Watching Looney Tunes cartoons on Saturday mornings was a highlight of my childhood, a regular occurrence that I would look forward to throughout the school week. It didn’t matter that these cartoons were already decades old by the time I had first seen them in the late-’70s or early ’80s. It was also of no concern exactly how many hundreds of times I had seen each particular five-minute spot. I would suspend my disbelief each and every time, as I sat on the living room carpet in my Fruit Of The Looms in front of our tube TV on its stand, watching completely enrapt as Daffy Duck lisped and spat through his mangling of the English language.
Bugs Bunny & me.
Then there was Bugs Bunny, my personal hero, with his prominent front teeth like mine, who would use his wit and charm and glide his way through a perilous situation, often without even breaking a sweat. Neither one of us was the most masculine thing around, and as a kid, I found strength in Bugs’ complete lack of machismo and total likeability, and I related wholly to it. I love so many of those Warner Brothers characters, and even to this day, when the MeTV Plus cable channel runs a three-hour block of classic cartoons on Sunday nights, I tell myself I’ll watch just one episode, and will sometimes end up spending fifteen minutes or more doing so when I should be getting ready for bed and work the next morning. It’s like playing Candy Crush Saga on my phone or eating Lay’s potato chips. It takes real self-control not to overindulge.
There were a few characters, though, that I just never warmed to. I’ve written things in my essays over the past six years that I do not question have turned off readers at some point, which is never really my sole purpose, but here might be the granddaddy of them all: I hate the Road Runner. Okay. Maybe “hate” is too strong a word, and I really try not to use it, feel it, or even think it, but it’s fair to say I have an extreme dislike of the Road Runner. Did he ever say anything offensive in one of his cartoons, or be involved in one of those horribly racist bits where something explodes in his face and he is then styled to look like an ugly caricature of an African American before fade-out? Not that I was aware of. No, the Road Runner would never have been penned-and-inked into a situation like that simply because he got away with positively everything and avoided every single bomb and trap laid in his path.
I have thought about bringing up my distaste for the Road Runner with my therapist, and time and time again I vote myself out of doing so, so as not to devote time, the cost of my health benefits, or copayment money to the subject. I have a pretty good idea of where all of this comes from, in all honesty. With all of the myriad details of my personal life, upbringing, and family of origin that I’ve woven into my musings about the cars I’ve written about, suffice it to say that for much of my existence up to a certain point, I had felt like I could do nothing right and felt powerless to change things. As this relates to Wile E. Coyote, I’m not ignoring the fact that he was spending basically all of his energy trying to kill the Road Runner, who was only living his life and trying not to get eaten. However, it also seems like there was a lot of unwarranted taunting going on.
And, there’s more. Coyotes have to eat, too. Is this not correct? For all the money Wile E. spent in mail orders to ACME, Inc., wasn’t there some rundown diner in the desert where he could have sat down for regular meals at a reasonable price? Forget all that for a second. What really kills me is that when Wile E. Coyote’s plans backfire in his face, sometimes the Road Runner returns to the site of whatever destruction has just occurred, sticks out his tongue at the would-be carcass of his nemesis, gives a “Meep-meep!”, and then takes off after disrespecting his pursuer (who was unquestionably in need of medical attention). Let’s talk about our featured car for a moment.
Seventy-one was the year that the midsize, bargain-oriented Road Runner (and the rest of Plymouth’s intermediate coupes, including the Satellite and GTX) was restyled into the swoopy, “fuselage”-styled beauty we see in these pictures. Within two years of the Road Runner having been the second-most popular muscle car in the U.S. with over 84,400 units sold for ’69 (outsold by less than 2,000 units by Chevy’s Chevelle Super Sport), sales for ’71 at 14,200 were but a small fraction of its former high figure. Standard power came from 383 cubic inch V8 with a four-barrel carburetor and 250 net horsepower (300 gross, with both figures sourced directly from the factory brochure). It also came with a four-speed manual transmission, dual exhausts, and heavy duty brakes and suspension.
The upmarket Plymouth stablemate GTX included a host of upgrades, including a standard 440 four-barrel with 305 hp (net), a standard three-speed automatic Torqueflite transmission, and an upgraded interior, with vinyl bucket seats versus the Road Runner’s standard front bench. For ’72, the GTX was no longer a stand-alone model, but became a top-line Road Runner designation before being discontinued after ’74. This was kind of like how the AMX became a top-tier Javelin for ’71 over at AMC. The price difference in base price between the two Plymouths was substantial, with the Road Runner listing at only $3,147 (~$21,700 / adjusted for 2022) and the GTX costing almost $600 more at $3,733 (~$25,700). Predictably, the Road Runner far outsold its fancier sibling for ’71, by a ratio of almost five-to-one, with just under 3,000 GTXs sold that year.
