It was about time that Wile E. Coyote lawyered up. After decades of having Acme products blow up in his face while he’s blamed for the explosions (the nerve!), he finally sues the company with the help of Kevin Avery (Will Forte), an ambulance chaser with a penchant for settling. The Albuquerque, N.M., setting had me wondering if we’d see a Better Call Saul crossover, but Forte is just right as a bumbling billboard counselor.
Warner Bros. supplied Coyote vs. Acme with its best anti-corporate punch line. The studio dropped an anvil on the project for a tax write-off before Ketchup Entertainment stepped in and saved it from oblivion. So we got a cartoon flick about a company that treats cartoons as disposable that was nearly disposed of by the company that made it. If a screenwriter had penned that, we’d call it too on the nose.
The film is a clever spiritual successor to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, one of the first movies I remember seeing in a theater with my mom. (Dad was across the hall watching Die Hard.) Humans and toons inhabit the same world here, and the jokes come fast. It’s a riot, but my favorite part wasn’t on the screen. Two rows behind me, a pair of siblings who couldn’t have been more than seven were cracking up with their parents. They were meeting Wile E. the way I had in the ’80s: chasing the Road Runner across the American Southwest, getting pancaked, and dusting himself off for another try.
As small as that might seem, a common culture is built out of countless moments like it. A society is richer when children can laugh at the same jokes as their parents on a Saturday night, and luckier still if the grandparents join in on the fun. The Looney Tunes have helped sustain that across generations. Wile E., Bugs Bunny, and the rest of that rowdy gang survive only if we keep introducing them to kids.
I’m glad Ketchup did.
