and 1046 before launching a separate series for the character numbered #4–14 (1960–1962), with the three try-out issues counted as the first three numbers. After a hiatus, Gold Key Comics took over the character with issues #1–88 (1966–1984). During the 1960s, the artwork was done by Pete Alvarado and Phil DeLara; from 1966–1969, the Gold Key issues consisted of Dell reprints. Afterward, new stories began to appear, initially drawn by Alvarado and De Lara before Jack Manning became the main artist for the title. New and reprinted Beep Beep stories also appeared in Golden Comics Digest and Gold Key's revival of Looney Tunes in the 1970s. During this period, Wile E.'s middle name was revealed to be "Ethelbert" in the story "The Greatest of E's" in issue #53 (cover-date September 1975) of Gold Key Comics' licensed comic book, Beep Beep the Road Runner.

Wile E. also make appearances in the DC Comics Looney Tunes title. Wile E. was able to speak in some of his appearances in these comics.

Television

Wile E. Coyote appeared on Saturday mornings as the stars of his own TV series, The Road Runner Show, from September 1966 to September 1968, on CBS. At this time it was merged with The Bugs Bunny Show to become The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Show, running from 1968 to 1985. The show was later seen on ABC until 2000, and on Global until 2001. The theme song of the TV series went as follows:

If you're on a highway and Road Runner goes Beep-Beep, Just step aside or you might end up in a heap. Road Runner, Road Runner runs on the road all day, Even the Coyote can't make him change his ways.

Chorus:

Road Runner, The Coyote's after you! Road Runner, If he catches you, you're through!

(repeat of chorus)

That Coyote is really a crazy clown; When will he learn that he never can mow him down? Poor little Road Runner never bothers anyone; Just running down the road's his idea of having fun!

(non-verbal chorus and repeat of chorus)

In the 1970s, Chuck Jones directed some Wile E. Coyote short films for the educational children's TV series The Electric Company. These short cartoons used Wile and the Road Runner to display words for children to read, but the cartoons themselves are a refreshing return to Jones' glory days.

At the end of Bugs Bunny's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny (the initial sequence of Chuck Jones' TV special, Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over), Bugs mentions to the audience that he and Elmer may have been the first pair of characters to have chase scenes in these cartoons, but then a pint-sized baby Wile E. Coyote (wearing a diaper and holding a small knife and fork) runs right in front of Bugs, chasing a gold-colored, mostly unhatched (except for the tail, which is sticking out) Road Runner egg, which is running rapidly while some high-pitched "beep, beep" noises can be heard. This was followed by the full-fledged Runner/Coyote short, Soup or Sonic. Earlier in that story, while kid Elmer was falling from a cliff, Wile E. Coyote's adult self tells him to move over and leave falling to people who know how to do it and then he falls, followed by Elmer.

In the 1980s, ABC began showing many Warner Bros. shorts, but in highly edited form, because the unedited versions were supposedly too violent. Many scenes integral to the stories were taken out, including scenes in which Wile E. landed at the bottom of the canyon after having fallen from a cliff, or had a boulder or anvil actually make contact with him. In almost all WB animated features, scenes where a character's face was burnt and black, resembling blackface, were removed, as were animated characters smoking cigarettes, or even simulated cigarettes. Some cigar smoking scenes were left in. The unedited versions of these shorts (with the exception of ones with blackface) were not seen again until Cartoon Network, and later Boomerang, began showing them again in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since the release of the WB library of cartoons on DVD, Boomerang has stopped showing the cartoons, presumably to increase sales of the DVDs.

Though Wile E. Coyote isn't seen in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue he is mentioned by Bugs Bunny saying that he borrowed his time machine.

Wile E. and the Road Runner later appeared in several episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures. In this series, Wile E. (voiced in the Jim Reardon episode "Piece of Mind" by Joe Alaskey) was the dean of Acme Looniversity and the mentor of Calamity Coyote. In the episode "Piece of Mind", Wile E. narrates the life story of Calamity while Calamity is falling from the top of a tall skyscraper. In the direct-to-video movie Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, the Road Runner finally gets a taste of humiliation by getting run over by a mail truck that "brakes for coyotes."

Wile also seen in cameos in Animaniacs. He was in two "Slappy Squirrel" cartoons: "Bumbie's Mom" and "Little Old Slappy from Pasadena". In the latter the Road Runner gets another taste of humiliation when he is outrun by Slappy's car, and holds up a sign saying "I quit" — immediately afterward, Buttons, who was launched into the air during a previous gag, lands squarely on top of him. Wile E. appears in a The Wizard of Oz parody, dressed in his batsuit from one short, in a twister (tornado) funnel in "Buttons in Ows".

In a Cartoon Network TV ad about The Acme Hour, Wile E. Coyote utilized a pair of jet roller skates to catch the Road Runner and (quite surprisingly) didn't fail. While he was cooking his prey, it was revealed that the roller skates came from a generic brand. The ad said that other brand isn't the same thing.

Wile E. and Road Runner appeared in their toddler versions in Baby Looney Tunes, only in songs. However, they both had made a cameo in the episode, "Are We There Yet?", where Road Runner was seen out the window of Floyd's car with Wile E. chasing him.

Wile E. Coyote had a cameo as the true identity of an alien hunter (a parody of Predator) in the Duck Dodgers episode "K-9 Quarry," voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. In that episode, he was hunting Martian Commander X-2 and K-9.

