Hopalong Casualty

Aspiring cartoonist and middle-aged gumbuster Cliff Morelli (Jeremy Koerner, Black Cat Whiskey, New York Lately) spends his days at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk performing minimum wage janitorial duties. When he is put on suspension after harassing a teenager and his parents threaten to throw him out of the house, Cliff decides to actively pursue his lifelong animation dreams by reconnecting with his rich brother Jack. After a failed attempt and a string of bad luck, Cliff finds himself at the mercy of the animated characters he has created, and together, they form a devilish plan to exact revenge on all those that have wronged him.

This was the debut for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was also their only cartoon made in the 1940s. It set the template for the series, in which Wile E. Coyote (here given the ersatz Latin name Carnivorous Vulgaris) tries to catch Roadrunner (Accelleratii Incredibus) through many traps, plans and products, although in this first cartoon not all of the products are yet made by the Acme Corporation.

Wile E. Coyote unsuccessfully chases the Road Runner using such contrivances as a rifle, a steel plate, a dynamite stick on an extending metal pulley, a painting of a collapsed bridge (which the Coyote falls into while Road Runner passes right through), and a jet motor.

Wile E. Coyote is hungry and schemes to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote uses, among other things, a dehydrated boulder to try to catch the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote uses a bottle full of bees, a brick wall, a boulder in a catapult, and a harpoon gun in his attempts to catch the Road Runner.

The Coyote makes various attempts to get the Road Runner with an explosive-tipped arrow, by shooting himself out of a sling shot and by covering the road with quick drying cement.

Hypnosis doesn't help the Coyote catch the Road Runner, nor do a clutch of string-controlled rifles or dozens of mousetraps, but they all manage to backfire on him, naturally.

While cooking a tin can, the Coyote spots a better meal rushing by: the Road Runner.

Wile E. Coyote's plans for catching the Road Runner involve a giant elastic spring, a gun and trampoline, TNT sticks in a barrel, and tornado seeds.

A coyote and his rather dim son stalk the sheep that Pluto is guarding.