The big heavy cube
With rabbit ear antennas
And a dial with only a few channels
Held the wonder of Saturday morning cartoons.
Scooby Doo and Hanna-Barbera favorites,
Hong Kong Phooey or Dastardly and Muttley, filled the screen.
The greatest of these was the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show.
Although as a child I only got a portion of the humor, there was nothing like seeing Bugs Bunny trick gangsters or hunters like Elmer Fudd,
Or seeing a little bird trick the big cat with the speech impediment, Sylvester.
Somehow out of all the conflicts in the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show,
I never really appreciated the deeds of the Roadrunner and the Coyote.
They all ended the same with very little humor or suspense.
I only felt sympathy for this dogged coyote.
Wile Coyote was hungry.
He tried hard.
He purchased Acme products that were sure to work, like monstrous magnets, tunnels that were really painted rock, and rockets that would speed his travel to help him catch his target.
The Coyote pursued the Roadrunner as nature decrees,
But the laws of nature always were flipped,
The Roadrunner always defeated the Coyote,
And the Coyote ended up getting squished, falling off a cliff, or
Falling off the cliff and having a rock fall on top of him,
Or just being utterly defeated . . .
Until the next scene when his indomitable spirit—
Or stupidity—
Or unwillingness to stop–
Or hunger
Forced him to give it a try once again.
I always felt sorry for the Coyote as he opened a new Acme box
(while I also wondered who was paying for all this cool stuff).
I especially sympathized as the Coyote was in mid-air,
waving goodbye to the audience
Right before his body catapulted toward earth from a high cliff,
Landing in a “poof” at the bottom.
The part that was supposed to make us laugh was the taunting “beep, beep” at the end
As the Roadrunner smiled at the audience and took off in the distance.
What was the lesson in this?
Was this funny?
Did Hanna and Barbera want the audience to realize
That laws of nature don’t count?
That the Puritan work ethic doesn’t matter since a sneaky manipulator will always win?
That hard work and effort do not lead to success?
That his desire to satisfy his hunger does not justify killing the Roadrunner?
That Acme products should never be purchased?
* * * * * * * * * *
Now that I have grown up,
Now that I have chased after a few rivals, fought in challenges I should have won,
Gone up against those who wanted to destroy me or humiliate me or just get ahead,
I can definitely identify with the Coyote.
Sometimes it seems like all my hard work, all my effort, all my best ideas
End up in a rubble pile at the bottom of a tall cliff,
With me falling and landing with just a “poof” at the bottom
While the enemy goes by laughing with his little “beep beep”
What do you do when the “beep beep” is all you hear
While you sit at the bottom of the cliff?
Perhaps all that cartoon was doing (other than making a lot of money for the creators)
Was teaching each of us as children
That life rarely goes as planned.
The best-laid plans, the most wonderfully-idealized Acme designs, the hardest work
May all go “poof” and we may be faced once again with the realization that we are saying goodbye to all our efforts.
Perhaps like the Coyote,
We can take the falls,
Accept the failures,
And still pick ourselves up, all bent up and battered, all dusty and dirty,
A bit bruised and a bit puzzled at where it all went wrong,
And take one step after another.
Back to the drawing board.
Back to dream of the victory that eludes,
Determined that at one point, the victory comes to those who find a reason to
Keep on getting up,
Keep on finding a reason to face a new day,
Keep on fighting against the odds.
However, if I am completely honest, sometimes I just cannot do this.
Sometimes I just want to sit at the bottom of the cliff, put some bandaids on my boo-boos, and cry.
Sometimes I want revenge on the “beep beepers” of life, those who celebrate my fall.
Like the image above, I sometimes ask “how” it has happened and try to learn how to avoid it in the future.
I know that sometimes I have given up the fight to chase after a specific Roadrunner and instead pursued another challenge.
All I know is that it is not that easy to be the Coyote.
All of us at times have been Wile Coyote sitting at the bottom of the cliff.
Most of the time, the only thing that has gotten me to start crawling again, start moving away from the bottom of the cliff
Is pure courage,
A tiny bit of hope,
And a helping hand from another coyote who has fallen.
Regardless of the motives of Hanna-Barbera, one thing I know:
The Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon has taught me I am not alone.
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