by Nathaniel Williams

Created on: May 15, 2008   Last Updated: May 18, 2012

Is a debate even necessary? For years, we have witnessed the plots and plans of that one most faithful customer of the Acme Corporation. His schemes are as magnificent in their complexity as they are in their complete and total failure. Simply not catching the Road Runner would be enough pain (I mean seriously-what has he been eating if he can't catch his prey?). But his failure is always accompanied by a broad spectrum of physical abuse, a veritable cornucopia of pain and suffering. Smashing into cliff faces, being crushed by boulders, being blown to smithereens, running afoul of gravity time and time again...it would be tragic if it weren't so hilarious. Elmer Fudd has been shot a couple of times, leaving him with a blackened face, but his punishment mostly consists of falling for Bugs Bunny in drag. It may speak to some deep-seated psychological difficulties on the part of our speech-impaired hunter, but it does not compare with being compressed into some kind of spring or accordion and walking off somewhere. Where does he go? How does he get out of that shape? I think that what happens between scenes is so gut-wrenchingly tortuous that the merciful staff of Warner Brothers spare us the details. And after the unspeakable de-springifying process, he goes right back out and gets squashed, stretched, inflated or immolated beyond recognition all over again.

The deeper problem at the center of all this punishment is Wile E. Coyote's self-abuse, facilitated by that great enabler, the Acme Corporation. I think any company that sells high-grade es to animals should be looked into, especially in today's -conscious climate. How does an R and D team come up with tornado pills, and what kind of executive greenlights such a product? On top of that, what kind of person (or coyote) is so unflaggingly faithful to a company with a zero percent success rate? Most of us don't even give bad restaurants second chances, let alone strap rockets to our backs knowing full well that the last fifteen or so rockets we ordered left us in a smoldering heap. Mr. Coyote is, quite frankly, a masochist. He gets the most punishment because he wants it. Has he looked around at all the other coyotes, successfully catching road runners by simply running fast enough to catch them? Most predators run after their prey, catch it, eat it, move on. Wile E. feels the need to put himself in a giant slingshot and fling himself through the air. Self-sabotage.

Not even Elmer Fudd, who was once hypnotized into thinking that he was Bugs Bunny, suffers from the issues that the Coyote does. I submit to you, gentle reader, that few animated characters (with the possible exception of Scratchy from The Simpsons) have endured as much mind-numbing, body-altering torment as Wile E. Coyote. If you need further convincing, think about this: Elmer Fudd hunts for sport. When he doesn't catch Bugs or Daffy, he goes home and gets a steak out of his fridge. When Wile E. Coyote doesn't catch the Road Runner, he does not eat. The Coyote has been going without food for over fifty years. His life consists of blowing up and starving. Elmer Fudd can't even dream of that kind of pain.

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