[bbenzon]

Chuck Jones believed in the “disciplines” one had to maintain for a cartoon, the constraints within which one acted. In the Road Runner cartoons, no one talked, though there could be signage, the action always centered on two, and only two, characters, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and it always takes place in the outdoors in the American Southwest. These cartoons play with reality and engage in a guessing game with the audience in doing so. What’s Opera, Doc? goes beyond a string of gags end engages in a story about the relationship between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. Finally Daffy Duck and Porky Pig venture into space in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, which satirizes incompetence and self-generating conflict.