Ed Ranks Wile E. Coyote's ACME Products (Part 2)

HELLS TO THE YEAH! We're still talking about insanely dangerous ACME products that should not be allowed on the shelves of stores and yet somehow were. Or mail order catalogs. I'm not particularly sure how Wile E. Coyote acquired all these things. It wasn't the internet, that's for sure. How do I know? Duh. Coyotes don't know how to use the internet, moron. Everybody knows that.

17. ACME Jet-Propelled Pogo-Stick

Yaaas coyote!!! Bounce!

• Featured in Episode: Hot-Rod and Reel! (1959)
• Intended Use: Try to catch the road runner with a fast pogo stick.
• Description: A pogo stick, but with jets on it.
• Did it Work? No. Adding jets to various things (pogo sticks, roller skates, unicycles, etc.) is NEVER going to work and will only lead to Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff, as he absolutely did in this cartoon.
• Analysis: Honestly, I think I learned what a Pogo Stick is from this cartoon. I'm not kidding. I don't think I had ever actually seen one, and the concept of their bouncy existence was introduced to me by this 1959 cartoon which I saw as a small child in the 1980s. This ranks higher because the fact that it's a rocket on a pogo stick is just so dumb that I sort of like it.

16. ACME Instant Icicle Maker

• Featured in Episode: Zoom at the Top (1962)
• Intended Use: Try to freeze the Road Runner.
• Description: The box this product came in literally says, "Freeze Your Friend-Loads of Laughs." What? THIS IS DANGEROUS! Don't freeze your friends! Don't freeze anyone!
• Did it Work? No. If you've ever seen one of these cartoons, surely you'll know he fucks up and feezes himself.
• Analysis: Even Mikkos Cassadine had a more logical freezing plan than Wile E. Coyote.

15. ACME Roller Skis

• Featured in Episode: Lickety-Splat (1961)
• Intended Use: Go fast, catch bird!
• Description: A set of skis with wheels on them, which seems pretty silly.
• Did it Work? No. He fell off a cliff, embedded himself into the cliff on the other side, but still fell to his doom anyway.
• Analysis: This is barely a remix on all of his other previous "device to go fast" mishaps. At the very least he didn't attach rockets/jets this time, which shows at least he's leaning a little bit. Although... seriously... skis don't need wheels. You're supposed to use them on snow. These are just impractical rollerskates.

14. ACME Boomerang

• Featured in Episode: Zoom at the Top (1962)
• Intended Use: Stick glue to boomerang, throw it at bird, have it come back with bird, eat bird.
• Description: A boomerang, like Aussies use, mate.
• Did it Work? Remember how I mentioned ACME glue previously? In this episode, the glue on the boomerang got stuck to the hims and thus Wile E. threw himself.
• Analysis: This plan would have worked without the glue. Just throw the boomerang at Road Runner without the glue and knock him out. Glue ruined the whole thing!

13. ACME Earthquake Pills

If only the small text was legible.

• Featured in Episode: Hopalong Casualty (1960)
• Intended Use: Have the stupid bird eat them, and give the bird violent, uncontrollable seizures.
• Description: Pills, with very small text on it that can't be read.
• Did it Work? Nope. Road Runner eats the pills and nothing happens. Then Wile E. Coyote, who is a fucking moron, downs the entire bottle himself in anger. Before noticing that the small text on the bottle of Earthquake Pills says "Not Effective on Road Runners." Wile E. then starts shaking uncontrollably himself.
• Analysis: The warning on the bottle should have obviously been bigger. What does this product exist for? Why doesn't it work on Road Runners? I think ACME is just fucking with poor Mr. Coyote by this point.

12. ACME Tornado Kit

• Featured in Episode: Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958)
• Intended Use: Create a tornado that catches the Road Runner.
• Description: A box which says "Seed Your Own Tornado," and which includes tornado seeds and a water pistol. Because apparently tornado can be grown from seeds which you water.
• Did it Work? Nope. The water pistol was shit quality and spilled water on the bottle of seeds, so Wile E. sucked himself up in a tornado rather than catching his nemesis.
• Analysis: I had always been under the impression that tornadoes were formed in two ways: #1: a rotating air of an updraft meets the rotating air of a downdraft; and #2: you are white trash that lives near a trailer park in the deep south and God hates you. But apparently there was a third way the whole time: #3: seeds.

