The Road Runner Show
From The TV IV
| The Road Runner Show | |
| |
| Premiere | September 10, 1966 |
| Finale | March 2, 1967 |
| Airs | |
| Creator | |
| Network | CBS, ABC |
| Style | 30 minute animated anthology |
| Company | Warner Bros. Television |
| Episodes | 26 |
| Seasons | 3 |
| Origin | USA |
The Road Runner Show is an animated anthology of Warner Bros. animated theatrical short subjects that aired on CBS. The series starred Chuck Jones' desert antagonists.
Jones created the Road Runner and Coyote to intially satirize the standard cartoon chase. Audiences took it as straight comedy, so that's how it would be made from that point on. The rules were concrete: the characters (in Jones' cartoons) would be identified with bogus scientific genuses, the characters never spoke (apart from the Road Runner's "Beep Beep" and a later 60s two-reeler cartoon pilot where the Coyote does a dissertation on why he wants to catch the Road Runner and how to catch him), the Coyote's gimmicks never work on the Road Runner (only on himself), and he gets everything from the Acme Corporation.
Selected cartoons were features along with theatrical cartoons starring other Warner stablemates. Many of these cartoons were previously seen on The Bugs Bunny Show on ABC. Added to the batch were the mid-1960s Road Runner cartoons made by the DePatie-Freleng and Format studios under the directorship of Robert McKimson and Rudy Larriva. Road Runner cartoons not show on this program were syndicated as part of the Bugs Bunny and Friends package.
The show ran two seasons before being melded into The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour on CBS in 1968. Later, a 1971 version of The Road Runner Show appeared on ABC featuring some of the same shorts and bridging sequences as this version.
Western Publishing's Gold Key Comics arm would publish a Road Runner comic book from 1958 to 1984, giving him the name Beep Beep and three sons in tow. The Road Runners' dialogue would be exclusively in rhyme. Road Runner comics stories would be made in the late 90s for DC Comics' Looney Tunes title, and the stories played it straight like the original cartoons.
The Road Runner Show was produced and is distributed by Warner Bros. Television.
Contents |
Seasons
| Season | Premiere | Finale | # |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | |||
| Season One | September 10, 1966 | September 2, 1967 | 26 |
| Season Two | September 9, 1967 | September 7, 1968 | — |
| ABC | |||
| Season Three | September 11, 1971 | September 2, 1972 | — |
In-Depth
- At a Glance: Additional information about the series
DVD Releases
There has not been a DVD release for this show.


