Learning From The Chuck Jones Road Runner Rules
Sometimes there are things you hear about, practices or ideas that jump out at us as especially interesting, even when they might not be directly applicable to our fields of work. For me, hearing about Chuck Jones’ rules for Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner was one such example. The level of character knowledge and world development that went into the baseline structure of how the episodes functions spoke to such depth of care and thought on what superficially seems like such a silly concept. Even though it would be hard to create guidelines quite so strict for novels given the differences in mediums, as those worlds need to be more malleable so plots can evolve and people may change, the idea of that list has stayed with me, and undoubtedly helped me pin down what about my worlds has to be absolute.
For anyone who is not familiar with the Chuck Jones Road Runner rules, I’m putting them below, but there’s plenty more to read from the creator himself. One quick note before we dive in, you might see some of these and realize they have, in fact, been broken. Remember that cartoons are rarely one-person efforts and compromises have to be made, so there are a few exceptions floating around. Outside of that, they should prove to be quite consistent:
1. The Road Runner Cannot Harm The Coyote Except By Going “Beep-Beep!”
2. No Outside Force Can Harm The Coyote – Only His Own Ineptitude Or The Failure of Acme Products.
3. The Coyote Could Stop Anytime – If He Were Not A Fanatic. (Repeat: “A Fanatic Is One Who Redoubles His Effort When He Has Forgotten His Aim” – George Santayana)
4. No Dialogue Ever, Except “Beep-Beep!”
5. The Road Runner Must Stay On The Road – Otherwise, Logically, He Would Not Be Called Road Runner.
6. All Action Must Be Confined To The Natural Environment Of The Two Characters – The Southwest American Desert.
7. All Materials, Tools, Weapons, Or Mechanical Conveniences Must Be Obtained From The Acme Corporation.
8. Whenever Possible, Make Gravity The Coyote’s Greatest Enemy.
9. The Coyote Is Always More Humiliated Than Harmed By His Failures.
Quite a few more than you were expecting, huh? When I first heard the notion of all this, I wondered how many edicts there could possibly be for such a simple premise of a show. As it turned out, a good few, and in reading them I realized that the show wasn’t as simple as I’d taken it for. Rather, it was very focused. The reason everything was so consistent lay in these rules and the care of a creator who would dictate them.
Breaking them down, it is interesting to see the mix of character work, world development, and tonal stability. Rules like #5 and #6 would have never occurred to me, yet it does feel like Chuck Jones looked into the future, saw how prevalent pedantic “spot the errors” commentary would be in the age of the internet, and cut off annoying objections before they could form. As for #7, it’s easy to take that one as a given for any Looney Tunes based animation these days, but it had to start somewhere. At least one creator had to care enough about the assortment of products to create Acme and weave the brand’s existence effectively throughout their world.
Where things get really interesting is when we move into the character work for these two, reminder, almost entirely silent protagonists (Beep-Beep). It’s fascinating, seeing the way Chuck Jones envisioned these characters and how those concepts were formed onto the screen. #3 is one that addresses a lot of questions and motivations, while also explaining The Coyote’s refusal to simply move on. He would if he could, but he can’t. #9, with some help from #8, gives us good insight on how they kept this cartoon showing excessive violence still on the family friendly side. If The Coyote lost with no stakes, the humor is weakened, but physical pain is a step too far. Wounds to the ego, however deep they might run, aren’t quite so disturbing on screen.
Oddly, the one that popped out to me the most was #1, the more I mulled things over. It had never occurred to me that the Road Runner does no harm to The Coyote, I was sure I recalled it knocking a boulder over or something. But no, The Road Runner might be next to the boulder as the cliff gives way, however he’s merely a witness. Everything that hurts The Coyote was engineered by The Coyote, even the famous tunnels painted on rocks were made by coyote hands.
Knowing all of this reframes the cartoon slightly, almost making it a modern interpretation of Sisyphus, but doesn’t diminish from any of it’s episodes. Having a solid framework allowed for deeper understanding of Chuck Jones’ characters while also ensuring as much consistency as reasonably possible.
So, do I think authors need to have lists like these too? Well… no and yes. Like I mentioned up top, books and TV are different mediums, and that applies doubly so with cartoons. The point of a cartoon is for things to happen but nothing to ultimately change, whereas novels are predicated on someone/thing/world growing from the experience of the plot. It would be nigh-impossible to create structure this strict without things growing stale and characters feeling stilted, change needs to be on the table for the vast majority of stories.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t some use to the process, though. For me, I like to consider it from a character perspective. What are things they will and won’t do, what are absolute truths in regards to that character? To use an example, since I’ve been working on Villains’ Code #2 a lot this year, one of my absolute rules for that series is “Ivan loves his children.” Now that might seem like an obvious given, and very often it is, but when I come to tough plot moment, where I have to really consider what a character would do, these absolutes help me decide what the choice truest to the character will be. Having a rule like that sitting there reminds me that regardless of whatever else is going on, Ivan will always be thinking about how to protect his kids.
At the end of the day, whatever rules you come up with, if any, should serve the story. Figure out the pieces of your world and character that need to be tentpoles, absolutes that won’t change, or at least won’t change until specific plot devices force them too. And maybe add a few painted tunnels in there where page-space will allow, may as well take some comedic lessons from a classic while we’re at it.