The granddaddy of them all. Looney Tunes characters are physically incapable of getting seriously injured or killed. Wile E. Coyote will swing into a canyon wall, wobble around like an accordion for a few seconds, and then the next time you see him he's back to his old tricks, totally fine. There was actually a lot of parental outrage at one point over the state of cartoons -- because programs failed to show the real-life consequences of these actions, they were worried that kids would start emulating them without realizing how dangerous they are. You see that kind of thing parodied on The Simpsons with The Itchy and Scratchy Show, a program about a cat and mouse who are gruesomely violent to one another under the guise of children's entertainment. And maybe that's an actual issue. But for every kid who jumps off a roof thinking it won't hurt him because he saw it on television, there are at least a hundred other kids who are sitting around on a Saturday morning just waiting for Wile E. Coyote to finally catch the Roadrunner.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
