To Beep or Not to Beep
Tags: psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
Introduction: The opening scene shows Wile E. Coyote reading a "Western Cookery" recipe book in total peace. Completely unaware that his prey has zoomed up behind him to sneak a peek at his book, he slurps at the prospect of a road-runner banquet featuring "Road Runner Surprise," and gets answered by another slurp. Turning to find himself nose-to-beak with the Road Runner, the Coyote gives himself a real headache responding to a startling "BEEP-BEEP!" from point-blank range.
1. The Coyote places a lasso in the road, and pulls back as soon as he hears his opponent, but he soon realizes that (1) he missed, and (2) there is no room on the cliff behind him to step back. He falls toward the ground, and the end of the lasso latches onto a loose rock on another outcropping as he passes it. Thinking the rock will be heavy enough to support him and prevent the impact, Wile E. ties his end of the lasso around his waist, but doesn't realize that the rope is too long before hitting the ground at full force. Still dazed by his miscalculation and the resulting impact, the Coyote pulls on the lasso and dislodges the rock, which drops on himself, leaving his form coiled up as he walks away.
2. Later on, as the usual chase takes place, the Road Runner goes supersonic and rockets away, causing several cacti to uproot due to his speed. They continue to follow the Road Runner across the landscape, and Wile E. continues chasing until he sees that a bridge has retracted due to the bird's trajectory. Wile E. falls through the ravine, followed by one of the slower cacti that did not make it past the bridge, causing him to leap yelling in pain all the way up to the top of the ravine.
3. Not having learned from previous uses of this device, the Coyote attaches a spring to a loose rock and tries to shoot himself toward the Road Runner, but instead the rock is thrown backwards and it continues to pull the Coyote back like a Newton's cradle until the rock hurtles over the edge of a cliff. Wile E. manages to grab onto the brink and stay put, until the rock flies back the way it came, taking out the entire outcropping and throwing the Coyote across the desert. The two rocks finally detach themselves, but this leads to the broken outcropping forming a see-saw, with Wile E. lying on one end and the big rock landing on the other side. This catapults the Coyote even further, until he falls through a narrow canyon with the rock directly on top, leading to the spring retracting and Wile E. being trapped directly underneath. By loosening the harness, the Coyote escapes and sighs with relief, having escaped with only a fall to the ground.
4. Lying in wait for the Road Runner inside a crane, the Coyote pulls up a wrecking ball to drop on the Road Runner when he passes this segment. However, he pulls it up too far, and the wrecking ball rolls onto the top of the crane and smashes the cockpit.
=== The catapult ===
5. The final segment features six attempts to flatten the Road Runner with a boulder hurled by a catapult. Unfortunately for Wile E., the catapult finds multiple ways to malfunction, resulting in the Coyote being crushed each time.
Attempt 1: Wile E. stands behind the catapult. The boulder simply falls on the Coyote when it is released, due to its weight being too much for the catapult to handle.
Attempt 2: Wile E. stands in front of the catapult and (predictably) gets smashed due to his location.
Attempt 3: Having learned from the first two, Wile E. stands well out of the way of the catapult, out of range, to make the first attempt's failure impossible. However, the catapult flips itself over and squashes its user.
Attempt 4: The Coyote stands to the side and releases the boulder, which is punched up into the air, and unfortunately falls in the wrong direction - toward the Coyote instead of the roadrunner.
Attempt 5: Having been smashed every time in some way or another, Wile E. hides underneath the catapult itself when he releases the string; however, the entire catapult comes apart, crushing Wile E. in the bottom.
Attempt 6: This time, Wile E. hides inside a manhole while he releases the string. However, the catapult jams and the arm does not throw the boulder. The Coyote tries to fix the problem by prodding the catapult's body first, then shaking it violently (and immediately diving back into his manhole after each attempt to avoid injury), but nothing happens. Getting very impatient, Wile E. lodges himself between the arm and the body and stands up, then climbs up the arm on stomps on it, again to no avail. Sliding down to the rock itself, he tries to pry it free from the arm. Suddenly, the catapult finally unjams, something that the Coyote initially fails to notice (as he is still trying to pry the rock free) until he sees a large rock formation ahead of him. Coyote is flattened as his rock flies through the formation, having taken a slice of that with it then falling off. A network of power lines captures the Coyote and slings him all the way back to the top of the catapult's arm, which plops him on the ground to be smashed once and for all by the boulder.
