Coyote vs ACME vs Universe
Wait a minute… was it really ACME the problem, or the intention behind Coyote?
When do cartoon universe started looking so real?
I watched Coyote vs ACME this past weekend and I the very first thing I have to talk about is the CGI technology, because it was one of the things I kept noticing throughout the whole movie. I couldn’t help thinking and comparing it with Mary Poppins, which is my favorite movie of all time! I thought how incredible it was that decades ago, Disney managed to make animation and live action coexist so beautifully. That movie was doing something incredibly sophisticated long before the technology we have today existed.
Then there’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which took a very different approach to putting cartoon characters and humans together. I remember watching it and being fascinated by the idea, but visually, the collision of the two worlds could sometimes look strange and almost surreal. In Coyote vs. ACME, the CGI has obviously come a very long way. The cartoon characters actually feel like they occupy the same physical world as the actors, and seeing a human hand holding a cartoon object no longer makes you think, That looks fake. It actually looks... in tune!
I even found myself looking for the little things that might break the illusion, and there was really only one moment that caught my attention: John Cena looking at Foghorn Leghorn, where his eyeline seemed just slightly off. Other than that, I stopped thinking about how they were doing it and simply accepted that these characters existed together.
The most creative loser in cartoon history
But honestly, the technology is not what stayed with me. It was Wile E. Coyote.
Think about him for a second. As kids, we watched this coyote desperately trying to catch the Road Runner, and what fascinated me was how incredibly creative he was. Every time one attempt failed, he came up with another strategy. He would invent a new scheme, order another product, create another trap, calculate another angle, and come up with another elaborate way to finally get the Road Runner.
And as kids, I personally questioned: Why is the coyote so obsessed? Aren't there any more roadrunners to eat in the desert? We watched him fail over and over again, and somehow the answer always seemed to be that Wile E. Coyote was doing something wrong.
The suspect we never questioned
What never occurred to us was the most obvious possibility of all: What if the ACME products simply didn't work? What?!
Yeah, I never sat there thinking, Maybe that rocket is defective. Or, Maybe that coyote didn't follow the assembly instructions correctly.We just moved on to the next attempt with Wile E. Coyote, waiting to see what ridiculous strategy he would come up with next.
Decades later, Coyote vs. ACME makes us look back at all of it and say, Wait… ACME was the problem?
The variable we forgot
Because it made me think about how we evaluate if something will succeed. We can have the best ideas, the best products, the best tools, the best technology, the best brand, the most sophisticated strategy—and none of it matters if the intention behind it is wrong. And the opposite can also be true: something doesn't have to be the most powerful, expensive, sophisticated or perfect in the world if the intention behind it is good; it will actually succeed.
That is what I took from Wile E. Coyote.
For decades, we assumed his failed attempts were evidence that something was wrong with him. The strategy wasn't good enough. The plan wasn't smart enough. The execution wasn't right. But maybe we were looking at the wrong variable the entire time. Maybe sometimes the thing we keep trying to fix isn't the thing that's broken.
When failure starts looking different
And that takes me to something much bigger: the idea that there is a force beyond what we can see that can interfere, redirect, protect and ultimately keep us from what isn't meant for us. Call it divine intervention, call it God, call it the Universe, whatever makes sense to you, but I see it as that invisible force that keeps showing up when something is not aligned with what is good for us.
Wile E. Coyote can have the most elaborate strategy imaginable, the most expensive ACME product, the perfect setup and the clearest intention to catch the Road Runner—and somehow, something always gets in the way.
As a kid, I thought that was just the joke. Now, decades later, I find myself looking at it completely differently. Maybe the failed attempt wasn't always failure. Maybe sometimes it was protection.
And honestly, that is mind-blowing!
Comments