Soup or Sonic

Soup or Sonic
Merrie Melodies (Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner) series
Now that I got the Road Runner...what do I do?
Directed by	Chuck Jones Co-director: Phil Monroe
Produced by	Chuck Jones
Story by	Chuck Jones
Voices by	Mel Blanc
Music by	Dean Elliot
Animation by	Master: Phil Monroe Irv Anderson Ken Champin Tom Ray Lloyd Vaughan Virgil Ross Manny Perez Richard Thompson
Studio	Chuck Jones Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	May 21, 1980
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	9 minutes 11 seconds
Language	English
Preceded by	Freeze Frame
Followed by	Chariots of Fur

Soup or Sonic is an animated cartoon distributed in the Merrie Melodies series, starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was first aired on May 21, 1980 as a part of the television special Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over and was one of four new cartoons released. While the opening card was used for the first time, the closing card for this cartoon was previously used during the 1959-1960 season. This is the only canonical cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote catches the Roadrunner without him escaping afterward.

"Soup or Sonic" was directed by Chuck Jones and Phil Monroe. The title is an oronym, a play on the terms "supersonic" and 'soup or salad', as one might be offered by a waiter in a restaurant. In comparison to other episodes, this is the longest episode with a length of 9 minutes and 11 seconds.

Introduction: The usual chase starts for a few seconds until it stops for the Latin names: Road Runner: Ultra-sonicus Ad Infinitum, plus a "bonus" name for the Road Runner's Beep-Beep: Beepius-Beepius, and Wile E. Coyote: Nemesis Ridiculii. The chase then moves around mountain corners until it ends on a mountainside, with the Road Runner ducking behind a corner and leaving a cloud of dust for the coyote to run into. Wile E. rides the dust cloud all the way through the air, and finally stops to determine where he is, a question mark appearing over his head. He opens a "door" in the dust only to see that he is in midair, and sheepishly closes the door as the dust disperses, and then changes his question mark of surprise to an exclamation point before the inexorable pull of gravity takes effect.

1. The pair pull up onto opposite outcroppings, and Wile E. attempts to pole-vault from his to his opponent's, but this causes the end of his outcropping to crumble and the coyote to fall down. Seeing his impending humiliation approaching, Wile E. attempts to make the best of it by climbing up the pole; however, he keeps falling back to the bottom of it. Eventually, the pole turns around so fast that it whirs like a propeller, and then grinds against a cliff side all the way down to the part Wile E. is holding. When it finally stops rotating, the coyote then pulls himself onto the narrow bar left of the pole and accepts his fate.

2. In a gag that sees four attempts in this cartoon, Wile E. sits on a rocket and lights the fuse, aiming towards the Road Runner on the opposite site of the chasm. (Virgil Ross animated this gag, providing distinctive ear motions.) The first attempt fails when the fuel and nosecone launch out of the rocket, leaving Wile E. sitting on an empty hull. The hull crunches down, and then Wile falls, annoyed, to the canyon floor.