I used to wonder why a rival make didn’t introduce a “Coyote” model to do battle with the Plymouth Road Runner, but the truth is that by ’71, which was only the Road Runner’s fourth year on the market, the muscle car phenomenon had almost completely run out of steam, and new models take development time to execute properly. Also, I can imagine that the very existence of, say, a “Chevy Coyote” might have led to a lot of street racing activity with bad consequences. I think I may have set a record today for how many tangents one of my essays can splinter off into, but if anything, I hope you have gathered that I like the Road Runner the car much, much better than the Road Runner the cartoon bird. Also, there will probably always be a part of me that hopes, when watching these old Warner Brothers cartoons, that I will witness Wile E. Coyote whoop the Road Runner’s butt just once.
Downtown Flint, Michigan.
Saturday, August 15, 2015.
Brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org. Screen grabs were sourced from YouTube.
Here’s a 1969 MAX WEDGE 426 CI Cross-Ram powered Road Runner with the famous ‘Bird’ decal on the door and on the move.
That’s a cool shot, and what I especially like about it is that it looks like the Road Runner is in its natural habitat with all that desert in the background.
I see the black front spoiler on the yellow RR. Next thought is a porn star ‘tashe “I have come to clean zee pool”
On the Coyote front, was there ever a more loyal customer to ACME?
I work in the insurance industry. As an adult, every time I see something with the ACME brand blow up or malfunction, I often think to myself how (rightfully) impossible it must be for that company to obtain Products-Completed Operations Liability insurance. (Yes, I need a vacation.)
I hated the Road Runner too and I don’t think I need a therapist to tell me that it’s because seeing someone getting away with cheating the system over and over without consequences just because of who they are breeds a certain contempt, even if the system being cheated is physics. Those painted tunnel entrances should’ve worked!
One hundred percent this.
Joseph Dennis Unlike you, I was and still am a fan of both Road Runner and W.E.C. A friend of my recently posted this on Facebook. Hope you enjoy it.
Literally laughing out loud.
I know I heard what were said to be coyotes when I was visiting friends in Arizona last July, and these Warner Bros. cartoons did come up in conversation at some point, but I don’t think we actually saw any that weekend.
Count me as another diehard fan of the WB cartoons! I didn’t hate the road runner, but I never took to those cartoons as much as I did to the “classic” WB editions. If we are segueing into most-disliked cartoon characters, Yosemite Sam was mine. I thought him a loudmouthed bully. And it still amazes me all these years later that one guy (Mel Blanc) did the voices for all of them.
I had never paid attention to production/sales figures on these, but had no idea that the RR tumbled so badly in popularity in 1971, and with a newly restyled body too.
It looks like your featured car sports a sunroof? At least I assume that’s how the rooftop passenger stays secure. I know they were offered in many B and C body models, but I don’t think I have ever seen a pre-1975 Mopar vehicle with a sunroof in real life.
I wish I had a few better shots of this car that better show the roof. I honestly don’t remember this RR having a sunroof. IIRC, Wile E. was securely strapped to the roof with bungee cord – I don’t think he was peeking out through the passenger compartment.
Yosemite Sam never really bothered me – I thought he was hilarious, especially when he was trying to be both nice and shady at the same time. I wasn’t all for the gun violence (which I now realize it was), but I liked Sam. I sometimes feel like wearing the “Back Off” mudflaps image when I feel cornered (i.e. at work), but it’s just a thought that goes no further than that.
Oh, and Mel Blanc was *the man*. Such a great entertainer whose voices and characterizations brought so much joy to so many.
Joseph,
That’s my car! It has a factory power sunroof (via ASC) the coyote was standing on the buddy seat between me and my wife. I still have the car. I believe those pics were taken during back to the bricks…
Jon
Jon, you just made my day, Sir! I have seen your Road Runner at Back To The Bricks a couple of years, IIRC, and it’s beautiful. I got these pictures of yours at the end of the day after Saturday’s big show. I saw it headed northbound on Saginaw Street, and timing was everything. I’m so glad you saw this post.
Hoo-boy, there’s a lot to unravel here. I’m just going to agree that the roadrunner cartoons were far from my favorite either. And as for the car, I’m not a fan, but rather a bit indifferent. I think my best description of both the car and the character is just that they’re “Too Much”. Both are just too over the top in their silliness for me. The character for his endless taunting and teasing, and the car for its utterly cartoonish looks and over-the-top “muscle-car-ness”. Enough is enough. They’re both just too much.
In another cinematic universe, Tom was occasionally allowed to get the better of Jerry, but Warner Brothers never gave us he satisfaction of RR or Tweety getting their comeuppance. Tweety was much more actively smug than the Road Runner, I thought. I really felt for Sylvester.
Anyway, one summer when I was about 9 or 10, a lifeguard at the neighborhood swimming pool had an almost-new Plymouth Road Runner. He was probably about 18, but to us small boys, he was grown up and undoubtedly the coolest guy we’d ever seen, or ever would see. When guys like him couldn’t afford insurance any more (or their dads refused to pay for it) it was all over for the Road Runner.
