|
Zip N' Snort is a 1961 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series featuring Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.
Plot
The credits are shown, and the coyote's Latin name (Evereadii Eatibus) is among them. The camera then zooms to the left to show Wile E. Coyote pointing at the words and then himself. The Road Runner then pulls up behind him and beeps, sending the coyote into the air. The Road Runner's name is shown (Digoutis-Hot-Rodis) before he moves off stage, leaving a dust cloud for Wile to land in. The chase starts, and the coyote slowly gains on his opponent until the Road Runner dodges off the road, leaving Wile at the mercy of an approaching bus. The coyote kicks up a pothole and turns the other way, successfully outrunning the bus. However, as he taunts the bus, he runs directly off a cliff. As Wile hurtles towards the left, he pokes his tongue back in and points worriedly at the void below him. Then, he slams into a mountainside and soon suffers gravity.
The Road Runner pulls up to the top of the mountain that Wile ran into and beeps to get the coyote's attention. Fueled by rage, the coyote climbs the mountain, but soon falls back down, taking pebbles with him. His second climb causes more pebbles to fall off, and eventually the entire edge of the mountain as the coyote scrambles to the top. Wile climbs to the top of the precipice and prepares to chase the Road Runner, but eventually realizes he's on his way down. He can only wince in puzzlement before hitting the ground a third time.
A simple plan - simply loading himself into a bow - leads to a simple denouement: running into the wood instead of going towards the bird.
Rather than face the Road Runner directly, Wile uses a grenade mounted on top of a model airplane to take out the Road Runner from above. However, when he sets the propeller in motion, only the propeller flies into the air. Wile soon figures out the situation and throws the entire model airplane into the air, but the grenade still remains in the air, spinning behind the coyote before exploding.
Returning to simplicity, Wile E. uses a wedge to throw a large rock, but it results in self-squashing.
This time, Wile lays out iron pellets covered with bird seed for the Road Runner to eat, while laying in wait on a high cliff with a magnet on a fishing line. However, the magnet attaches itself to a power line and causes the coyote to be electrocuted repeatedly. His nose flashes like a light bulb, and Wile unscrews it, smiling.
The coyote is now attempting to make a strange sort of cannonball by loading a shell and a stick into a cannon, but causes the cannon to fire himself and the two items out of it. Gravity results, and Wile sticks himself and the stick into the ground, to be pounded down by the cannonball.
Wile now lies in wait on top of a cliff with a cannon as the Road Runner munches. The coyote turns the cannon downwards as he goes to light the fuse, but fails to get off the cannon in time and is taken down with it. He rolls himself off to the right and finds the cannon matched him. Wile gropes downwards to escape the cannon's fire, but the cannon faces him again. Wile sighs and soon realizes the inevitable, and is then swallowed by the cannon. The Road Runner moves out of the way, full, as the coyote hits the ground. Then the cannonball explodes, sending the cannon back up to its mount, which also causes the precipice to break and to fall back down on the coyote.
Hoping to out-corner his rival, Wile greases his feet and glides across the mountaintop, but soon sees the edge of the cliff. With no alternative, he grabs onto a saguaro and gets speared by the spines, but at least he isn't falling. Now, he can spot the Road Runner's trajectory and leaps off down the mountain slope, but instead of stopping in the middle of the road, continues down the mountain and drops off it...and then onto the power lines seen earlier. Wile surfs these with no way to stop himself, but when he reaches the ground, he moves directly onto a railroad track, complete with approaching train! Fortunately, before it hits the coyote, he moves onto a side track.
Wile points happily at the receding train, but now sees he's going into another tunnel with another train coming out of it! Wile strokes himself against the wind, barely keeping pace, and then the camera pans up to show the train is labeled: "NEW YORK EXPRESS / NON STOP". The camera cuts up again to the Road Runner in the conductor's compartment, apparently enjoying the prospect of chasing his opponent 2,500 miles across the United States. He beeps as the cartoon fades.
Censorship
- The ABC version shortens the part where Wile E. gets electrocuted by the fishing rod after the magnet attaches itself to a power line.
See also
| |
