One of my favorite cartoons, Friz Freleng’s LITTLE RED RIDING RABBIT, a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies production, starring Bugs Bunny and featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet (uncredited), hit theaters 80 years ago today. #OnThisDay
A rather hungry Coyote, Wile E has been trying to catch and eat the Road Runner for going on fifty year. And though he has yet to succeed, he remains as perseverant as ever.
Intelligent and well spoken, Wile E will often purchase items from the Acme Catalog in his pursuit of catching the Road Runner. These items, ranging from rocket-propelled roller-skates to disintegration ray guns, never work out quite as advertised and usually result in Wile E being blown up, run over or in some manner injured in spectacular fashion. Undaunted, Wile E continues to use the Acme Catalog hoping that perhaps the next item will be the one that enables him to finally catch that bird. Wile E has additionally gone after Bugs Bunny, with similar results.
The great Mel Blanc provided the voice for Wile E Coyote with the Sisyphean adversary first appearing in the 1949 Looney Tunes short, The Fast and the Furry-Ous.’