Sylvester – he’s another one who got the short end of the Warner Bros. stick. I found Tweety way more annoying than the Road Runner.
I suppose I should clarify that I loved the cartoons – I just didn’t like how my least favorite characters got so lucky all the darn time.
You make a great point about how insurance (and later fuel) costs eventually did cars like this in.
Last week I read that “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1990/02/26/coyote-v-acme) was being made into a movie. This is one of my favorite pieces of comic writing and I hope they don’t botch it.
As for the new 1971 intermediate coupes themselves, those black-plastic-pit interiors did them no favors. Can you imagine how many more they’d have sold with inviting interiors?
Thank you for putting this piece of literature (and very hopefully, the movie) on my radar. I cannot wait for this.
Ugh, really? No. Is nothing sacred? Must absolutely everything be monetised here on Ferenginar?
Comments like that would get you tossed out the airlock with ‘no lobes for business’ muttering and nattering if you were a Ferengi,
I do enjoy seeing Quark grovel now and then tho…
Oh, we’re talking about 71 Road Runners. If I imagine it coming towards me like in the pictures, I hear Edgar Winters Groups ‘Frankenstein’ coming from it.
That piece is the really old-fashioned, dry-witted American humour I haven’t seen for years. Wonderful.
(ps: please god the film never comes to be! Film’s completely antithetical to what makes this work).
I didn’t like the car when new, I too preferred the old W.B. cartoons but enjoyed watching the road runner whenever I was near a TV set .
Well written Joseph .
Road Runners were what, E – Bodies ? .
-Nate
No, they’re B-bodies. The E-bodies were the ’70-’74 Barracuda-Challenger cars.
Thank you (both) – and from what I remember reading here at CC, the E-Bodies were based heavily on the B-Bodies.
Like you J.D., I watched A LOT of the Warner Bros.’ cartoons (which spanned the ’30s to the ’60s). The non-stop showing of these on TV after school and Sat. mornings ended in the 1990s. So anyone born after that has no real connection to these characters. They missed out on all the wit and famous lines. If you make references to something Foghorn Leghorn or Daffy Duck said, you often get blank stares from this younger group. I think this is a real cultural divide between generations.
Also, can you imagine a car maker today naming a model after a contemporary cartoon character? Maybe put SpongeBob on the hood. Or how about South Park?
Family Guy…
FWIW, in flashbacks of his teen years, Homer Simpson has been seen driving what appears to be a 1970 Road Runner with a Superbird wing.
Let’s not forget Marge Simpson’s Gremlin!
I’m partial to Snake’s 69 Charger R/T in the earlier(golden era) seasons. Also Patty and Selma’s VW thing, perfect car casting.
What does Flanders drive now?
After the Geo Metro, I’m not sure!
Not a cartoon character but may as well be, Tesla’s usage of multiple Spaceballs references is as close as you get to a Roadrunneresque pop culture tie in.
Stephen, you bring up a great point about the timeline of before-Warner Bros., and after-Warner Brothers. Wow. I went to college in the mid-’90s and I can still remember watching some of these cartoons in the TV lounge on the dorm floor with the others. We all had seen these cartoons a million times. Someone born maybe just five years after me might not have nearly the amount of familiarity with these cartoon spots.
I’m blanking on a modern cartoon character as a tie-in with a current car, but then again, I haven’t watched any modern cartoons. The closest I can think of is “Futurama” that might be usable, but I’m sure there are more.
So Bite My Shiny Metal Ass might be a cultural touchstone?
I’d look twice at a Honda or Yamaha done in the style of Kaneda’s bike from Akira. I’d be highly interested, actually.
I’d always read that, for 1969, the sales numbers of the Road Runner were the highest, followed by the Chevelle SS396 and GTO. It was the first year that the GTO was not only not first in musclecar sales, but slipped all the way to number three.
Regardless, the car was definitely a flash-in-the-pan and worth noting that the virtually identical Super Bee (released mid-year because Dodge execs didn’t think the Road Runner concept would succeed) sold much less than the Plymouth.
Likewise, Chevy and Ford’s versions (300 Deluxe SS396 and Cobra, respectively) weren’t big hits, either (although the Cobra with its 428CJ engine was even more of a musclecar bargain than the Road Runner). The next year (1970) would see the truly dirt-cheap Duster 340 usurp the Road Runner as the best bang-for-the-buck musclecar.
An even more fascinating tidbit is how AMC had a very Road Runner like concept created in the summer of 1967. It was the original Rebel ‘Machine’ and, unlike the car that was eventually released in 1970, the concept used matte-black paint, a few decals, and no hubcaps but only chrome lugnuts. It was similar to the first year 1969 Six-Pack Mopars.
But using the Road Runner character for the car was an inspired stroke of genius for Chrysler which paid off handsomely, if only for a brief period.
