Sugar and Spies

Sugar and Spies is a 1966 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon.[1] The short was released on November 5, 1966, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.[2] It is the second of two Road Runner shorts directed by Robert McKimson and the only one to feature music by Walter Greene. It is also the final appearance of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote during the Golden age of American animation.

Sugar and Spies
Directed byRobert McKimson
Produced byDavid H. DePatie
Friz Freleng
Story byTom Dagenais
Larz Bourne
Music byWalter Greene
Edited byLee Gunther
Animation byBob Matz
Manny Perez
Warren Batchelder
Dale Case
Ted Bonnicksen
Layouts byDick Ung
Backgrounds byTom O'Loughlin
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Vitagraph Company of America
Release date
November 5, 1966 (US premiere)
Running time
6 minutes
LanguageEnglish

The title of the cartoon is a play on the term "sugar and spice".

Summary

During one of his many chases with the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote is hit with a briefcase, thrown from a crook's car that is evading the police. The briefcase is actually a spy kit containing several gadgets, along with a black coat and spy hat that Wile E. wears throughout the cartoon. The gadgets Wile E. attempts on the Road Runner (which all result in failure as usual), include:

  1. Sleeping gas: Road Runner dodges the gas and blows it back at Wile E., who sleepwalks off a cliff.
  2. Do-it-yourself time bomb that Wile E. mails to the Road Runner (to nowhere particular), but is returned to the Coyote by Road Runner (disguised as a mailman) for insufficient postage. As Wile E. takes the package back into his cave for an extra stamp, BOOM!!!
  3. Explosive putty which is applied under a huge boulder with a mound of bird seed placed nearby. Wile E. hides behind another boulder farther away and lights the fuse, only to be crushed by the flying boulder.
  4. Spy car equipped with machine guns, ejection seat and cannon: The bullets from the machine guns ricochet off a bolder and blow away the car top, the Coyote ejects himself from the car while suspended upside down, and the force from the cannon sends the car backwards, running over the Coyote who then fails to dodge the cannonball.
  5. Remote control flying bombs: Wile E. tests the first bomb on a cactus, then sets the remote control for the next bomb to follow Road Runner, who hides under the Coyote's stool and escapes in time for Wile E. to take the explosion. When the smoke clears, the dazed Coyote has the bomb's wings attached to his arms, prompting the Road Runner to set the remote control for the moon. As Wile E. is sent flying away, the Road Runner triumphantly beeps and runs off the screen, leaving a trail of smoke that spells out the words "The End".

Trivia
  • The Spy car gag is a spoof of James Bond's Aston Martin gadget spy car.
  • This is one of the few Golden Era shorts in which other characters besides the Coyote and the Road Runner are seen in the desert, and the only one to show any humans (namely, the officers pursuing the oddly green-skinned spy, both in automobiles, at the beginning of the picture).

Availability

The cartoon was included in the Supergenius Hijinks DVD.

References
  1. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 359. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 128–129. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.


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