Hook, Line and Stinker

Hook, Line and Stinker is a 1958 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Looney Tunes series featuring Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner. Production number 1487.

Plot
Introduction: The Road Runner (Burnius-Roadibus) races right to left along a stretch of desert highway, with the Coyote (Famishius-Famishius) behind him. The Road Runner stops and steps aside. The Coyote passes him and stops in a cloud of dust. The Road Runner then zips into the distance with the force lifting the ribbon of pavement off the ground in his wake. Wile E. lowers his expectations (and his mouth) and thinks of a new scheme.

1. The Coyote, on a cliff, drops a washtub on the Road Runner on the road below, jumps on it and puts a stick of dynamite underneath it. The Road Runner zips up to him. The Coyote goes under the washtub to investigate why the bird isn't there and the dynamite blows up, encasing the Coyote in a tube made from the washtub.

2. The Coyote hides around a corner to bash the Road Runner with a sledgehammer. But the hammer falls off and the stick bashes the Coyote and chases him into the distance.

3. Birdseed is place on some railroad tracks but a train runs down the Coyote before he can get off the railroad.

4. Attached to a green balloon, the Coyote carrying a harpoon jumps off a cliff, tied to a rope. He misses the Road Runner, but the force carries him into a storm cloud. The harpoon attracts lightning which zaps the Coyote (and in turn, dissolving the rope, causing him to fall).

5. A bundle of dynamite is unrolled from its wires toward a short underpass beneath the road. But thick rolled up wires that have just been unrolled tend to have memory, so the bundle starts to move, then rolls back up to the Coyote's hiding spot before he gets back there and notices, and one push of the plunger blows him up.

6. Using a rope and a pulley, the Coyote raises a baby grand piano high above the road. As the Road Runner passes, the Coyote lets go of the rope, which sticks in the pulley. The Coyote jumps on top of the piano, which loosens the rope and causes the piano - and the Coyote - to drop to the ground. Dazed, the Coyote opens his mouth to reveal that the piano keys are now his teeth; he plays "Taps" on them briefly before passing out.

7. An elaborate Rube Goldberg-type gag ends the cartoon. The Coyote uses a tiny slingshot to knock loose a stick holding up a watering can suspended on a wooden yardarm. The can tips and water pours onto a plant which has a wooden match attached to it. The plant grows and the match strikes against a rock and lights a stick of dynamite. On top of the dynamite is a boot with a brick in it. The blast sends the boot on top of a teeter board, which rises and releases a mouse in a cage at the other end. The mouse runs to grab a piece of cheese on a scale. A weight on the other end of the scale falls, pulling the trigger on a rifle attached to a cliff. A bullet from the rifle ricochets off two metal bullseyes and knocks down an upright cannon. The wick on the cannon is lit by a nearby candle, which fires a ball that goes through two funnels and plummets on top of the unsuspecting coyote. After the coyote is bashed into the ground, 'The End' appears on the cannonball.

The title is a pun on the title Hook, Line and Sinker.

Edited versions

 * On ABC, two dynamite gags were cut :
 * The scene where Wile E. places a pot over the Road Runner and tosses a dynamite stick underneath it (gag #1)
 * Wile E. putting dynamite underneath a bridge (gag #5)

Background music
This is one of the six cartoons (and the first of two Coyote/Road Runner cartoons) where the score is credited to John Seely of Capitol Records using stock music from the Hi-Q library because of a musicians' strike in 1958. The others are Pre-Hysterical Hare, Weasel While You Work, Hip Hip-Hurry! (the other Coyote/Road Runner cartoon), Gopher Broke, and A Bird in a Bonnet. The theme to the situation comedy television show Dennis the Menace composed by William Loose and Seely, and originally in the Hi-Q library, is not in this cartoon. A variant also written by the two for Hi-Q is used instead. Most of the background music was composed by Philip Green for the EMI Photoplay library and were given GR designations by that library. Some of the cues heard: GR-463 The Artful Dodger (Green) in the first gag. L-78 Comedy Underscore (Spencer Moore) and GR-255 Puppetry Comedy (Green) in the second gag. GR-459 Dawn in Birdland and ''GR-97 By Jiminy! It's Jumbo Bridge No. 1'' (both by Green) in the third gag. This piece of music was also heard in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. GR-256 Toyland Burglar (Green) at the start and end of the fourth gag. TC-303 Zany Comedy (Loose and Seely) in the sixth gag. This piece of music was also heard in many early Yogi Bear cartoons. L-82 Comedy Underscore (Moore) at the start of the seventh gag.