11. ACME Glue

Minimally effective.

• Featured in Episodes: Ready.. Set.. Zoom! (1955), Zoom at the Top (1962), and [sort of] Hare-Breadth Hurry (1963)
• Intended Use: A really sticky substance, intended to catch/trap the Road Runner. In the case of Hare-Breadth Hurry, Bugs Bunny actually uses it to catch Wile E. 
• Description: Glue. Although technically in the episode Zoom at the Top it was referred to as "Iron Glue" for some reason.
• Did it Work? No. Obviously this dipshit coyote would always end up getting himself stuck in a various number of ways. A
• Analysis: I'm just confused by why the name of the episode Ready.. Set.. Zoom! uses two dots to form an ellipsis rather than three dots.

10. ACME Air Balloon

• Featured in Episodes: Going! Going! Gosh! (1952), Fastest with the Mostest (1960)
• Intended Use: Throwing a bunch of (ACME?) products together to make an Air Balloon to pursue that damn bird with, and then throw an anvil (or a bomb) at it.
• Description: In Going! Going! Gosh!, technically only a Street Cleaner's Wagon had the word "ACME" written on it. But Mr. Coyote assembled it with a balloon, an electric fan, and an anvil to make it into an air balloon that he could fly around. In the later Fastest with the Mostest, both the basket and balloon were labelled with "ACME."
• Did it Work? No, neither time. For GGG, the anvil also served as the ballast of the balloon, so after he released it he kept going higher and higher. Then he fell down and the anvil wound up hitting him instead. With the case of the bomb in the later episode, Wile E. actually inflates himself instead of the balloon and goes floating in the air by himself with the bomb (he eventually falls to the ground and the bomb explodes on him, per usual).
• Analysis: WTF happened to the laws of physics with the anvil thing? There is no way that Wile E. could have wound up falling faster than the anvil, so that he would eventually speed past it and be hit by it himself. Does terminal velocity not matter in Merrie Melodies? Did nobody over at Merrie Melodies research Galileo? Newton's Second Law? Shiiiiiiiiit.

9. ACME Giant Rubber Band

• Featured in Episodes: Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z (1956), Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958), and Wild About Hurry (1959).
• Intended Use: In the three shorts, Wile E. tried to use the rubber bands in two different ways. Two times it was to sling/launch himself after the Road Runner, but once it was designed as trap that the Road Runner would run into.
• Description: A rubber band. But giant. Like, super big and impractical for any use I can think of.
• Did it Work? Nah. He obviously only ever really face planted and/or otherwise destroyed himself using these things.
• Analysis: I'm going to repeat my comments from "Description" above - why does this product exist? Who on earth would use a giant rubber band and what for?  Wile E. Coyote should just buy a trebuchet.

8. ACME Nitroglycerine and Detonators

This should wind up well for Wile E.

• Featured in Episode: Zipping Along (1953)
• Intended Use: Blow up the Road Runner.
• Description: A pile of nitroglycerine and other explosives, placed next to a door that--if opened--would hit the detonator and blow up. The other side of the door claimed that there was bird seed inside, supposedly to entice the Road Runner.
• Did it Work? No. Instead of the Road Runner showing up, a truck did. Wile E. stupidly opened the door himself and blew himself up. Then afterwards got run over by the truck.
• Analysis: This is horrifically destructive and I'm surprised they sell these products at all. How did he even get these? By mail order. This seems like the types of products you should need to buy in person and get intensive background checks before you can buy.

7. ACME Invisible Paint

• Featured in Episode: War and Pieces (1964)
• Intended Use: Wile E. Coyote makes himself invisible, so that he can sneak up on the Road Runner undetected.
• Description: A bucket of paint that makes the person who applies it to himself invisible.
• Did it Work? No. Wile E. Coyote did the usual thing, instead getting hit by a bus and falling off a cliff when invisible.
• Analysis: This seems like a pretty good and effective product. Getting hit by a bus was an unfortunate coincidence, and the falling off a cliff thing was Wile E.'s own fault, not the fault of the invisibility paint itself. As an un-fun fact, this is also arguably Chuck Jones' last Warner Brothers cartoon before being fired (until he came back in the late 70's) - although some sources say that the Bugs & Daffy "The Iceman Ducketh" cartoon was the last. That one came out in May of 1964 though, while this came out in June.

