A Visual Vocabulary: Everything the Coyote Ever Ordered
The ACME Corporation. Wide selection, instant delivery, questionable quality.
If you’ve been to the Lizard Brain studio, you’ve definitely seen a framed print of this infographic by Rob Loukotka hanging in a place of honor.
It is everything the coyote ever ordered from ACME Corporation. It does three things for me.
First, it tells a story visually, without spoken words.
Second, everything on it evokes an emotional response.
Third, it begs the question: if the coyote had the cash to order all this stuff, couldn’t he just buy some food?
We’ll save the third question for the philosophers. Let’s look at the first and second points.
It tells a story visually, without spoken words.
The roadrunner and coyote cartoons were masterpieces. I dare you to argue with me on this one. First appearing in 1949, they were each compilations of short vignettes that told stories of context, challenge, and resolution, all in 30 seconds or less. They built a world of only nine simple and consistent rules (which you can read about in Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, by Chuck Jones.) And they did it without the spoken word. From the writing and art of Chuck Jones to the musical score of Friz Freleng to the background paintings of Maurice Noble, each one was a triumph of purely visual storytelling.
Any one of them is a master class in iconography, line, layout, expression, color, perspective and viewing angle, and most of all, dramatic tension. I love to watch them with a notebook in hand to make quick sketches of the visual methods the animators used.
Trivia #1: In the 1965 short Zip Zip Hooray!, the coyote DOES speak, explaining his motivation to eat the roadrunner.
Trivia #2: The “E” in “Wile E. Coyote” stands for Ethelbert. (This was revealed in a comic book: don’t bother watching the cartoons for the reference.)
Trivia #3: In August, September and October 1982, the National Lampoon published a three-part series chronicling the lawsuit Wile E. filed against the Acme Corporation over the faulty items they sold him in his pursuit of the Road Runner. Even though the Road Runner appeared as a witness for the plaintiff, the coyote still lost the suit.
It evokes an emotional response.
A round bomb. A ten ton weight. A stick of dynamite. An ANVIL. These images have worked their way into the gestalt, the collective unconscious, taking on more than their literal meaning. Stylistically, they now have a midcentury modern aesthetic, contemporary at the time, but charmingly classic now. They each MEAN SOMETHING, the same way the icon of a phone today looks like a traditional receiver and NOT like the glass rectangle of a modern smartphone.
And that’s how visual practitioners can use them: as concrete pictographs or abstract conditions. Here’s a quick English-to-visuals dictionary using the coyote’s visual vocabulary.
Spoken intent: heavy, important, weighty
Visuals: ten ton weight, anvil, boulder, barbell, dumbbell, refrigerator
Spoken intent: risk, threat, challenge, uncertainty
Visuals: round bombs, dynamite, detonator, cactus, mouse trap, a cliff, a shark fin
Spoken intent: remedy, fix, cure, solution
Visuals: pill bottle, bandages, fire extinguisher, waste basket
Spoken intent: accelerate, speed, responsiveness, energy
Visuals: roller skates, magnet, lightning bolts, sneakers, skis, pogo stick, road runner, outboard motor, catapult, jet engine, kite
Spoken intent: knowledge, wisdom, information
Visuals: book, pamphlet, instruction manual
Spoken intent: success, outcomes, goal, initiative
Visuals: cheese, flag, mountain top, target, hot air balloon
Spoken intent: resilience, perseverance, agility, flexibility
Visuals: boomerang, spring-soled shoes, pole vault,
Bonus round! Go backwards! In other words, go from the visual to the intent. What meaning can you find in a Batman suit? A snow making machine? A helium tank? A frisbee? A water pistol? A box of bird seed? A glue bottle?
Trivia #4: Coyote and Roadrunner were themselves meant to parody chase cartoon characters Tom and Jerry.
Trivia #5: Jones based the coyote on Mark Twain's book Roughing It in which Twain described the coyote as "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton" that is "a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry."
Trivia #6: Early model sheets for the character prior to his initial appearance in Fast and Furry-ous identified him as "Don Coyote", a pun on Don Quixote: another character who, despite fantastic efforts, never reaches his goal.
Thanks to Jim Nuttle for first introducing me to the idea of referencing cartoons for emotive illustrations.
For a fascinating deep dive into the abstract worlds of background painter Maurice Noble, check out https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/noble-effort.
