Zoom and Bored
| Zoom and Bored | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies series | |
| Directed by | Chuck Jones |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Music by |
Milt Franklyn Carl Stalling |
| Animation by |
Ken Harris Abe Levitow Richard Thompson Corny Cole (uncredited) |
| Layouts by | Maurice Noble |
| Backgrounds by | Philip DeGuard |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | September 14, 1957 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
Zoom and Bored is a 1957 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series featuring Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.
The title is a pun on the term "room and board".
Plot
Introduction: The pair zooms into view and begin to chase, freezing momentarily for the credits and Latin names to be shown: COYOTE: Famishus Vulgaris and ROAD-RUNNER: Birdibus Zippibus. From here, the Road Runner speeds off, leaving the coyote to fall on the ground. Wile E. recovers quickly, kicks up some dust, and begins to chase the Road Runner; the bird, though, leaves so much dust in the road that his pursuer cannot see ahead. Eventually, except for his ears, the coyote is completely enclosed in the dust. The Road Runner pulls next to the coyote and beeps, alerting Wile E. to his surroundings. The coyote's expression becomes foreboding, and the camera cuts out to show both apparently suspended in midair. As the dust clears, the coyote pokes his hands through the bottom of the cloud, and then looks down to see nothing but air below him. The dust completely clears, showing that the Road Runner is perched on the edge of a cliff and the coyote on the wrong side of him, and gravity then turns on. Determined not to let this happen again, Wile E. climbs up a very high escarpment and surveys his surroundings for the Road Runner...who happens to have pulled up right behind him and now beeps such that the coyote falls back down. The camera zooms in on an obviously miffed Wile E. as he falls to the ground again. Dusting himself off, the coyote gets up and walks out onto the road until the Road Runner beeps a second time and sends his rival directly into a low-slung rock plateau.
1. As he hasn't studied it enough, Wile E. follows the instructions of THE ART OF ROAD-RUNNER TRAPPING:
- Dig hole in road
- Camouflage hole
- Wait patiently
- Eat Road Runner
However, he never gets past the first step, as his jackhammer vibrates enough to pull the coyote into the hole. When the power cord stretches enough to unplug the jackhammer, the coyote climbs out and finds himself vibrating sporadically. Wile E. walks over to the book and prepares to tear it in half, but one of the vibrations does the job for him.
2. Still trying to halt the Road Runner, Wile E. builds a brick wall (with one more vibration for good measure) on the mountain roads and waits. Soon, he hears the Road Runner braking in front of the wall. When his ears recover from the sonic assault and the dust cloud settles, he quizzically looks around the corner of the wall to see his own rear end. Wile E. makes random movements, imitated by his rear, while looking behind and ahead of him, and finally determines that this is a duplicate of himself and rolls dynamite under his own rear. The firework promptly explodes, and Wile E. laughs until he realizes his own tail is aflame; he leaps directly into the air in pain and falls down to the ground.
3. Wile E. sets up the first of two bird seed traps with a plate of bird seed, then takes off into the distance with a long string attached to the cork of a 1/5 bottle of "Acme Bumblebees" which is tied to a cactus arm above the plate. Road Runner approaches the plate and starts eating the seed, prompting Coyote to pull the cork. The huge swarm of bees burst out of the bottle, but instead of attacking the munching Road Runner it zooms into the distance towards Wile E. and repeatedly stings him.
4. For his second bird seed trap, Wile E. plans on squashing the bird with an anvil from high above a wooden plank. Predictably, the combined weight of Coyote and anvil causes the plank to snap in two when he walks on it. Road Runner easily dodges the falling anvil by sidestepping it; the plank halves fall on top of the resulting crater to create a convenient bridge back to the feast.
5. Having had enough of the simple traps, Wile E. builds a lengthy steep ramp and lights a bomb intended for the Road Runner at the ramp's bottom. All that effort is for nothing as the bomb instantly explodes upon lighting (even though the fuse is one foot long!)
6. Coyote now prepares a giant catapult in the road, but the boulder is too heavy for the catapult to sling at the passing Road Runner and it flattens its owner.
7. Finally, Wile E. hopes to shoot the Road Runner with a harpoon gun. The rope, however, catches one of Coyote's feet and drags his rear over a cactus and under several rocks, then hurtles him into open space. Wile E. sees the fix he is in and recovers in time to grab the very end of the rope. Unfortunately, the rope continues into a very thin pipe, then out onto the road and directly into a chicken race with a truck. Wile E. smashes directly through the truck, and then the spear finally impales a rock face, but this leads to the coyote being swung down into the path of a train and bumped all the way up to the edge of a precipice. The Road Runner pulls up directly behind the ragged, exhausted, gasping and sobbing Coyote, but instead of beeping (which would possibly drive his opponent insane with more gravity-induced humiliation), he shows a soft side by holding up a sign saying: "I just don't have the heart." As Road Runner dashes back the way he came, the sign changes to "'Bye!"