After that final disaster, the audience discovers the reason for the catapult's "artificial intelligence." The camera zooms in towards the manufacturer's nameplate and reveals that the catapult had been built, not by ACME, but by the "Road-Runner Manufacturing Company — Phoenix * Taos * Santa Fe * Flagstaff." The Road Runner on the nameplate gives the audience a "Beep-Beep" and then zooms off.

Review: Longer Gags Help Make This Fabulous.
First of all, I agree with others here: this is an outstanding Road Runner cartoon, maybe the best I've ever seen.
It combines great color, great "camera" angles, clever stunts and a very funny Wile (at least his "yeeeeeowwwws!)It begins peacefully with Wile reading a book.
No wonder our favorite coyote is always after the Road-Runner.
According to the "Western Cookery" book, "possibly the most delicious of all western game bird is the road-runner." The rest of it is the normal chase.What's above normal are the two long gags.
I've often said the best ones are those that are drawn out a bit longer.
There is a super one in here involving a big metal spring and a boulder.
It's one of the best and inventive sight gags I've ever witness on a RR cartoon.
The other one, with the catapult is a bunch of little jokes all rolled into one with a surprise ending (regarding the company which built the device.).
Possibly the best Road Runner cartoon of the 1960s.
This entry into the Roadrunner series of cartoons which began in 1949 with 'Fast And Furry-ous' is one of my favourites.
It runs along at a frenetic pace after the initial decision by Wile E Coyote to catch Roadrunner and eat him for lunch.
As usual Wile never succeeds, but the ways he tries to do it are genius.I mean, just how many times can you think of where using a giant catapult to hurl a boulder (in an attempt to squash the fleet little bird) has gone so hilariously wrong in so many different ways?This cartoon rocks!.
Very good.
Very good and thoroughly enjoyable Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon, one of their better ones of the 60s in my view.
It is not all that surprising as to how it ends(the story is also a fairly formulaic one in the first place), then again the Roadrunner-Coyote series are not about the stories strictly speaking but about the quality of the gags.
You do miss Coyote's looks to the camera, which were kind of breaking-the-fourth-wall-without-a-word, and despite the clever overhead shot and with the cactus the falling down the cliff gag has been done to death.
The animation has been more detailed before, budget constraints perhaps, but the colours are still really lovely and the drawings and backgrounds are well-rendered.
In short, well-done animation considering any potential constraints but not great animation.
Bill Lava's music is rousingly orchestrated and has a lot of life and isn't repetitive, his work hasn't always worked in the Speedy cartoons but it works wonderfully here and couldn't be more evident in the final gag.
The gags are consistent in how funny they are, the wrecking ball and noose gags do provoke a lot of laughs but the highlight is absolutely Coyote's attempts with a boulder and catapult, as has been noted previously instead of moving on to different methods of catching the Roadrunner it was nice to see Coyote making numerous attempts doing the same thing.
And even more importantly, the gag isn't just funny, it's hilarious, the last part of it especially.
Roadrunner is good, but Coyote has always been the more interesting and funniest of the two and as always he is sly and amusing, but we also feel pangs of sympathy too.
To conclude, a very good Roadrunner-Wile E.Coyote cartoon and one of their better outings of the 60s.
7.5/10 Bethany Cox. The best Road Runner cartoon ever..
TO BEEP OR NOT TO BEEP (1963) is my favorite Roadrunner cartoon ever made.
The best gag is when the coyote tries to catch the roadrunner in a noose.
The catapult gag, originally from ZOOM AND BORED, is even better here.
This only made it to one tape, The Classic Chase.
Too bad, because this is a gem.
