Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958) User Reviews (13)

Two More Original Gadgets From 'Acme'

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 1 May 2007]

This wastes no time showing Wile E. Coyote (famishius vularis ingenious) chasing The Road Runner (birdius high-ballius). It begins in the opening credits, and only momentarily slows down after 100 seconds when the coyote comes up with this first plan.

Wile's idea - lets's catapult myself by throwing a boulder on the other end of this teeter- totter - winds up with our famished friend falling a thousand feet almost into the same imprint he left in the ground minutes earlier.

Before he falls a third time - he has a fatalistic approach by now -he puts a trampoline over that same spot.

I liked the names of the two Acme products he purchased for this one: the "Giant Rubberband For Tripping Road-Runners" kit and the "One Do-It-Yourself Tornado Kit" along with the gags of him getting out of a dynamite-rigged one nail at a time and the headgear for his ill-fated high-wire act.

It's the same old story but with some inventive ideas, new and funny schemes by the pathetic but never-say-die Wile.

Chuck Jones, that's enough

[rbverhoef · 7/10 · 18 May 2004]

This is another fine cartoon in the Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote series. In this one the Coyote tries to catch the bird with an elastic string between two rocks, a big rocket, seeds that can create tornadoes, a barrel with dynamite and something you normally use in a circus. Of course every attempt ends with hurting himself instead of catching or killing the Road Runner.

This is a terrific cartoon. It is directed by Chuck Jones and that is enough to make a cartoon work. His timing is perfect with every gag. The sequence with the barrel and dynamite is the best example, especially the Coyote's eyes in the final moments are a nice detail. The gag with the thing normally used in the circus is perfect as well. Another fine cartoon.

Famishius Vulgaris Ingeniusi

[utgard14 · 8/10 · 24 September 2015]

Excellent Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote short from Chuck Jones. Really vibrant, energetic animation in this one. The colors are bright and lush. The characters and backgrounds are well-drawn. The action scenes are just dynamite. The music is lively and upbeat. The best part of any Road Runner and Coyote cartoon are the wonderful gags, often featuring the products of the good people at ACME. Some of the better ones we have this time are a hilarious high wire stunt, ACME tornado seeds, and a recurring falling gag that never stops being funny. It's a great short and one of the best looking of the series. Chuck Jones fans will no doubt love it.

Another near-classic from the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote series

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 13 September 2015]

Despite some duds in the later years (mid to late 60s), when the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote series was at its best it was brilliant, even with the more-of-the-same stories they're mostly well-made, are very funny (uproariously so in the case of the best gags) and Coyote is one of Chuck Jones' best ever creations.

While not one of the best of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote series, Whoa Be-Gone! is still a great cartoon and very close to being a classic. The animation is very good, the colours are beautiful and rich, the gags and the reaction shots look great still and both characters look good, especially Coyote. The scenery and backgrounds are handsomely rendered too and there are very clever overhead shots that are both well-animated and priceless in humour. As always, Whoa, Be-Gone ! is wonderfully scored by Milt Franklyn as always, orchestration is sumptuously lush, rhythmically it's lively but never too busy, use of instruments is clever and appropriate and it's not just a good fit but adds a good deal to what's going on too.

Apart from ending ever so slightly abruptly, the sole fault of the cartoon, Whoa, Be-Gone! Is a very funny and at its best hilarious cartoon. The gags are not the most original, for this particular series they're pretty standard really, but with the imaginative they feel fresh. The tornado and especially barrel of dynamite gags are particularly strong. The story is formulaic, but very energetically paced and never feels dull or overly-predictable. The two characters fare wonderfully and work against each other just as well. Roadrunner is one-dimensional but very amusing (thankfully not annoying as one might fear), but Coyote has always been the funnier and more interesting of the two and he's on top form here, one of those characters where even just a facial expression is enough to split the sides laughing and he is easy to empathise for even for one as cunning as he is.

To conclude, a great cartoon that will be a treat for Roadrunner and Coyote fans. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Hilarious From Beginning to End!

[DaniGirl1969 · 10/10 · 13 August 2011]

I've always thought of Road Runner as a girl, and this was the episode that convinced me, the way she cheerfully teases Coyote. I guess she reminds me of the way I used to tease my older brother when I was a little girl myself, although my brother had a bit more luck in getting even than poor Wile E, who just never gets a break! This is one of the very best episodes of this wonderful cartoon series --- from Coyote's opening encounter with a wayward rocket and an Acme delivery truck, to his calamitous ride through a minefield inside an Acme Instant Tornado at the end. Director Chuck Jones once wrote one of his guiding rules of the Road Runner series was to, wherever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy -- and this may be the episode he was thinking of. That rascally Road Runner shows Wile E the proper way to set a trap, tricking him off the same cliff three times! And, once again, we're treated to a Road Runner's eye-view of his plunge to the bottom each time. Wile E's expressions are always so hilariously cute -- first anger at being tricked, then resigned defeat, and finally smug satisfaction because THIS time, he set up a trampoline at the bottom to soften his landing (yeah, right!). He does another canyon dive later when his "high-wire" attempt to catch Road Runner goes just the way you expect it to -- with a "shocking" little postscript added on! There are other gags that will have you laughing all the way through, including a rubber band and some very large boulders, a barrel of dynamite and a poor quality rope (must be from Acme), and a booby trapped bridge. This is a cartoon I giggled at as a little girl, then giggled at with my daughter when SHE was little, and I'm still giggling as I watch it with my GRANDdaughter! Some things just never get old! An excellent cartoon!

mine hero

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 27 November 2006]

Yet again, Wile E. Coyote (insert scientific name involving eating) sets a series of traps to get Road Runner (insert scientific name involving speed), but always gets himself. Probably the coolest one here is a tornado seed. Sure enough, he gets sucked in...and then there's a mine field! And the guy still doesn't give up! True, even before "Whoa, Be-Gone!" starts, you know what sorts of things are going to happen, but it's still a hoot. After all, WEC always gets his just desserts for trying to harm RR (another one of the tricks involves a trampoline). It's truly a classic.