As to the cartoon, serious aficionados note there is a subtle difference in the WB cartoons, depending on the director. Most of the ‘good’ Road Runner cartoons were made prior to 1965 and directed by Chuck Jones. Jones’ cartoons, in general, were okay for kids but he had a real bad habit of doing things like making the eyes of the characters soulful and large, a blatant rip-off of Disney. The exception were the Road Runners with the scheming Wile E. Coyote.
The cartoon division of Warner Bros. took a serious downturn when it was outsourced to Depatie-Freleng in 1964. It’s easy to tell the difference because the opening was changed from the old Blue Ribbon Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes to a different, modernized opening with a spinning bar and stylized ‘WB’. Warner took back the unit for 1968-69, then it was closed.
“there is a subtle difference in the WB cartoons, depending on the director.”
This is absolutely right. After reading a book on the subject, I became a serious fan of Tex Avery’s work with WB. If the sight gags were really, really outlandish, it was probably an Avery cartoon. He went on to MGM in the 40s, so a lot of Tom & Jerry bears his stamp too.
I was going to mention Tex Avery but wasn’t sure how long he worked at WB, as opposed to guys like Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, and Chuck Jones who (I think) spent their entire careers there.
Seems like Avery is best remembered from MGM’s cartoon unit, specifically the Tom & Jerry cartoons, as mentioned. And in the context of the time, he definitely did some wild stuff, kind of the opposite of Chuck Jones who tended towards milder gags (with the exception of the pratfalls of Wile E. Coyote).
I love the Friz Feleng – David DePatie era!! I seem to be in the minority here, just reading through the comments. To be clear, I love the older cartoons, too. But what the newer ones brought from the mid-’60s on were a heightened sense of the abstract – from the backgrounds, to even the subject material.
Just this past Sunday, there was an episode featuring Daffy Duck as “Duck Dodgers of the 24 1/2 century” – and it was hilarious. The Pink Panther cartoons were also Freleng-DePatie productions, if I’m not mistaken, and I’m also a huge fan of the Pink Panther.
I crunched the production figures on a ten-key using my 2003 edition of the Automotive Encyclopedia of American Cars from the editors of Consumer Guide, a couple of times, before I added the figures to my post. I could be wrong, but I was just going with the (albeit 20 y/o) source I had.
Thanks for this!
Pink Panther FTW. The old ones, I mean—the real ones—wherein the panther doesn’t speak. The latter-day remake (talking panther, etc) took a smelly, wet, messy dump on the whole idea; it was obviously done by clueless people who never gave a moment’s thought to Chesterton’s Fence. Kind of like the dillweeds who thoughtlessly redesigned Wrigley’s gum wrappers changed the Spearmint arrow to be double-headed. Um…no, see, the double-headed arrow is for Doublemint gum. Spearmint had a single-headed arrow for an entirely central reason. Idjits.
Anyway, here’s one of my favourite Pink Panther cartoons:
“Duck Dodgers in the 24th and 1/2 Century” was actually made in 1952. (Like a lot of WB cartoons, it doesn’t look as old as that). And not only is it hilarious, the background artwork is incredible and the musical background is great!
You can watch it here:
And don’t forget the similar-themed “Rocket Squad” from 1956. Oddly prophetic!
https://www.b98.tv/video/rocket-squad/
Is it just me or does Duck Dodgers reminds anyone else of Zapp Brannigan from Futurama and Kif Kroker as Space Cadet?
BTW, looks like they are gonna renew Futurama.
Joseph, it’s easy to mistake the cut-off between the ‘good’ WB cartoons and the later ‘bad’ ones. Duck Dodgers actually came out in 1953, although the artistry and dialogue certainly seemed more recent. WB’s cartoons didn’t take a nosedive until around 1964 when WB sold the cartoon unit and it changed from the traditional Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes Blue Ribbon opening to the lame modernized one, complete with a different tune. The artwork and music suffered, too.
As to the actual musclecar numbers for 1969, who knows? Suffice it to say they were close enough, with the big news being how the GTO fell to third for the first time since its introduction.
I loved Warner Bros cartoons. Most of them anyway. The stinker for me (pun intended) was Pepe LePew. How did they ever think that a masher was a good character to go with?
Oh, wow. Pepe LePew. I’ll admit that I laughed many times when I watched him plant kisses all over the black cat with the unfortunate white stripe (it was always something different every time), but I can’t watch or think about it now without cringing. Pas bon.
Even when I was 6 or 7, I knew Pepe was an asshole. If I saw his short come on, I’d switch to something else intending to kill 8 minutes and tune back, probably finding Scooby Doo or Speed Racer, getting involved in the story and not tuning back.
Now he makes me cringe. Who thought that was funny?
The absolute best of them all? The Bug Bunny-Elmer Fudd Wagnerian Masterpiece “What’s Opera, Doc” by Chuck Jones in 1957.
“Leopold!”
Seriously one of my favorites, as well. Thanks to this cartoon short, so many of us know some of the musical score to “The Barber of Seville”.
