They’ve got a lovely concerto grosso thing going here. Just as the big ensemble is set against or converses with the small, these Roadrunner films alternate big elaborate gags with simple little jokes. The alternation is not completely symmetrical, or tick-tock predictable, so things remain surprising and fresh. The result is a pleasing, organic balance. It’s a bit like a conversation, or a life.
Lots of great jokes here. Getting creamed, repeatedly, from four directions at that intersection. The mouse traps. The kite bomb, which mixes the two approaches: big build up to a short, sharp failure. “How to induce someone to jump off a cliff.” Etcetera. That superb iron sphere on a rope joke brings to mind how often the roadrunner films take on gravity and trajectory. There are nice little physics demonstrations all over the place. Also, dissertations on the intractability of objects, how we don’t understand them, how we forget the laws to which they’re subject, and repeatedly break ourselves as a result.