Wile E.!

Years ago I mentioned stumbling into an early Roadrunner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote could talk, which was fascinating:

Also, in these episodes, Wile E. can talk - not only could he talk, but it turns out he's a noxious, pretentious fucking fop who's so full of himself that not only does he refer to himself as "Wile E. Coyote, Genius", but he has a fucking business card that says just that!

Flash forward to an episode of Cheers, wherein Woody asks why doesn't the coyote, instead of spending all that money on fancy gadgets to catch the Roadrunner, just use that money for food?  To which, after some discussion, Cliff cleverly surmises "Woody, I think you're missing the point here. It's not that Wile E. Coyote wants to eat or that he wants to eat a roadrunner. What he wants is to eat that particular roadrunner. It's very existential." (Clip HERE)

This is fantastic - while chasing Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote is the perfect amalgamation of Cliff Clavin, Frasier Crane and Woody: curiously confidant in his non-existent intelligence, pompously full of bombast, and yet, in the end, utterly clueless.  Perfect.

Today over at Vulture there's a piece on the enduring love we have for him:

Still, he perseveres, and maybe that’s what makes Wile E. Coyote so endearing. America loves an underdog, even if he is a predator trying to devour an innocent bird. Dan Flores, in his wonderful book Coyote America, even calls Wile E. an “avatar [of postwar America] in a coyote suit.” In Flores’s view, Wile E. starts off simply famished and then becomes too sure of his own genius and obsessed with mail-order technology and gimmicks. It’s sadly a more relevant metaphor than Flores intends. A plucky, ravenous predator high on his supposed intelligence whose technological schemes always blow up in his face is a pretty good description of the U.S. right now, too.

That’s the real key to the success of Wile E. Coyote. Like any good mythic figure, including the Native American coyote, Wile E. can be whatever we need him to be: a wild animal, Want, a Western cowboy, a dad, America itself. But none of those definitions fully fit either. Wile E.’s too smart and fast for that. We get so close, but we never can quite get a hold on him. And more than anything, doesn’t that make you want to dust yourself off and start the chase again?