What

What's with the weird music? Or: Where'd Chuck Jones go?

The Road Runner cartoons of Rudy Larriva

We've all seen them...the 1960's Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons with the black-background pinwheel opening and the catchy looped music in the background, with the inconsistent animation and somewhat unfamiliar gags. Many people think Friz Freleng created these curios, others dismiss them entirely as awful and inferior. But in fact, these cartoons have some appeal, and they are not all bad. These are the DePatie/Freleng Road Runner cartoons, created after the initial Warner cartoon studio closing in 1964. Sometimes referred to as the "Larriva Eleven", they are among the most commonly seen on TV and the most unacknowledged cartoons in the history of the studio. By 1964, Chuck Jones had already found a new job at the MGM cartoon studio, taking over Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as directing classics like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Dot and the Line". There was still a market for new Road Runner cartoons, especially for television. Now producer, Friz Freleng directed one Road Runner film and, apparently uncomfortable with the drawing style and expense of the animation in the series, re-used the animation from a few of Jones' earlier films and coupled it with new animation of Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester to create "The Wild Chase". Robert McKimson chipped in with the excellent cartoon "Rushing Roulette" in 1965. At this point, DePatie/Freleng sent independent studio Format Films the workload, providing them with a limited budget and what appears to be one musical score created by Bill Lava. The result was a mixed bag of eleven cartoons directed by Rudy Larriva, boasting decidedly more limited animation than the Jones originals, and some very clever gags previously unexplored in the series. Some, like "Just Plane Beep" (1965) and "Shot and Bothered" (1966) were hurt by the herky-jerky animation and canned music, but others, like "The Solid Tin Coyote"(1966) and "Boulder: Wham!" (1965) were quite amusing and had a charm all their own.

-"The Solid Tin Coyote" is one of only two films in the history of the characters in which Wile E. Coyote ever catches the Road Runner, the other is "Soup or Sonic" (1980), originally a segment from a Jones TV special. As expected, the robot messes up and the Road Runner simply gets away.

To compare them with the Jones series that inspired them would be unfair, as it would be very difficult to equal his work anyway, even before the budget limit. These cartoons were released in theaters and, so I am told, released on TV almost simultaneously for "The Road Runner Show". Ever since, the films have been seen alongside other Warner Bros. classics on many TV channels including ABC, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, and can still be seen on Cartoon Network today.

-"Chaser on the Rocks" (1965) was one of the few post-1964 Warner films to ever be featured on ABC, on "The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show", which regrettably ended in 2000.

Easily identifiable by their opening titles, catchy music loops, their slightly different character design and the attractive simplistic desert backgrounds created by Anthony Rizzo, the cartoons stick out almost as their own series. And though they look different visually from the Jones films, they are still quite nice to look at. The artwork is good, the animation is great when it wants to be, and the colors are very well chosen. Kids probably won't know the difference between these and the more famous Jones classics, though, and yet for some reason they have never been released on video in the United States either alongside the Jones cartoons or on their own collections.

An example of Anthony Rizzo's background artwork.

Notice the simple but believable desert skies and cliffs. This particular painting can be seen in more than one film.

Filmography of Rudy Larriva's Road Runner cartoons:

1965:

"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Tired and Feathered"
"Boulder Wham"
"Just Plane Beep"
"Harried and Hurried"
"Highway Runnery"
"Chaser On The Rocks"

1966:
"Shot and Bothered"
"Out and Out Rout"
"The Solid tin Coyote"
"Clippety-Clobbered"

For more information on the Road Runner and Wile E. coyote, check out the Coyote page.