The Road Runner Show (1949)

The desert in the U.S. southwest is the natural habitat of the Road Runner, a high-octane, cartoon bird who runs so fast on the desert's roadways that he leaves a trail of flame or causes pavement to ripple, distort, or roll up like a carpet. This speedy bird is unrelentingly chased by a hungry coyote named Wile E., who, though believing himself to be a genius, repeatedly fails to catch the Road Runner with his endless supply of ACME Corporation gadgets, weapons, and other paraphernalia. Episodes of this television series contain three theatrical cartoons, one with the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, one with Tweety Bird and Sylvester Cat, and one with other characters from Warner Brothers' cartoon classics.

The Coyote chases the Road Runner through a maze of mine shafts, with their positions made visible only by the lamps on their helmets.

In his attempt to catch the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote tries the old cartoon trick of putting up a painting of a continuing road where a bridge has in fact gone out. It doesn't work, nor does dressing in drag or dropping an anvil from a balloon.

Hypnosis doesn't help the Coyote catch the Road Runner, nor do a clutch of string-controlled rifles or dozens of mousetraps, but they all manage to backfire on him, naturally.

A Burmese tiger trap, a pop-up steel wall, a motorcycle, and a box of Acme-brand leg-building vitamins can't help the Coyote (Eatibus anythingus) catch the Road Runner (Hot Rodicus supersonicus).

Among the strategies that fail in Wile E. Coyote's attempts to catch the Roadrunner: glue on the road, a giant rubber band, an outboard motor in a wash tub, and dressing in drag as a female Roadrunner.

While cooking a tin can, the Coyote spots a better meal rushing by- the Road Runner. But making himself into a giant arrow doesn't catch the bird, and the book, "How to Tar and Feather a Road Runner", isn't much help either.

Wile E. Coyote unsuccessfully chases the Road Runner using such contrivances as a rifle, a steel plate, a dynamite stick on an extending metal pulley, a painting of a collapsed bridge (which the Coyote falls into while Road Runner passes right through), and a jet motor.

Wile E. Coyote is so hungry that he forms a chicken out of mud, bakes it, and tries to eat it, causing one of his teeth to fall out. He throws the mud bird away when a real one comes along - the Road Runner, who runs so fast that he literally burns up the road, setting Wile E.'s feet on fire! Wile E. schemes to catch the Road Runner using a rope, a sling-shot, a gun on a spring, a rotating circle of spiked balls, a booby-trapped ladder, and a load of rocks.

Wile E. Coyote uses, among other things, a dehydrated boulder to try to catch the Road Runner. He applies a drop of water to enlarge it from pebble-size to usual boulder dimensions, but it enlarges as Wile E. is lifting it over his head, coming down on top of him.

Wile E. Coyote uses a bottle full of bees, a brick wall, a boulder in a catapult, and a harpoon gun in his usual unsuccessful attempts to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote's plans for catching the Road Runner involve a giant elastic spring, a gun and trampoline, TNT sticks in a barrel, and tornado seeds. The last of these schemes results in the Coyote being swept up by a twister and carried into a mine field.

Wile E. Coyote hopes to catch the Road Runner using a mallet, a cooking pan, a TNT stick, a balloon, and a piano dropped from a precipice. The last of these results in Wile E. falling to the road below along with the piano and ending up with 88 teeth.

Wile E. Coyote is once again after the Road Runner, this time resorting to hand grenades, dynamite, falling rocks and a speed potion (which contains vitamins R, P and M).

Wile E. Coyote's failed efforts to catch the Road Runner involve the use of roller skates, a gun in a camera, a trampoline, a dynamite stick on a crossbow, a bogus railroad crossing, and a jet-powered unicycle.

Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner by enclosing himself inside an "Indestructo Steel Ball", over which he has no directional control !

Wile E. Coyote tries to drop a rocket bomb on the Road Runner from a balloon but inflates himself instead, ascends skyward, then falls along with the bomb. He tries painstakingly to deactivate the bomb before it explodes - and fails. His attempt to trap the Road Runner on the edge of a cliff results in the cliff collapsing under his feet, sending him to the ground to be hit by his own knife and fork and then fall into a waterfall leading to a maze of pipes.

Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner using a dynamite stick on a fishing pole, a Christmas present wrapping machine, and ACME Earthquake pills, which the Coyote discovers don't affect Road Runners, but only after he himself has angrily downed a whole bottle of the pills! The Coyote quakes and shivers away boulders and whole mountains before the pills wear off.

Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner using a sling shot, a grenade in a toy airplane whose propeller detaches and leaves the plane behind, a cannon on a cliff ledge that gives way, and axle grease on his feet that sends him into the path of a train driven by the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote releases a number of explosive darts to attack the Road Runner, only to have them bedevil him continually during his subsequent attempts.

Wile E. Coyote tries and fails to catch the Road Runner using his foot extended to trip, an arrow, a hole in the road, a winged-rocket outfit, two electronically activated machine guns, and a super magnet.

