00:00Welcome everyone to miscellaneous blog commentaries. This is Matthew Hunter and I'll be discussing
00:11Zoom at the Top, which is a Chuck Jones cartoon from 1961. It is one of the final Roadrunner
00:18cartoons. It was actually, there were only two more after this. One was called To Beep
00:23or Not To Beep and another one was called War At Pieces. This one is one of the more simple
00:31Roadrunner cartoons you'll ever see. It dispenses with all the weird backgrounds that Jones had
00:37done for a long time and just kind of focuses on the characters for once. You'll notice that
00:43I guess in an effort to save money, I guess paint costs money, Wile E. Coyote's eyes are
00:48yellow. They're actually white. And it's very simple. It just goes to the characters and
00:55just very simple backgrounds. And this one, like a lot of the later Roadrunner cartoons,
01:05is all about gravity and what gravity does in a cartoon. Since he's kind of upside down
01:12into the rock, he doesn't realize it until he says, whoa, what's going on? And he tries
01:15to flip it over, but at this point it's too late. Or is it? He's actually okay here.
01:22But you know the minute he steps off that rock, yeah, there you go. The idea is that in
01:31Roadrunner cartoons, the cliff sides, the rocks and everything are not as solid as they look.
01:36We've seen that before. Now watch the legs on him there. You know, he's not moving at all, but his legs are. You know, it's like the illusion of fluid animation, but it's not really. And there's a real subtle
01:57in this scene right here. You know, they go upside down again and his nose falls before he does. And he hits the ground and this is just really good personality information right here.
02:10He starts drawing something in the dust and he kind of stops. He doesn't have to say a word and you just know what he's thinking. You know, you just know.
02:25He gives you that look like, well, whatever. Now this scene is really cool because even the Wile E. Coyote actually talked several times in the voice of Mel Blanc. He doesn't really talk a whole lot in the Roadrunner series. And in this one, he utters one line at the end of this gag. And it's really, really funny. So I'll just let you watch myself.
02:55By this point in the series, Wile E. Coyote is almost as afraid of his own gadgets as he is in anything else. He knows it's going to fail. He knows something bad's going to happen to him. He just doesn't know when. And that's what's running away. He's safe there.
03:24And then he puts the bird seed on there. He's just so afraid of it. He's like, when is it going to happen? He doesn't know. He knows it's going to happen. He knows something bad's going to happen again. He just doesn't know when.
03:36You'll also notice that in this cartoon, about after this scene, you don't see the Roadrunner much at all anymore. He just kind of disappears and all you hear is, meep, meep. And that's it. You don't see it.
03:54Okay, here we go.
04:03Now it gets him.
04:05And the one Mel Blanc line in the whole cartoon.
04:09Ouch.
04:11Ouch.
04:12That's all he has to say.
04:14Now this machine right here is just pure Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble genius.
04:34And that it looks really, really weird, but all he has to do is push one button and it works. And it doesn't matter. It works.
04:43And it just looks cool.
04:47And, of course, it works on coyotes more than it does Roadrunners, as most acne devices do.
04:53And here's a fine gag right here.
04:56It just melts in, period. It doesn't really know at all.
04:59And here's the end scene in here. And what you'll notice is that the Roadrunner, once again, you don't see him.
05:07You see him kind of jet, but you don't actually see the Roadrunner very well.
05:12The Roadrunner turns away. Coyote flings the boomerang, but gets it stuck to the glue. It's like, what was he thinking?
05:19And the rest of the cartoon is Wile E. Coyote flying through the air on a boomerang, trying to get himself unstuck from the glue.
05:28And every time he does it, he gets another part of himself stuck to him.
05:33He's like, oh no, now my hand is stuck to my head. He's still flying through the air. He's stuck.
05:38He's like, huh? And so now he's going to try using the feet, you know. Keep in mind he's still in the air.
05:46And notice the background there. Just really, really simple, but it really reads really well.
05:54And he falls, of course. And there he is on the ground. He thinks he's safe, but not really.
06:00And he's all walking bow-legged because he's got the boomerang stuck to his butt.
06:08And the iris out is shaped like a boomerang. You've got to love that.
06:12And that's all, folks.
06:14And the ery ery ery ery ery, that's all, folks!
