Rushing Roulette (1965)
Rushing Roulette Review
Rushing Roulette is a 1965 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is a surprisingly solid cartoon.
1965 was a truly terrible year for Warner Bros. cartoons, but thankfully this short was an exception to this rule. It is hard to go wrong in a movie that just stars Road Runner and Wile. E Coyote as the two don’t need anybody else in order for their shorts to operate properly. The result is a film that is uneven as always, but most of the gags really worked.
I actually found the second half much better in this instance as the first one featured standard boulder, spring and lasso action seen a million times before. The glue gag ended differently, which was great. The sunbeam effect produced the most original moment in this short. That scene surprised me how clever it was. The ending is also terrific as it featured the bird driving a bus and beeping, which is always a delight.
Honestly Robert McKimson should have directed all the Road Runner shorts in that period, it’s not as good as the Chuck Jones ones but it’s definitely better structured and and well animated than the Rudy Larriva’s efforts.
I agree, but still the Road Runner shorts were the only good shorts from this period as all the other Looney Tunes were quite bad.