In Loonatics Unleashed, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner's 28th century descendants are Tech E. Coyote and Rev Runner. Tech E. Coyote was the tech expert of the Loonatics (influenced by the past cartoons with many of the machines ordered by Wile E. from Acme), and has magnetic hands and the ability to molecularly regenerate himself (influenced by the many times in which Wile E. painfully failed to capture Roadrunner and then was shown to have miraculously recovered). Tech E. Coyote speaks, but does not have a British accent as Wile E. Coyote did. Ironically, Him and Rev get on rather well, despite the number of gadgets Tech designs in order to stop Rev talking. Also they have their moments where they don't get along. When friendship is shown it is often only from Rev to Tech, not the other way around; this could however be attributed to the fact that Tech has only the bare minimum of social skills. They are both portrayed as smart, but Tech is the better inventor and at times Rev was shown doing stupid things. References to ancestor's past are seen in the episode "Family Business" where the other Runners are wary of Tech and Tech relives the famous falling gags done in Coyote/Runner shorts.

In an episode of Taz-Mania, the Road Runner cartoons are parodied with Taz dressed as Road Runner and the character Willy Wombat dressed as Wile E. Coyote. Willy tries to catch Taz with Acme Roller Skates but fails, and Taz even says "Beep, beep".

Wile E. features in 3D computer animated cartoons or cartoon animation in Cartoon Network's new TV series The Looney Tunes Show. The CGI shorts were only included in season one but Wile E. and Road Runner still appeared throughout the series in 2D animation.

Wile E. appears in the TV series Wabbit, as Bugs Bunny's annoying, know-it-all neighbor and is voiced by JP Karliak.

3-D shorts

The character was scheduled to appear in seven 3-D short attached to Warner Bros. features. Three have been screened with features, while the rest serve as segments in season one of The Looney Tunes Show.

Video games

Several Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner-themed video games have been produced:

The arcade game was originally to have been a laserdisc-based title incorporating footage from the actual Road Runner cartoons. Atari eventually decided that the format was too unreliable (laserdisc-based games required a great deal of maintenance) and switched it to more conventional raster-based hardware.

In popular culture

In the film The Shining (1980), Danny and Wendy are watching the Road Runner on television, in their hotel room. Later on, when Jack Torrance chases Danny and Wendy through the hedges, Jack becomes Wile, who fails, while Wendy and Danny become the Road Runner, who successfully escapes to freedom.

Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner have been frequently referenced in popular culture. The Villain (directed by Hal Needham) is a parody of these animated shorts as well as being a spoof of westerns. In The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, Road Runner gets run down and dies, after which Wile commits suicide by shooting himself in the head with a prop gun.

Wile E. Coyote has appeared two times in Family Guy: his first episode, "I Never Met the Dead Man", depicts him riding in a car with Peter Griffin; when Peter runs over the Road Runner and asks if he hit "that ostrich", Wile E. tells him to keep going. In "PTV", Wile E. appears in a flashback when Peter offers a store credit when Wile E. claims a refund for a giant sling shot that "slammed me into a mountain".

Wile E. also appears on the DVD version of Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy in a segment called "Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die". In the segment, Wile E. finally manages to kill the Road Runner (by accident) and eats him for dinner, and then he has no idea what to do with the rest of his life because he has been "chasing that damn bird for almost 20 years". Wile E. becomes an alcoholic and is fired from his job as a waiter after having an outburst when he messes up an order. Wile E. almost commits suicide by catapulting into a cliff, but has a revelation and decides to be an evangelist.

Wile E. made a cameo in The Simpsons episode "Smoke on the Daughter" on the couch gag in which he paints a fake couch on the living room wall and leaves and the Simpsons then run into the wall as Maggie zooms in and says the Road Runner's catchphrase "Beep, beep!" The Simpsons has also referenced Wile E. and the Road Runner in several other episodes including "The Scorpion's Tale", which showed a real coyote chasing a real roadrunner.

Wile E. appears in the South Park episode "Imaginationland Episode III" in which he was rabid and marches among myriad other evil fictional characters to battle against the surviving good characters. The Looney Tunes characters who appeared with him included Marvin the Martian and Gossamer.

101 Dalmatians: The Series included a parody of the cartoons in the episode The Making Of..., where Cruella De Vil takes Wile's role, and Spot the Road Runner's.

Guitarist Mark Knopfler created a song called "Coyote" in homage to the cartoon shows of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, on the 2002 album The Ragpicker's Dream. The Tom Smith song "Operation Desert Storm", which won a Pegasus award for Best Fool Song in 1999, is about the different crazy ways Wile's plans fail.

Humorist Ian Frazier created the mock-legal prose piece "Coyote v. Acme", which is included in a book of the same name.

In 2009, a group of EMRTC engineers attempt to recreate Wile E. Coyote's failed contraptions on a TruTV series Man vs. Cartoon.

Wile E. appeared in the Mad segment "Meep! My Dad Says" as a father. In the sketch "RiOa", Road Runner finds a ring in his lunch and gets the power to fly as Wile E. gets hit on the head by an anvil. In "Body of Pwoof", Road Runner is dead and at a hospital and Elmer Fudd blames Wile E. for killing the Road Runner. In another Mad segment, Road Runner gets arrested for speeding and Wile E. gets arrested for using an illegal rocket.

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