Saturday mornings in my childhood followed a sacred ritual that modern science still cannot fully explain.
You woke up early — not because your parents told you to, but because cartoons were on and childhood has priorities. You poured yourself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch that violated several international sugar treaties and parked yourself in front of the television.
It was a simpler time. A louder time. A time when the roof of your mouth could be shredded by breakfast cereal and nobody called a lawyer.
And for years, I believed one of the great injustices of the universe was that Wile E. Coyote never caught the Road Runner.
Every Saturday, there he was: hungry, determined and apparently convinced that the only thing standing between him and lunch was another ACME product. Earthquake pills. Dehydrated boulders. Jet-powered pogo sticks. Invisible paint. Explosives. Rocket skates.
You name it, Wile E. bought it.
And not once did he think, “Maybe I should stop ordering things from this company.”
Now comes “Coyote vs. Acme,” a movie which finally asks the question I have been asking for decades: What if Wile E. Coyote finally got tired of getting blown up?
In the movie, Wile E. hires a down-on-his-luck human lawyer named Kevin Avery and takes ACME to court. Apparently, after years of being flattened, exploded, burned, launched into the desert and otherwise abused by defective merchandise, Wile E. has decided the legal system might be a better hunting strategy than rocket-powered roller skates.
I say good for him. Frankly, ACME has some explaining to do.
I always wondered why Wile E. didn’t take all the money he spent on ACME products and simply buy some food.
The man had a budget. He just used it terribly. Instead of spending $29.95 on a pair of rocket skates, why not order a Road Runner burger? Today, you could get DoorDash to deliver one.
And here’s the part that makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
Coyotes are actually faster than Road Runners.
Let that sink in.
Real coyotes can run around 40 miles per hour. Road Runners are considerably slower. Which means Wile E. Coyote didn’t need earthquake pills, jet-powered pogo sticks or a catapult capable of launching a Buick.
He needed cardio.
Wile E. was labeled a “Super Genius,” yet his strategy for catching an animal slower than he was involved ordering increasingly dangerous merchandise from a company whose products seemed to come with free ambulance service.
At some point, even the Road Runner had to be thinking, “Buddy, you know you can just chase me, right?”
But that’s what made those cartoons so much fun.
Gravity only worked when it was funny. Anvils had the flight characteristics of cruise missiles. A coyote could run off a cliff, remain suspended in midair long enough to look at the camera, then plummet several hundred feet into a canyon.
And five minutes later, he’d be back.
As a kid, I accepted all of it. Maybe that’s why the idea of Wile E. finally taking ACME to court feels so satisfying. After all those years, he’s finally stopped chasing the Road Runner and started chasing accountability. I’m just hoping the settlement includes enough money for groceries.
Because if Wile E. Coyote really is faster than the Road Runner, the poor fellow has spent his entire life solving the wrong problem.
He didn’t need a Super Genius label.
He needed to cancel his ACME subscription.