Available on Volume 2 Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes DVDs.

Location is everything!

[Chip_douglas · 19 January 2004]

Some people ask themselves where Wile E. Coyote gets the money to buy all those Acme products. Probably by not spending any money on food. He starts off "Whoa Be Gone" well prepared on top of a rocket with cutlery in hand. Too bad he did not take the nearby tunnel into account. Or the fact that the rocket was a heat seeking one. This installment features more inventive ideas than usual, and one of the funniest details in any Road Runner cartoon: every time Wile E. falls of a cliff, he lands in exactly the same spot, but in a different position, leaving a mark on the ground.

Credit is due to Wile E. for always being willing to learn new skills, such as upside down tightrope walking. Nor is he afraid to try out new products, like a box of one thousand Do-It-Yourself Tornado's (Acme water gun to make them grow sold separately). You would thing he should know better. Especially with an abandoned army mine field nearby....

8 out of 10

"One thousand Tornado Seeds . . . "

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 27 May 2016]

" . . . just add water" is NOT the latest product from the Koch Brothers (or Trump Enterprises, for that matter) as much as both of these 21st Century Megacorporations would love to peddle it. No, this is a brainstorm of Acme Company featured in the Looney Tunes animated short WHOA, BE-GONE! That long-time National Rifle Association Poster Boy, Wile E. Coyote, exercises his Second Amendment Rights by initiating two tornadoes with his squirt gun. When he's not busy sniping away in one sense or another, America's favorite Daredevil dons a helmet topped by a grooved skate wheel for his planned head-stand as he virtually free-falls down a zip line suspended 664 feet above the canyon floor. Though I won't spoil the outcome of this gutsy stunt, I can reveal that WHOA finds Mr. Coyote getting blown up seven times and Smushed on four more occasions. While Wile is only electrocuted once, suffice it to say that he suffers AT LEAST three 664-foot Death Plunges.

Could have been so much more

[phantom_tollbooth · 5/10 · 1 October 2008]

Chuck Jones's 'Whoa Be Gone', the twelfth Road Runner cartoon, is at its best when it's playing with new ways to hurl the Coyote off a cliff. Early on in the cartoon, this is established as a running gag with the Coyote landing next to previous splat marks from earlier plummets and finally erecting a trampoline over the spot to save him from further falls (needless to say, it doesn't work). Where 'Whoa Be Gone' goes wrong is in backing down from this potentially brilliant running gag. The potential for a cartoon based around nothing more than different ways to get the Coyote to plummet off the same cliff onto the same bit of ground is enormous. Instead, 'Whoa Be Gone' leaves behind this premise and opts for some more standard gags, some of which are funny and some of which aren't. At the very least, the cliff falling gag should have been revisited for the finale. Instead, we get a very abrupt, weak and frankly strange ending in which the Road Runner drops from the sky dragging the That's All Folks screen on a drawstring. It doesn't work and acts as a disappointing climax to a cartoon that could have been so much more than the run of the mill effort that it is.

Wile E. falls down and goes boom MULTIPLE times

[movieman_kev · 9/10 · 30 October 2005]

We come to the twelfth pairing of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (and the last on the Golden Collect Volume 2 sadly). And the overt familiarity doesn't detract at all with the humor. It's like watching the Stooges you KNOW all three will have some sort of hideous pain inflicted upon them. as always I found it highly enjoyable, but perhaps I'm a bit biased as Wile E. Coyote is one of my absolute favorite cartoon personalities of all time. This animated short can be seen on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. This cartoon also has an optional music only track.

My Grade: A

Feel like seeing stars today, Wile E.?

[slymusic · 8 July 2009]

"Whoa, Be-Gone!" is another one of those Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons in which we all know that the latter, no matter how ingenious, will never capture the former.

Highlights: There are a few nice overhead shots of Wile E. falling off a cliff and looking upward at the camera with different facial expressions. The Coyote tries out a roller-skate-type helmet on a tightrope, which breaks and sends him falling (another great overhead shot); the rope then becomes attached to some electrical wires and shocks the Coyote. Wile E.'s dynamite barrel falls on top of him, and after struggling to free himself, he finally escapes the barrel, not realizing that the lid containing the lit dynamite is still on his head. I also love the closing scene in which Wile E. accidentally waters his can of tornado seeds, thus getting caught in his own tornado and hitting a mine field.

Find "Whoa, Be-Gone!" on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 Disc 2, a disc featuring a dozen different Road Runner/Coyote cartoons directed by - who else? - Charles M. "Chuck" Jones.

Fun Short

[Michael_Elliott · 2 May 2009]

Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958)

*** (out of 4)

Twelfth film for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner turns out to be one of their best. This time out the hungry coyote uses all sorts of tricks including bombs, large rocks, a nailed barrel with dynamite and perhaps best of all, a grow your own tornado kit. This is an extremely fast-paced entry in the series and I might even call it the best as it does a very good job at matching the freshness of the first film. We've seen a few of the jokes before but even so they come off very fresh here. The best joke is a reworked one of something we saw earlier with the "dehidrated boulder" routine. This time out it's a tornado that you add water to and all heck will break loose, which naturally happens but this time it's just more pain for poor old Wile E..