Rushing Roulette (Merrie Melodies)

Rushing Roulette (episode 948)
Robert McKimson + Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner = Greatest Mashup.
Directed by: Robert McKimson Chuck Jones (reused footage) Written by: David Detiege Release date: July 31, 1965 Franchise: Merrie Melodies Prequel: "Corn on the Cop" (previous short) Sequel: "Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner" (next short)

Rushing Roulette is a 1965 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson. It was the second Road Runner cartoon directed by someone other than Chuck Jones, who had almost exclusively used the characters since their debut in 1949 (the first was 1965's "The Wild Chase", directed by Friz Freleng and featured Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester The Cat).

Plot

As with all Road Runner cartoons, Wile E. Coyote tries various methods to nab the speedy bird:

• 1. Wile E. snags the Road Runner with a lasso, but is merely dragged along due to the bird's speed, and ultimately collides with a cactus.
• 2. Wile E. sets up a fake photo booth which has a cannon behind it. When the Road Runner actually gets a real picture taken at the booth, Wile E., puzzled, looks into the barrel of his own cannon and is shot (in the smoke, a picture of the charred coyote floats past).
• 3. Wile E. outfits himself with a pair of ACME Sproing Boots, but is startled by the Road Runner's trademark "Beep Beep!" and ends up falling down a canyon. However, he bounces back up due to his boots, only to bash his head on a boulder hanging over the edge of a cliff, which drops off of the edge. Both Wile E. and the boulder fall to the ground. Wile E. manages to push the boulder aside, only for the force of the shove to back Wile E. into the wall of the canyon, pressing the springs on his boots against it, causing him to spring forward onto the ground right underneath the falling boulder, which flattens him.
• 4. Wile E. puts Ajax Stix-All Glue on the pavement to cause the Road Runner to get stuck. His plan backfires when he accidentally steps on the sticky pavement. The Road Runner arrives and startles Wile E. with his "Beep beep!", so much so that the pavement is lifted off of the ground (with Wile E. still attached) and lands face down.
• 5. Wile E. tries to catch up to the Road Runner with a handcar. This backfires when the Road Runner gets his own handcar, pushes Wile E.'s handcar to the edge of a cliff, and finally startles him off the cliff's edge with another "Beep Beep!", and the Coyote plummets to the ground.
• 6. Wile E. uses a tall sunbeam to roast the Road Runner, but the bird uses a mirror to reflect the sunbeam back and burn the foundation of the scaffold on which Wile E. is standing, causing the entire structure to collapse. On the ground, the mirror cracks, and so do Wile E.'s eyes.
• 7. Wile E. sets up a piano rigged with explosives under an awning, accompanied by a wooden signpost advertising "Learn to play the piano for free" - and the eager Road Runner dashes to the piano. He tries to play "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" but keeps playing the wrong note. Wile E. shoos him and demonstrates to him how to play the right note but in the ill-fated attempt to do so, the piano explodes, leaving the dazed Coyote with the keys in his teeth continuing to play.
• 8. Standing atop a tall, narrow rocky platform between two sloped canyon walls, Wile E. pushes a boulder off of it in an attempt to squash the Road Runner on the pavement below, but the boulder misses and rolls up the wall of the canyon, then rolls back and collides with the base of his platform, and then rolls up the other wall and back again, continuing to eat away at his platform until he's at pavement level. He manages to duck into a manhole right before getting hit by an oncoming truck, but the boulder lands on top of the manhole, preventing his escape.
• 9. Finally, Wile E. uses a personal helicopter to drop an anvil on the Road Runner from above, but as the Road Runner enters a tunnel, Wile E.'s helicopter crashes into the wall above the tunnel; as he drops to the ground, so does the anvil, which lands right on his head. Wile E. is then struck by a Greyhound bus, which turns out to be driven by the Road Runner, who delivers one last "Beep, Beep!" as the cartoon ends.

Why It Rocks

1. Compared to Rudy Larriva's Road Runner cartoons, Robert McKimson directs this short more efficiently, with a fast pace similar to the classic Chuck Jones shorts.
2. The characters are on-model.
3. The animation is much superior to all other DePatie-Freleng shorts.
   • Bob Matz, Manny Perez and Norm McCabe occasionally provide very quality and smooth animation.
4. The photography is clever on occasion, as in the sunbeam gag where the sun and its reflected rays are exposed twice for extra effect.
5. Background artist Tom O'Loughlin, under the guidance of layout artist Dick Ung, comes close to matching the superb designs executed by Maurice Noble and Phil DeGuard in the Chuck Jones era.
6. William Lava offers his most pleasing music of the DePatie-Freleng era.

Bad Qualities

1. The exploding piano gag (which was originally used in "Ballot Box Bunny" and "Show Biz Bugs") felt somewhat out-of-place from Road-Runner shorts.
2. The Road Runner broke rule #1 by throwing Wile E. Coyote off a mountain on a trolley.

Trivia

• This is one of the few Road Runner shorts without the opening chase sequence.
  • It was also the first short to drop the Latin names gag, which wouldn't be used again until 1979's "Freeze Frame"; which originally aired as part of the TV special Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales.
• This is the first time that Robert McKimson directed a Road Runner short, he'd later direct "Sugar and Spies" and the bumpers for The Road Runner Show.
• The title is a play on "Russian roulette."

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