Coyote vs. Acme and Dolly Parton
Pop Culture Happy Hour
The Pop Culture Happy Hour episode explores the newly released Looney Tunes film 'Coyote vs. Acme,' which features Wile E. Coyote suing the
Key takeaways
- The film 'Coyote vs. Acme' is a loving homage to classic Looney Tunes shorts, drawing from original animation history rather than modern reboots like Space Jam.
Main topics
- Coyote vs. Acme movie review
Notable quotes
This is a movie that is made with an extraordinary amount of love. Love for these characters, love for the history of animation.
Conclusion
The episode celebrates both 'Coyote vs. Acme' as a heartfelt tribute t
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) This message comes from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Speaker 7 (0:18) So, hey, before we get to the show, you, yes, you with the impeccable taste in podcasts, if Pop Culture Happy Hour has ever helped you win a group chat debate, find a hit series before everyone else, or just pretend you saw that movie you definitely didn't, and look, we've all been there. We've done it. Even me. Do us a solid and leave the show a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find us, and it helps us make the show even better for you. And we thank you for it. Speaker 7 (0:48) The latest Looney Tunes movie is Coyote vs. Acme, and it's got a pretty ingenious premise. Wile E. Coyote finally reaches a breaking point in his Sisyphean pursuit of the Roadrunner, and he decides to sue the Acme Corporation for manufacturing crappy, ineffective products. Who does he call in for help? An unambitious accident lawyer played by Will Forte. The Speaker 3 (1:09) movie comes with some buzzy lore and hype. For corporate reasons, it almost didn't see the light of day. But it's here now, and all that behind-the-scenes drama aside, we can say it's good. It's loony. I'm Stephen Thompson. And Speaker 7 (1:23) I'm Ayesha Harris. And joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is our co-host, Glenn Weldon. Hey, Glenn. Hey, Ayesha. All right, well, there's not much setup needed here. Coyote vs. Acme is based on a humor article that was published in The New Yorker, and as we alluded to earlier back in 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery pulled a notorious move and shelved the completed movie as a tax write-off. Now, it was eventually acquired by Ketchup Entertainment, and it's in theaters now. Stephen, I'm going to start with you. Was it worth the wait? Speaker 3 (1:54) Well, I think it's certainly a good movie. I mean, in terms of what it's worth and whether it's worth it, you never like to see this kind of maneuvering done. You know, once you make a movie with a really, really promising plot and a lot of talent behind it, you hope that that movie actually gets to come out and people get a chance to judge it for themselves. And now that it's out, I really, really enjoy it. I think the concept does a lot of work here. This is a very, very clever conceit. As such, I think the kind of the first act of this film is probably the strongest because it's where they're establishing this premise. It's also where they're using kind of the most kind of iconic coyote and roadrunner footage. Some of the best visual gags kind of pop up in that first third. Once they get into the mechanics of grinding through the plot, I think it loses a little bit of steam. But this is a movie that is made with an extraordinary amount of love. Love for these characters, love for the history of animation, the number of little inside jokes. There's a character who's patterned after Peter Lorre, whose name is Peter Lorre. You know, the lawyers in this film are named Avery Maltese and Jones. Those are famous animators. Like, this film is made with deep love of animation, and it's kind of getting into that Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. You know, the movies that I love that combine cartoon and live action in kind of inventive and colorful and funny ways. This is in that tradition and I enjoyed it enormously. Speaker 4 (3:28) Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:29) yeah. Glenn, how about you? Speaker 4 (3:30) Yeah, I picked up on that sincere, not ironic love, too. And I think that's one of the reasons this very circuitous path to movie theaters is maybe made it go down a little bit easier for me because I knew it wasn't coming directly from Warner. So I knew it wasn't just an excuse to kind of keep the IP alive. You know, just wasn't some kind of way to refresh the brand in a way that, you know, come at me, millennials, in a way that the space jams of the world always felt like, hey, let's make these characters hip and appeal to the youth of today. And, you know, this is drawing from those original shorts. They are not drawing from the more contemporary Space Jams, Looniversities, Tiny Toons, Tasmanias. The gags and the characters come directly from the old shorts. Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:11) the coyote does Speaker 4 (4:12) not refer to himself as a super genius. This is true. This is true. Even that. So it's not like those original shorts right now have a huge cultural footprint. They're not like right for takedowns because, I mean, I would argue that the Space Jam has a bigger cultural footprint than any of the original Looney Tunes shorts do. And, you know, when I was a kid, these old shorts were basically a public utility. They came to your house like water and electricity. And they were ubiquitous. And were just as valuable. Exactly. And they were on endless loop, which is why they wormed their way into the very soft brains of my generation. I knew I was going to like this when some of those D-listers, real D-listers, started showing up, like Peter Lorre, who, I mean, the Looney Tunes version of Peter Lorre, he showed up in 1941's Hollywood Steps Out, which is a... amazing text we'll have to talk about. I think we already talked about it on the show at one point. I really knew when Miss Prissy showed up. Miss Prissy is a goose from a lot of the Foghorn Leghorn shorts. Speaking of Foghorn Leghorn as evil Matlock, there is a cosmic inevitability to that. Speaker 5 (5:12) We both know it would be very, I say, very unpleasant for everyone involved if anything bigger, I say bigger, were to become public. Speaker 4 (5:24) Some really good jokes. There's jokes involving Wile E. Coyote's signs. There's a joke that there are a limited number of signs. I love that joke. But also, they have to be credited here for really acquitting themselves well, because if you are determined to draw from those original shorts and not the Spaces Jams and the Tiniest Tunes, that's fraught, because that's a challenge for yourself, because these shorts have not all aged equally well. Bugs Bunny is eternal. Speedy Gonzales is not. But I knew they knew what they were doing. When they figured out how, in the year 2026, common era, to do a Pepe Le Pew joke. Yes. And when they came up with the gag that is in this movie, Speaker 6 (6:01) I Speaker 4 (6:01) hope they pushed themselves away from the desk, took the rest of the day off, and went out to Musso and Frank's and had some martinis because they just, that is a minefield that they just jetéed across in such a smart way. It's so good. I like this a lot. I think I'm picking up on what Stephen said. I like the jokes so much. I like the jokes more than the story. Because I saw the story as a way to kind of hang the jokes on, you know, something, an infrastructure to kind of hang the jokes on. And I was fine with that. Speaker 7 (6:26) Those are good jokes. Yeah. Look, I'm a millennial here and I was raised on the entire cocktail of Looney Tunes. So the Looney Tunes, the old cartoons were playing on Nickelodeon when I was a kid. So I got my full like that. I also love Tiny Toons and then Space Jam. It's Space Jam. It's not a good movie. I can admit this. It's not a good