Lickety-Splat

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Lickety-Splat is a 1961 Warner Bros.Looney Tunes theatrical animated short. It features Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner and was made under the supervision of Chuck Jones.

Wile E. Coyote, standing on the road, pulls out an arrow-shaped sign saying "Coyote" and another saying "Apetitus Giganticus". The Road Runner sppeds by with a Beep-beep and ruffles the coyote's fur. Wile flips the signs to read "Road-Runner" and "Fastius Tasty-us", and winds up his legs, followed by his body, and chases the Roadrunner.

When the Roadrunner sees the coyote chasing him, with a tongue stick and a Beep-beep, he gears into superspeed, rolls up the road, turns a tunnel inside-out, and wrecks a bridge as he puts his would-be predator far behind. Wile stops short of the chasm, panting, and two light bulbs signal his new-found idea.

1 Pair Roller Skis: No snow necessary. Wile prepares himself as he hears the Beep-beep, and skis off the plateau down the mountain and onto the road that the Roadrunner is dashing over. As the camera cuts separately to Wile and the Roadrunner, the Roadrunner turns across a U-turn at the end of a cliff, while Wile speeds off. When Wile realizes his mistake, he drops the ski poles, and soon slams into the side of another cliff. The coyote looks up and down and scratches his face, until he hears and sees the Roadrunner at the top of the cliff. The skis provide a rather convenient "spring" for Wile, who jumps up and down, and barely misses the Roadrunner. Unfortunately, instead of jumping up to deliver the coup de grace, the skis shatters under Wile's weight, and he plummets to the canyon floor.

The Road-Runner beeps at Wile from across the canyon, and the camera pans to Wile attempting to shoot himself over the canyon with a bow. Before he can fire himself, the very end of the cliff crumbles and the bow tips over the side. Wile flips himself over in the air, but this causes him to bounce up and get his head stuck inside the edge of the cliff. The coyote initiates a new plan.

Wile lights a needle-nosed dart bomb and throws it at a target attached to a cactus, exploding all three items. Wile grins at the camera, then gets in his balloon with a cadre of bombs. He sees the Road-Runner zipping over the road and lights the bombs. Upon lighting, the bombs circle in the air until one of them blows up Wile E's balloon. The coyote waves at the camera and falls toward the ground, but stops himself by releasing a parachute. Unfortunately, another dart blows that up too, and Wile is left to wave at the camera with an AGAIN sign before he plummets again. A third dart follows him to the ground and explodes.

Wile leaves out Free Bird Seed while he awaits with a hammer behind a turn. The Road-Runner is heard approaching, but the camera immediately cuts to a fourth dart blowing up the hammer handle and the hammerhead landing on Wile E.'s head, causing Wile E.'s eyes to register "Tilt!" as if he were a pinball machine.

Genuine Boomerang: Returns to Owner. Wile E. hurls the boomerang at the passing Road-Runner, but it disappears behind a rock and comes back around with dart #5 attached and approaches him. The boomerang passes the fleeing Coyote and hovers over one spot at the same time that Wile E. stops moving, leaving him relieved...until he notices its presence just before it blows up.

Wile now attempts a simple gun-in-the-woods trap, but a sixth bomb plugs the barrel and explodes. The camera cuts to a seventh bomb, which blows up under a huge boulder and sends it into the air...and down on the blackened coyote.

As the Roadrunner traverses another road, the coyote is shown at the end of a cliff 900 feet in the air, holding an anvil ready to drop. An eighth bomb takes out a third of the cliff's edge, and two more darts pepper the floating end. Wile jumps onto the "secure" main cliff, but the whole thing falls, and he falls past the anvil in the air. The coyote pulls himself on top of the anvil, which smashes through the ground, followed by Wile, the floating end of the cliff, and the two darts. Wile's ears cover his face, and the two darts unfurl into "THE" and "END". Wile pokes one eye out at both of them and laughs deeply.

[edit] Censorship

Most of the scenes where Wile E. uses the needle-nosed dart bombs are cut on ABC, specifically, the following scenes:
- The dart blowing up the jackhammer, which lands on Wile E.'s head and causes his eyes to register "Tilt!" as if he were a pinball machine.
- The dart blowing up a boulder and landing on Wile E.'s head.
- Wile E.'s boomerang returning to him with a dart bomb attached to it.
- A dart plugging Wile E.'s rifle.