| Whizzard of Ow | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Bret Haaland |
| Written by | Chris Kelly |
| Based on | Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner |
| Produced by | |
| Edited by | David Bertman |
| Music by | John Frizzell |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 7 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Whizzard of Ow is an American animated short film that was released on November 1, 2003. It was directed byBret Haaland. It starsWile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and is the first short of these characters produced after the death ofChuck Jones on February 22, 2002. The film was included in theDVD release ofLooney Tunes: Back in Action as a special feature.[1]
The short begins with a magical battle between two different stereotypes of sorcerers (a short Gandalf-like wizard that holds a large book of magic in one hand and a staff in the other, and an elegant but sombre Doctor Strange-like warlock with a black cat on his shoulder) where they zap each other until they kill each other in a final energy blast. Their possessions, however, escape unharmed and fall on Wile E. Coyote (Canis latrans), just as he was about to catch Road Runner (Geococcyx californianus), causing considerable pain to him (especially the cat, who viciously scratches to his face out of fear). Calamity notices the ACME book of magic and becomes delightfully happy (as his ears fall off), as he now has a new weapon against Road Runner.
1. The first spell that Wile E. tries is to turn the black cat into a feral beast. He succeeds, and the cat transforms into a black panther, but unfortunately, his beast proves to be too feral, and it quickly slices his body into strips, deflating Wile E. like a balloon.
2. Wile E. buys an ACME Flying Broomstick and, after some trial and error, begins to chase the Road Runner through the air. However when he enters a gloomy tunnel, Wile E. mistakes his beeps (that were temporarily deeper than normal) with a horn of an approaching truck and suddenly changes his direction to the sky, only to be hit by two meteorites and get his broom "out of gas". Wile E. starts to fall and dials the Acme Flying Broom Customer Service on his phone for help but gets a recording telling him all operators were busy. After a long drop, Wile E. manages to stop his broomstick in mid-air and land safely, only for Road Runner to scare him from behind with his beeps off a cliff and leaving poor Wile E. to suffer gravity.
3. In his second spell, Wile E. tries to turn himself in a giant, but much to his chagrin, the spell only affects his head, whose weight crushes his own body.
4. Wile E. uses invisible ink to make a bomb transparent and disguise it as a crystal ball in order to lure an unsuspecting Little Beeper to his death. However, the fake crystal ball actually works and Road Runner sees Wile E.'s future where he's caught in the middle of a huge explosion...a future that quickly turns into reality when the bomb rolls straight to him.
5. In his third spell, Wile E. learns levitation and uses bird seed to temporarily stop Road Runner and smash him with a large rock. Unfortunately, the rock doesn't fall under his command, giving enough time for Road Runner to finish his lunch and leave. After several unsuccessful attempts to make the rock fall, Wile E. leaves in disgust, only for the rock to follow and crush him.
5. In his fourth and last spell, Wile E. once again tries to shape shift the cat into another creature, this time into a Pegasus, to once again chase Road Runner though the air, but they inadvertently fly through a load of poisonous snakes (prompting the Pegasus to use Wile E. as a stick to get rid of them), and to make matters worse, the Pegasus quickly turns into a flying carpet, and much to Wile E.'s anguish, they fly straight to a reserve of scorpions and to a field of cacti. The carpet is then turned into an alligator (who promptly devours his snout), a lawnmower, and then into a great white shark, and he and Wile E. land in a lake where the Coyote is viciously mauled by his familiar.
It turns out that the reason for the cat's uncontrollable transformations was Road Runner, who found the book of magic and decided to test his powers. He then turns a mailbox into a gracious and beautiful female roadrunner and the two leave, walking and holding "hands", while Wile E. suffers being shark food.
WhenLarry Doyle, the short film's producer, and also the writer forLooney Tunes: Back in Action, learned that Warner Bros. had a desire to "refresh the Looney Tunes brand", he went to them and "pitched an idea that involved resurrecting theatrical shorts", which had been the series' original format. According to Doyle, he thought the studio's "brand identity had fallen off the map," and "these shorts could more easily bring back their brand identity, because it is easier to duplicate the success of the shorts than it is to make a great movie with those characters". Doyle then became responsible for a program that created a "stable of theatrical shorts", which produced eight completed shorts, until the studio did not renew his contract in 2003.Whizzard of Ow was the first short to be released. Doyle also noted that the studio "tinkered with the shorts a lot after I left, and didn't make anything that I would characterize as a good change ... they made a bunch of changes like taking out some adult humor, taking out or changing jokes that they thought people wouldn't get, too smart or too weird. I think they just got really conservative."[2]