The Whizzard of Ow

The Whizzard of Ow is a short film that was released on November 1, 2003. It stars Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, being the first short that's not directed by Chuck Jones.

Plot

The short begins with a magical battle between two differents stereotypes of sorcerers (a short Gandalf-like wizard that hold a large book of magic in one hand and a staff in another, and a elegant but sombre Doctor Strange-like warlock with a black cat on his shoulder) where they zap each other until they kill themselves in a final energy blast. Their possessions, however, escaped unharmed but falls over Coyote, just as he was about to catch Road Runner, causing considerable pain to him (especially the cat, who viciously scratches to his face out of fear). Coyote notices the ACME book of magic and becomes delightfully happy, as he now has a new weapon against the Road Runner.

• 1: The first spell that Coyote tries is to turn the black cat into a feral beast. He succeeds, and the cat transforms into a black panther, but unfortunately, his beast proved to be too feral, and it quickly slices his belly into strips, fading Coyote like a balloon.
• 2: Coyote buy an ACME flying broomstick and, after some trial and error, begins to chase the Road Runner through air. However when he enter in a gloomy tunnel, Coyote mistakes his beeps (that were temporarily more deeper than the normal) with a horn of an approaching truck and suddenly changes his direction to the sky, only to be hit by two comets and get his broom "out of gas". After a long drop, Coyote manages to stop his broomstick in the middle of air and lands safely, only to the Road Runner scare him from his back with his beeps off a cliff and leaving the poor Coyote to suffer gravity.
• 3: In his second spell, Coyote tries to turn himself in a giant, but much to his chagrin, the spell only affects his head, whose weight crushes his own body.
• 4: Coyote uses invisible ink to make a bomb transparent and disguise it like a crystal ball in order lure a unsuspecting Road Runner to his death. However, the fake crystal ball actually works and the Road Runner sees Coyote's future where he's caught in middle of a huge explosion...a future that quickly turns into reality when the bomb rolls straight to him.
• 5: In his third spell, Coyote learns levitation and uses his classical "seeds trap" to temporarily stop the Road Runner and smash him with a large rock. Unfortunately, the rock doesn't fall under his command, giving enough time for the Road Runner to finish his lunch and leave. After several unsuccessful attempts to makes the rock fall, Coyote leaves in disgust, only for the rock to follow and crush him.
• 6: In his last spell, Coyote once again tries to shape shift the cat into another creature, and this time, into a pegasus to once again chase the Road Runner though air, but they inadvertently fly trough a load of poisonous snakes (prompting the pegasus to use the Coyote as a stick to get rid from them), and to make matters worse, the pegasus quickly turns into a flying carpet, and much to Coyote's anguish, they fly straight to a reserve of scorpions and to a field of cacti. The carpet is then turned into a monitor lizard (who promptly devours his snout), a lawnmower, and then into a white shark, and he and the Coyote land in a lake where the Coyote is viciously mauled by his familiar.

It's turned out that the reason of the cat's uncontrollable transformations were Road Runner's fault, who found the book of magic and decided to test his powers. He then turns a mailbox into a gracious and beautiful female roadrunner and the two leave, walking and holding "hands", while the Coyote suffers being shark food.

This Coyote and Roadrunner short is notable for being the only one so far to use the real taxonomic names Geococcyx californianus (Greater Roadrunner) and Canis latrans (Coyote) instead of the usual pseudo-Latin names.

Quotes

• Announcer (on phone): You have reached ACME Flying Broom Customer Service. All of our operations are busy at this time. Your call is important to us... (phone vaporizes)