The end of this one was surprising.
There's more great gags in between, such as the wrecking ball.
There's never a bad moment in this cartoon.
The best Looney Tunes were made in the sixties, but this tops them off.
Watch this and laugh out loud.Grade: A+.
Fantastic.
A classic Road Runner & Wile E.
Coyote short directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble.
Most of the material from this short was originally made as part of a Road Runner TV pilot.
It's a very funny cartoon with some memorable layered gags that play off one another more than the usual Road Runner & Coyote cartoon that goes from one gag to another with little or no connection.
The highlight of these gags is the final one involving Wile E.
using different types of catapults with each one failing in hilariously different ways.
The animation is excellent with nice, bright colors and great action.
The energetic score from Bill Lava is quite possibly his best work on this series, for which he is known for producing some truly awful music.
It's a fantastic short that, like another reviewer says, is probably the best Road Runner & Coyote short from the '60s..
One of my all-time favorite cartoons..
"To Beep or Not to Beep" is one of my all-time favorite cartoon shorts, and possible my favorite of all the Road Runner and Wile E.
Coyote cartoons.There is only one reason why I say so: the music.
Now, people would say that Bill Lava's music keeps this far from perfect.
I strongly disagree to those who think so.
I think it is most wonderful, especially, and I mean, ESPECIALLY all of the music of the final catapult gag.
(It gets better when it nears the end.) It's my favorite moment of one of my all-time favorite cartoons.I first saw this on the Warner Home Video VHS release of "Warner Bros.
Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24-Karat Collection: Road Runner vs.
Wile E.
Coyote: The Classic Chase" (Anyone else have this tape?) And while all the cartoons on it stuck inside my head for my entire life, this is the one that is probably the best of the pack, and probably the perfect way to end a video..
catapults and stuff.
I remember that I first saw the catapult gags in the compilation movie "The Great American Chase" (more commonly known as "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Chase Movie").
Now, I've finally gotten to see "To Beep or Not to Beep" in its entirety.
The catapult scenes are the best, but there are other treats here too.
Clearly, Wile Ethelbert* Coyote is a fanatic according to George Santayana's definition (redoubling your efforts after you've forgotten your aim), but he always comes just close enough to catching Road Runner so that he thinks that he'll succeed next time.
One of the many classics, even if it doesn't give them fake scientific names.*Yes, the E stands for Ethelbert..
Ugly and not funny.
One of my least favourite Road Runner cartoons.
Chuck Jones's 'To Beep or Not to Beep' is one of my least favourite Road Runner cartoons.
My favourite thing about the Road Runner series isn't the gags (although they are frequently great) but the way in which they are so beautifully animated.
The reactions of the Coyote and his fourth-wall-breaking relationship with the audience turn standard gags into great ones.
'To Beep or Not to Beep' is extraordinarily minimal in its animation and look and, frankly, its ugly.
The few genuinely funny gags are underworked, grabbing their quick laughs and moving on.
There's no hopeful or sly looks to camera from the Coyote, he simply gets on with the job in a workmanlike fashion, refusing to acknowledge our existence.
The cartoon ends with an extended set of gags all based around the same catapult.
These longer sequences would often make the Road Runner cartoons more interesting but, like everything else in 'To Beep or Not to Beep', the gags are just knocked out with no energy or flair.
The final catapult gag experiments with prolonging the inevitable but, without the usual sense of Jones timing, when the inevitable arrives it's not funny.
'To Beep or Not to Beep' appeared late on in the Road Runner series and it almost feels like Jones is tired and can't be bothered to meet anything but the most minimal requirements.
Financial constraints or a failed experiment are more likely reasons for the cartoon's atrocious visuals and pacing but, whichever way you look at it, 'To Beep or Not to Beep' is feeble..
"Yeeeeeooooowww!!!".
"To Beep or Not to Beep" is one of the later Road Runner/Coyote cartoons from the early sixties, released shortly before the top brass at Warner Bros.
decided to shut down its cartoon department.
