Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote

Wile E. Coyote (also known simply as "The Coyote") and the Road Runner are cartoon characters from a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, created by Chuck Jones in 1949 for Warner Brothers. more...

Chuck Jones based the films on a Mark Twain book called Roughing It, in which Twain noted that coyotes are starving and hungry and would chase a roadrunner.

Chuck Jones once said of his most famous protagonist and antagonist that "Wile E. is my reality, Bugs Bunny is my goal." He originally created the Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional "cat and mouse" cartoons (such as Tom and Jerry) which were increasingly popular at the time. The cartoons' Southwestern setting also mirrors the setting of the Krazy Kat comics, by George Herriman.

The Road Runner was voiced by Paul Julian, who worked as a background painter for Friz Freleng's unit.

Premise

The Road Runner shorts are very simple in their premise: the Road Runner, a flightless cartoon bird (loosely based on a real bird, the Greater Roadrunner), is chased down the highways of the Southwestern United States by a hungry coyote, named Wile E. Coyote (a pun on "wily coyote"). Despite numerous clever attempts, the coyote never catches or kills the Road Runner. (Although The Solid Tin Coyote does nab the roadrunner, he throws the coyote into his cavernous mouth following the "EAT, STUPID" command, and in Soup or Sonic, after running in and out of pipes that would magically resize the pair, the coyote is getting ready to eat the Road Runner, when he suddenly realizes that he is miniature and his prey is gigantic, to which he then looks at the camera and holds up the signs "All right, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him - now what do I do?") All of his elaborate schemes end up injuring himself in humorous instances of highly exaggerated cartoon slapstick violence.

Read more at Wikipedia.org