From ‘The Opera’ episode of Seinfeld:
JERRY: (Singing) Overture, curtains, lights – This is it, we’ll hit the heights – And, oh what heights we’ll hit – On with the show this is it!
ELAINE: You know, it is so sad that all your knowledge of high culture comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons.
As inspired and good as Chuck Jones’ creation of the Road Runner, Pepe LePew was bad. I can only surmise that before the advent of television and widespread color movies, cartoons were the province of pre-movie features at theaters and, as such, maybe it was an attempt to appeal to the romantic-comedy genre audience. Or maybe it was some sort of effort for a new, French-themed character, similar to Speedy Gonzalez.
Whatever the rationale, I’d venture to guess that Pepe LePew was the least-liked of any long running Warner cartoon characters.
One reason we never got a car called the Coyote may have been that Warner Bros. charged more than Plymouth liked to license the Road Runner character. Plymouth themselves considered using another cartoon character for what became the Duster, but decided to design the logo/mascot in-house to save on licensing fees.
Actually, I think it was just the opposite. The story I’ve read is that Chrysler gave Warner Bros. an ultimatium. They told them they were going to call the car Road Runner, regardless. They even had alternate renderings of the bird ready to go. The only question was whether Warner was going to get anything out of it. WB folded and they arrived at a price which, as it turned out, to be quite lucrative for Chrysler. I don’t recall the price they paid per car, but I think it was the most expensive deviation from existing parts (more than the special RR horn, in fact).
So, when the Road Runner was a hit, WB significantly upped the ante for the use of any other characters (like the Tazamanian Devil). Since Chrysler couldn’t get a similar bargain to the Road Runner character, they did use their own this time, the quite similar Duster character. I was always a little surprised they didn’t get sued by Warner for that one.
FWIW, Chrysler did, indeed, use the Coyote, but only on the air cleaner lid when the fresh air scoop package was ordered. While Dodge called their’s Ramcharger, Plymouth’s was named ‘Coyote Duster’ with an imagine of Wile E. on the air cleaner lid.
Recently, Ford has appropriated the Coyote name for it’s latest 5.0L OHC engines. And, internally, they’re supposedly calling the Boss 302 variant of the engine ‘Road Runner’.
It’s reminiscent of 1969 when there was supposed to be a marketing campaign for the Plymouth GTX, calling it The Boss in some obscure, little seen ads (I found it on a promotional toy car box). That came to a swift end when Ford used it for their high performance engine line.
Wiki says Chrysler paid Warner Bros. $50,000 for licensing the Road Runner character, and spent another $10,000 developing the “beep-beep” horn (surely, the most distinctive car horn ever…. can you think of any others that can so easily be traced to one car? Not including non-production cars like the General Lee).
I believe the licensing came from using the trademarked Warner brothers likeness(the little cartoon roadrunner and Coyote stickers and emblems) and marketing, the ultimatum was that Plymouth would use the name Roadrunner and horn sound for the car with or without Warner brother’s blessing and skirt around it with a wink and a nod in case the answer was no. Without the likeness it’s just a name and just a horn sound afterall, does Tesla pay 20th century Fox/Disney/Mel Brooks for the usage of words like ludicrous speed and plaid? It was ultimately pitched as mutually beneficial, Plymouth was able to use full complete likenesses for marketing purposes and Warner brothers was able to collect on a defunct cartoon show.
Oh, brother. Yeah, Wikipedia says a “beep, beep” horn, which Plymouth paid $10,000 to develop, which I doubt a lot. In the first place, Plymouth didn’t pay anyone for anything. Plymouth was a brand, not a company. And where’s any ten grand’s worth of “development”? Chrysler went to Sparton, their horn supplier, and bought a bunch of disc horns—existing technology widely found on imports at the time; y’ever hear a stock VW Beetle’s horn?—instead of the trumpet-style horns on most American cars at that time. The RR horn didn’t really sound just like the cartoon road runner, it just sounded close enough to make the association in minds primed by the car’s model name, cartoon decals, and TV and radio commercials. Oh, and the horn was painted purple and had a “Voice of the Road Runner” sticker on it. Ten thousand dollars’ worth of special never-before-formulated purple paint and decals? No, probably not.
If the assertion were more like “Chrysler placed a $10k order for horns particular to the Road Runner” that would be a lot more believable.
(Yes, I see the Wiki assertion has a citation to a published book. I haven’t read that book, but just based on its title, filtered through years of experience, I give it a probably-too-generous B-/C+ for factual accuracy)
Don’t know so much about the $10k development cost of the horn, but it does sound a little specious since the story I read was the RR’s horn was based and tweaked from an existing military unit. The later higher cost might have come when they painted it purple and slapped a ‘Voice of Road Runner’ decal on it for 1969.
And the cost for using the trademarked Road Runner was a one-time dollar amount because I doubt Warner Bros. expected many sales, either. When spread-out over the sales numbers of the surprise hit, the price wasn’t nearly as cost-prohibitive.