This particular cartoon is quite fun to watch, as we see the Coyote once again fouling up in every attempt to capture the ubiquitous Road Runner.My favorite gags from "To Beep or Not to Beep" include the following (if you haven't yet seen this cartoon, don't read any further).
One of the classic running gags of all the Road Runner/Coyote cartoons involves the Coyote's various catapult mishaps.
On another occasion, the Coyote falls off a cliff in a typically hilarious overhead shot, followed by a falling saguaro cactus, after which the Coyote soars back in the air with a lengthy scream that increases in volume as he gets closer to the camera.
And in another classic moment, the Coyote pulls a rope, misses the Road Runner, falls backward off a cliff, ties the rope around his waist, lands flat on his back, gets knocked out by a huge rock (attached to the other end of the rope), and folds up like an accordion.Under the direction of Chuck Jones, "To Beep or Not to Beep" is, without question, a great cartoon.
It is on Disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3, where you will find a wonderful restoration of this cartoon with bright colors and sharp, crisp images!.
Warner's at it once again .
. with its trademark eponymous warning to we Normal, Middle-Class, Blue-Collar Americans, epitomized by Wile E.
Coyote in this 1960s animated short, TO BEEP OR NOT TO BEEP.
(This cartoon was perhaps the deciding factor behind our U.S. Congress passing the "Lemon Law," which is occasionally nicknamed the "3 Strikes Statute:" It states, of course, that if three things break on your car during your first three months of ownership, your dealer MUST provide you with YOUR choice of a full refund OR a replacement vehicle of equal or greater value.) When Wile buys a catapult from Road Runner Manufacturing Co., it malfunctions SEVEN times, seriously injuring Mr. Coyote on each occasion.
It turns out that RMC is importing defective foreign parts, with no regard for Consumer Safety.
When Trump whines his way into the White House, he intends to squeeze the juice out of the Lemon Law, which a diverse judge has extended to Bogus "Universities." (That's why Donald always looks like he just bit into a lemon.).
If at first you don't succeed....
"To Beep or Not to Beep" is, without a doubt, my favorite Wile E.
Coyote/Road Runner short, mostly because it's so different than any shorts proceeding or following it.
As any geek will note, this is the only WEC/RR short that does not include a freeze-frame of the characters with their "latin" names, instead opening on our favorite coyote reading a cook book.
In a way, the set-up could almost be used as the first WEC/RR short, because it gives the viewer a great visual start to the chase.
Whether it's for the recipe for Road Runner Surprise in the cookbook, or revenge on the bird for startling him, Wile E.
has found his prey.
The second thing that I love about this episode is the infamous catapult sequence.
This is great because in most other WEC/RR shorts, Wile E.
tries a tactic to catch the Road Runner, and when it fails, he moves on to the next one.
Not so in this short: he keeps trying again and again with the catapult, hoping that the next time will work.
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
Of course, for the poor coyote, it doesn't matter how many times he tries.
Fate has spelled it out nice and clean for him: NOT GONNA HAPPEN!Be sure to pick up 'Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3" and check out this short.
You won't be disappointed.
Oh, and remember, when you buy a giant catapult, be sure to double-check who manufactured it...
it could save your life..
An original-sounding cheater.
Here is one of three Road Runner shorts whose footage was first used in the two-reel "Adventures of the Road Runner" (1962).
The other two, "Roadrunner a Go-Go" and "Zip Zip Hooray," were released in 1965.
They feature a verbose Wile E.
Coyote and music by Milt Franklyn.
"To Beep or Not to Beep" plays more like a typical RR short in which the Coyote utters no sentence.
His only vocalization is a long yell of agony which happens after a spiny cactus tree lands on him.The "Adventures" gags have a whole new soundtrack here, courtesy of musician Bill Lava and editor Treg Brown (who handled the sound effects).
Lava's mechanical style works especially well in the wrecking ball and catapult gags, and no other cartoon score from him sounds as robust.
The strong director's hand of Chuck Jones is so evident aurally and visually that the film comes across as one of Warner's best post-1960 cartoon shorts.-Tony