Wile E. Coyote tries and fails to catch the Road Runner using a bear trap with a bird seed bait, a jet rocket, an ice-making machine, and a boomerang.

Wile E. Coyote attacks the Road Runner with an enormous boulder-throwing catapult, only to have it constantly backfire on him.

Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner with a grenade, a bow, a rope, invisible paint, a gun disguised as a peep show, and a rocket that tunnels him through the Earth to arrive in the Orient, where a Japanese Road Runner greets him.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner, and his ploys such as glue on the road, a huge magnifying glass, an exploding piano, a cannon disguised as a camera, and an anvil dropped from a helicopter, all backfire on him, as usual.

Wile E. Coyote unsuccessfully tries to catch the Road Runner in a bird seed trap with overhead spikes, and then with a lightning rod disguised as a female Road Runner, with Wile E. doing rain dances to start a storm.

Wile E. Coyote's latest misbegotten Road Runner-catching schemes include a propeller-powered backpack, a stone log let loose down a hill, and a bogus bird sanctuary containing a phone booth with a TNT stick disguised as the phone receiver. As usual, Wile E. ends up taking the explosion.

The Coyote tries, with no success, to find a way across a gorge to reach the Road Runner on the other side.

Wile E. Coyote builds a World War I bi-plane to chase the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner and hopes, without success, to catch his prey using such schemes as a snow-making machine, a bomb dropped from a kite, a parachute dive (into a tornado), dynamite on an extending metal arm, and a karate chop.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner around an old jalopy that starts up and runs him over, with the Road Runner at the wheel. Wile E. plants a bomb in a fake egg shell for the Road Runner to sit on, but instead of exploding under the Road Runner, it hatches a robot that walks over to Wile E. and explodes.

Wile E. Coyote is both thirsty and hungry in this one. He keeps seeing mirages of oases in the desert as he chases the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote suspends his chase with the Road Runner to explain to two young boys watching him on TV why he wants to catch the speedy bird.

Wile E. Coyote uses slow motion photography to record his failures at catching the Road Runner in hopes of detecting where exactly he went wrong and avoiding the same pratfalls in the future.

Wile E. Coyote uses suction cups, a tennis net, TNT sticks on a rope, a skateboard, helium gas, and a bomb in his unsuccessful attempts to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner using a skateboard, a hunting falcon, two doves tied to his feet, a hot rod, a wind sail, and glue stuck on the road. The last scheme ends with himself becoming stuck in the glue and flattened by a steam roller driven by the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote uses scrap metal from a dump to build a huge, mechanical likeness of himself, and uses this robot to chase the Road Runner. It ends up as just another pile of scrap.

Wile E. Coyote uses a chemistry set to try and catch the Road Runner. He mixes chemicals to yield invisible paint, a bouncy outer skin, and a jet-powered spray can, none of which are successful.

Wile E. Coyote finds a spy kit and uses its contents (sleeping gas, a mail bomb, explosive putty, and a gadget-filled spy car) in his unsuccessful attempt to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner through some snowy mountaintops, leading to a series of snow-related traps such as the Acme Blizzard Machine which makes instant snow....a little too instant for the Coyote's taste.

The Coyote is at it once again...only this time he DOES catch the Road Runner!

Road Runner gives Wile E. Coyote a "come-on" to chase him. The chase continues until the coyote stops to read a sign in the road: "WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that chasing Road Runners may be hazardous to your health." He dismisses this sign as cheesy and laughs at it, before the Road Runner pulls up behind him and beeps the coyote into another headache.

Baby Wile E. Coyote is told by his father, Cage E., that he's not to speak until he catches a roadrunner. Wile E. tries several products from Acme Jr., including a jack-in-the-box and a water-rocket-propelled bike. They maintain the fine tradition of Acme quality products.

Speedy Gonzales and the Road Runner are racing each other, with Sylvester Cat and Wile E. Coyote in hot pursuit.

Look Before You Beep is a compilation of the bumpers seen on "The Road Runner Show" in 1966-1968.

Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Road Runner (still) and comes across the Acme Book of Magic. With the power to levitate heavy boulders, fly on broomsticks, and transfigure anything to suit his need, it seems like Wile E. finally has a chance at getting his breakfast... but then again, this is Wile E. Coyote we're talking about.

Wile E. Coyote incorporates a bungee cord into his plans to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote intends to catch Road Runner while avoiding heat-seeking missiles using a makeshift copter-helmet.

Wile E. Coyote once again tries to ensnare his long-time adversary, the Road Runner. In this short, Wile devises various attempts of capture with the aid of a Sedway, better known in the WC/RR world as the Hyper-Sonic Transporter by ACME.

Two boys watch Wile E. Coyote chase Road Runner continuously and express their opinions. They ask why the Coyote wants the Road Runner so badly. Wile E. Coyote then explains in a comedic documentary why he wants the Road Runner so badly.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner through some snowy mountaintops, leading to a series of snow-related traps such as the Acme Blizzard Machine which makes instant snow....a little too instant for the Coyote's taste.