What looked like WB taking a bath on the price for using their cartoon is probably why WB wanted a whole lot more to use the Tazmanian Devil character. Considering how many Dusters Chrysler ended up selling, they were probably right. And what would they have called the Duster with it? The Plymouth Taz? It didn’t fit nearly as well as Duster. And then there was the whole thing with the Dodge Demon…
I bet you’re right. Any given episode of M*A*S*H is likely to contain the sound of a horn, very likely made by Sparton, and sounding about as much like “MeeMeep!” as the Plymouth Road Runner’s horn did.
What looked like WB taking a bath on the price for using their cartoon is probably why WB wanted a whole lot more to use the Tazmanian Devil character. Considering how many Dusters Chrysler ended up selling, they were probably right. And what would they have called the Duster with it? The Plymouth Taz? It didn’t fit nearly as well as Duster. And then there was the whole thing with the Dodge Demon…
I haven’t looked into it too deeply but perhaps the Duster 340 package is what would have been called the Tazmanian Devil and the regular slant 6/318 Dusters would have always been called Duster? Similar to the Belvedere/Satellite and Roadrunner. I could have seen it working, this was 1970, buyers could still handle 6 syllables without dumbing everything down to abbreviations and acronyms like we see today
Demon was a strange usage of the name, it probably could have stuck around as a performance model name but having the entire Duster bodied Dart line named Demon from slant 6 to 340 with its cute little pitchfork wielding mascot was just asking for trouble in hindsight.
FWIW, there was a plan to give the Duster 340 a special designation: the Duster CK, with CK standing for ‘Clark Kent’. The ad agency even had some preliminary artwork done with the image of a telephone booth and a cape laying nearby. Thankfully, they went with Duster 340.
It’s also interesting how sporty Darts never got an R/T designation like the Charger, Coronet, and Challenger. They started off with a Dart GT, then GTS, and finally, Swinger, Demon, and Dart Sport 340s. But never an A-body R/T. Probably just as well as the R/T moniker disappeared after 1971 for a long time and was replaced by ‘Rallye’ when the musclecar market fell off a cliff.
My guess: “Dart R/T” sounded too much like stuttering, and “DaR/T” was a nonstarter.
Yes, Daniel, and meanwhile, the musings over the acronym for a potential Falcon RT didn’t last long.
I for one love the Roadrunner/Wile Coyote cartoons. I watched and loved all those old Warner bros shows when I was a kid, but those were the ones that stuck with me into adulthood as funny. Wile’s expressions of dismay were brilliantly animated, whenever I’m having one of those days nothing I’m doing goes as planned I can conjure up an image of him skidding off a cliff and breaking the fourth wall and cheer myself up. Plus I loved the setting, when I think of Bugs Bunny, I just think of simple grassy plains and a backdrop like setting, RR/WEC’s southwest/monument valley setting is so fleshed out with absurd roads above mile high shear cliffs, crazy overhangs and unexpected surprises that seem to naturally aid the Roadrunner and thwart the Coyote it’s a character unto itself.
I love the Roadrunner car too, but it’s a odd tie in if you think about it, it was a manufactured product, and a core theme of the show was Coyote constantly being sold manufactured ACME products that either didn’t do what they were supposed to, do what they’re supposed to to his detriment or work exclusively in favor of roadrunner. It’s not hard to imagine the plymouth roadrunner as an ACME product the Coyote would by in yet another failed attempt to catch the real roadrunner, with hilarious consequences.
What is with the trend of using selective yellow high beam lights on old Mopars lately? 71s are such good looking cars and half the ones I see now a days are ruined by that cliched personal touch
Great observations and insight. I suppose I should clarify that I didn’t dislike the RR / coyote cartoons – an impression I realize I might have mistakenly given.
I love the cartoons! I’m talking more about the kind of character that one loves to hate. I suppose I didn’t actually hate the Road Runner (and now it sounds like I’m contradicting myself), but there was something oddly magnetizing about how much I loved to watch and wish bad things to happen to him for all his smugness and unbelievable luck.
I suppose that in all fairness, I didn’t talk about my disgust with Wile E. Coyote for trying some absolutely ridiculous things. Sometimes, it was like, just no.
I get your distaste for the Road Runner getting off scot-free; that’s my same objection to Ferris Bueller: overprivileged kid games the system and breaks the rules to benefit himself and his buddies at the constant expense of everyone else; gets away with it every time. Nevertheless, I love the Road Runner cartoons. I know they’re all the same—the road runner gets away, every single time—but they never get old for me.
The Plymouth Road Runner…well…certainly the late ’60s and early ’70s were a time of experimentation with psychedelic substances. Obviously the idea worked; the metal moved, but it’s kind of silly.
Anyhow:
This commercial put the biggest smile on my face – thank you so much for linking this! This calls to mind another important facet of these cartoons – the rock-n-roll soundtrack that many of them had.
