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Did you catch this Looney Tunes easter egg in Coyote vs. ACME?
Don't worry, there are no spoilers here!
Cartoon fans zoomed to the theaters for the opening weekend of Coyote vs. ACME, and many were delighted by cameos of their favorite Looney Tunes characters from big stars like Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, to more obscure guys like Dr. Lorre and Gossamer. The film featured many clips from the original Coyote and Road Runner cartoons, but there was one big easter egg that may have gone over moviegoers' heads.
Don't worry! This easter egg isn't a major spoiler, but a nod to fans who especially appreciate cartoon history. In the movie, Wile E. Coyote sees a commercial for a law firm that specializes in cartoon injury cases, and the law firm is the Easter egg. The name of the law firm is Avery, Jones, & Maltese, evoking the names of three of the most important founding fathers of Looney Tunes: Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Michael Maltese.
Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese co-created Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner as Looney Tunes' official answer to the MGM Tom & Jerry cartoons. In That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation by Steve Schneider, Jones mentioned in an interview: "Mike and I thought it would be funny to do a parody of chase cartoons, because everybody was always chasing everybody else - dogs chasing cats, cats chasing mice."
Finding a pair of critters to chase each other was a bigger struggle for Jones, who continued, "We tried things like an anteater chasing a dugong, a giraffe chasing a snail - things like that. But we realized there's logic at work in chases like cats and mice; they're natural adversaries, so you don't have to establish their motivations."
After seeking inspiration from Mark Twain's Roughing It and its description of a very hungry coyote, Jones realized "(The Coyote's) always hungry. So you don't have to explain it. You come across a coyote chasing a roadrunner - he'd chase anything." For the Road Runner, Jones was inspired by his surroundings, citing that they were all over southern California. They can't fly, but they can run fast and flap their wings to vibrate to a stop, and the visuals of the action of a roadrunner stopping amused Jones. The pairing seemed to work.
Two of the attorneys are named after the co-creators of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and the third is named after Tex Avery, who was the director who led Termite Terrace and trained Jones early on in his career. Avery is likely homaged because Jones and Maltese referenced many of Avery's earlier gags while developing the Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.
Another hidden Easter egg lies in the name of John Cena's character, Buddy Crane, named after Buddy, who is considered one of the worst and lamest Looney Tunes characters ever.