Also, the Ferris Bueller comparison was apt, though I wasn’t irritated by him.
I like the 1969 model best.
Full marks today, Joseph! One of my favourite cartoons, and one of my favourite cars.
I always loved watching Road Runner. All those crazy, wonderful things the coyote bought or dreamed up, and never once did he win. Road Runner triumphed over all odds. Evidently a totally different view to how you saw it. 🙂 I never would have thought to by sympathetic to the coyote. And nowadays I wonder how the creator/s dreamed up all those crazy scenes.
And the car? Never seen one in the metal, though I’m sure there are some in Australia; people seem to import anything and everything. Back in the day there always seemed to be a feature on the new American cars in the Aussie car magazines. I remember seeing this Plymouth back then, and being blown away by the totally seamless integration of the roof with the body. Much more of an obvious fuselage effect than with the bigger cars. Loved the super-bright colours, and the graphics? Well, they seemed a bit over-the-top to this kid back then, but they look great now.
I built a model of one back in the day, but here’s a much better GTX I built a few years back.
Thanks, Peter! Looking at your scale model of the GTX and from this angle, it occurred to me earlier today that from some angles, this was a really appealing shape. From this perspective, I’m seeing a slightly longer, pleasingly squared-off late-’60s Pontiac GTO, and I like that.
It’s hard for me to imagine just how revolutionary the fuselage look with the seamless blending of the greenhouse into the lower body was when it was introduced. I’ve got respect for the early pioneers of this style.
Minus the hood stripe and Air Grabber scoop, from that angle, it’s very easy to see the 1969 GTO influence on the 1971 Plymouth B-body coupe.
I liked watching the Road Runner, but I think I was more of a Hanna-Barbara kid than a Looney Tunes kid. I still like watching the Flintstones every once in a while. 🙂 Whenever I see Looney Tunes today I’m surprised at how violent those cartoons were; I guess I never noticed as a kid. Obviously, they’re nothing compared to TV/movies of today.
I loved the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, as well. I honestly loved all cartoons. I remember some Saturdays when all I wanted to do was watch cartoons and eat candy all day. Can you imagine what a nightmare that would be for some parents? LOL
Joseph: Wile E. Coyote DID actually catch the Road Runner once:
https://youtu.be/8kP2piN-03k
Just in case you weren’t aware!! 🙂
No way. This is life-changing. Thanks for this!
Boy, Road Runner sales really fell off a cliff in 1971, but it wasn’t alone. This was the beginning of the end of the muscle car and by 1974 they were essentially gone. The main culprit was stratospheric insurance rates, as insurance companies got wise to the fact that many of these wound up wrecked or stolen in short order. Then the 1974 gas crisis finished them off. The young male demographic who bought these simply couldn’t afford to drive them anymore.
My cousin and several friends had muscle cars in the late ‘60’s early ‘70’s. Two GTO’s and a Mach I were stolen and a close friend was killed when he wrecked his three month old Duster 340.
Excellent points, and truly sad about your friend.
As I learned more about cars starting in adolescence with access to more resources, I remember thinking I was glad that the Road Runner had continued through the end of the ’70s. I liked the Volare editions, but didn’t care for the one based on the “small Fury”, with that bizarre graphic on the trunklid.
Insurance surcharges really put a crimp into musclecar sales and I recently read it was a big reason the Duster 340 was such a big seller. Besides the low, low price of $2547, savvy guys would tell their insurance agent they had a ‘2-door Valiant sedan’ which, technically, is what the Duster was. Soon enough, insurance guys would begin asking if it had a six or V8, then, which V8. But, in the beginning, the Duster 340 was the way to go for the fastest car for the least amount.
Ah, the sense of a smile when the stretchy-string noise and flying WB heart burst onto the little screen! And then, the sense of mild annoyance when it was a Road Runner episode that was thence announced. Oh! Damn.
The classic WB’s are quantifably art, and whilst I’m sure it’s been much analysed by those knowing much more than me, here’s my take. Wit, irony, verbiage silly and clever, cheap puns, high color, bad jokes, wild excess, and all driven by a deep joy. Violence and behavioural extremities too, of course, but that is a bit misunderstood outside its time, though it never was by kids themselves: even years later, we knew this was fantasy not for enactment. Actually, I’m convinced it was also a fantasy, slyly enough, that was often cathartically reflective of adults’ actions towards kids – slaps, ear-clips, yellings, chases, ad infinitum. Small wonder uncomfortable adults judged it primly.
The music made them tiny little operas, or ballets, part big-band, part-classical, as big a draw as the immaculately-considered drawings themselves.
Kids know when they’re being conned, and there was no attempt at that here. It was no cheap thrill, badly-drawn to fill a half hour and shut one up. It was a thing that was carefully done in every facet, an expensive gift, if you like, and I’m convinced that beauty is a great part of their attraction to littlies and their endurance onwards ever since.
It’s quite correct to hate the Road Runner, for, quite apart from the feeling he was a smart-alec bully, there was an incohate sense that one was being ripped-off, conned. No great music, no wit, no inventive bright world, not beyond the admittedly-spectacular but over-repeated one of the imagined desert. And the cruelties inherent in the classic cartoons are the only dominant joke, obviously less effective used thus, and a further laziness. It is all reduced as a formula to repetitions and mere meanness, as if the adults had not tried – which as a matter of sheer inventiveness, they hadn’t. The only minor saving grace was the genuine laugh in giving the coyote a highly-refined accent on those rare occasions where he spoke, a lovely little inversion.
The fuselage Plymouths are no Road Runner. They’re no slim-effort job, in fact, they’re far more a proper go at art than their best-selling predecessor, that latter being a car that (to me) derives a bit dully from many others. The ’71’s are the classics here, the irony in that name badge and el cheapo graphics notwithstanding. They should have called them the Bugs Edition, or more saleably perhaps, the Duck’s Guts.
Wow – in the first four paragraphs, I think you summed up beautifully why these WB cartoons maintain their appeal, not only for kids, but for adults. The difference is that now as an adult, I can appreciate different facets of the jokes, gags, musical scores, pratfalls, etc.
I normally draft my essays three weeks before they run, in order to give myself time to fine-tune, adjust, and proofread as needed before it hits the web. It was only after reading the comments over the past couple of days that I was compelled to purchase a DVD of classic WB cartoons.
Regarding the Road Runner – Wile E. Coyote cartoons, I think I might have given some readers the wrong impression. I actually love those cartoon spots. Being out in Arizona last summer and seeing all the rock formations, cacti, and the like, my mind went more than once back to these cartoon spots, in a good way.
My objection is just with how the RR got away with so much, including (as one commenter put it) the laws of physics. For me, he was the character I loved to hate, if that makes sense at all. I suppose that who one roots for depends largely on one’s personal experience. One could look at the RR from the perspective of remaining unflappable in the face of bullies and perilous situations. One could, conversely, relate more to Wile E. Coyote who tried so many different approaches to achieve his end, and never (with one exception, apparently – see above) meeting his goal.
Back in 1979 I bought a 1971 Satellite Sebring with 50,000 miles on it that the previous owner had ordered with the 383 Super Commando, Hurst Pistol Grip four speed, and Sure Grip differential. It had factory hood pins and even had factory air conditioning. It was essentially a Roadrunner with a nicer interior and a sleeper exterior. I paid $1000 because adults didn’t want gas guzzlers anymore.
A woman ran a red light and T-boned the car totalling it.
That’s an interesting depiction for a couple of reasons. For starters, it’s a 1972 by the grille. But even more odd is the engine call-out on the front fender says ‘400’. Normally, the engine call-outs on a Road Runner would be on the hood louvers ‘unless’ it had an Air Grabber.
Air Grabber hoods were normally reserved for Hemi of Six-Pack cars, but it was an option on any 1971-72 Road Runner. They just weren’t ordered all that much.
Funny how many comments we have on this post of Joseph’s. I guess Looney Tunes elicits quite a lot of memories for us all. Maybe it was legend, but I seem to recall there was one episode where Wile actually did catch the Road Runner. I hope that’s true because I too did not like the Road Runner. Joseph you put a funny image in my mind and something Warner Brothers missed for a Wile gag. Seeing him give up and at a diner disgustingly eating some hash as the Road Runner repeatedly goes by outside. Would love to see that bird served up on a platter instead. For those that enjoy the ACME products I have attached a photo of a poster my wife got me for our first or second wedding anniversary.
No hard feelings, but I do like the Roadrunner (the cartoon). I like the car as well. That said, count me in as someone that would buy a Willie E. Coyote Chevrolet.
Also a huge fan of both Roadrunners, but since Ford already has the Coyote…….
Man, how did I miss this the first time around?? Warner Brothers cartoons have been a constant in my life pretty much forever and I could debate (and quote) them endlessly. I love the discussion here in the comments!
I will say just two things… One of the reasons why I was so keen to always travel with my parents to the Maryland Motors (Chrysler/Plymouth) dealer when they bought and took the 1971 Town and Country in for service was that I could spend time wandering the showroom to catch glimpses of a bright yellow Road Runner (like Joseph’s lead photo) they had there. At age 11, I couldn’t be bothered by whatever a muscle car might be. I just loved finding the car with the Road Runner on it.
Second, I took took a while (before age 11) to warm up to Road Runner cartoons which I initially considered kind of boring next to the more narrative Bugs, Daffy, Foghorn Leghorn, etc. fare. But soon enough with age I came around to what I truly believe is the more absurd, existential, humor promoted by Willie E. Coyote, “Super Genius”.
The attached is one of my several Willie E. Coyote (“Super Genius”) zoom backgrounds that have been a fixture over here for many many remote meetings.