6. ACME Bombs

• Featured in Episode: Fastest with the Mostest (1960)
• Intended Use: Blow up the bird
• Description: Wile E. Coyote tried to use bombs all the time, but this appear to be the only episodes where the bomb explicitly said "ACME" on it.
• Did it Work? I'm not sure why I'm even asking this. NO. IT NEVER WORKS. Of course he blew himself up.
• Analysis: Pretty straight forward and not incredibly creative. But you know what it is? ICONIC. Dumb crap like bombs are what I think of when I think of ACME products. While Wile E. Coyote used bombs on many occasions, I believe that technically this was the only episode which specifically had "ACME" written on the bomb, which means even though I think it's iconic I'm probably just Mandela Effect-ing ACME onto the side of other cartoon bombs in my head when it was never really there.

5. ACME Female Road Runner Costume

Hot.

• Featured in Episode: Ready.. Set.. Zoom! (1955)
• Intended Use: Dress up and sexually entice the Road Runner into hot, sticky copulation. Only to suddenly reveal himself as a dangerous, predatory coyote that tears the Road Runner apart and eats his flesh, raw.
• Description: A costume to look exactly like a (presumably) sexy female Road Runner with big ol' eyelashes.
• Did it Work? No. Instead of attracting the Road Runner while dressed up as a female Road Runner, he attracted other coyotes who tried to kill and eat him.
• Analysis: This could have gone wrong in so many ways. Why does ACME sell this? Who the hell is buying sexy, fuckable lady Road Runner costumes? I mean you KNOW the costume had to have been fuckable.

4. ACME Bird Seed

• Featured in Episodes: Zipping Along (1953), Stop! Look! And Hasten! (1954), Hook, Line and Stinker (1958), Wild About Hurry (1959), and Zoom at the Top (1962)
• Intended Use: Attract Road Runners.
• Description: This is another one that's pretty self-explanatory. Bird seed is going to attract the Road Runner to fall into Wile E. Coyote's traps. Hypothetically. What's strange is how many varieties of bird seed that ACME sold. In every episode the box for the bird seed looked totally different. ACME must have really, really, really been into feeding birds and/or knew that Wile E. Coyote accounted for about 99% of all of their business.
• Did it Work? No obviously, it never worked. The reasons why varied by episode. One common example: mixing the seed with metal and then trying to use a magnet. There were some other ways this worked, but that was the one they'd turn to again and again.
• Analysis: One of the quintessential and most commonly repeated ACME products featured. In principle this is a good idea, but bird seed by itself won't do anything. You need to pair it up with another product. Or just fucking poison it, Coyote. You should have poisoned it. Although I guess if you poisoned it then you couldn't eat the Road Runner. So never mind. As you were, coyote.

3. One Fifth of ACME Bumble Bees

Seems like an unnecessary product.

• Featured in Episode: Zoomed and Bored (1957)
• Intended Use: Sting the hell out of Road Runner, presumably because bees have something to do with birds (the "birds and the bees", I dunno).
• Description: A jar of angry bees who want to sting people.
• Did it Work? No. They stung the coyote instead. Oh well. A for effort.
• Analysis: Haha, I fucking love that this is an alcohol reference embedded within something that kids won't understand and adults will appreciate. Did I get the joke when I was a kid? No. Do I get it now that I'm a barely functioning alcoholic? YES I DO! Also... WHY WOULD PEOPLE STORE BEES IN A BOTTLE CLEARLY DESIGNED FOR LIQUOR?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE BUT I LOVE IT! SO IRRATIONAL!

2. ACME Triple-Strength Fortified Leg Muscle Vitamins

Performance enhancing drugs!

• Featured in Episode: Stop! Look! And Hasten! (1954)
• Intended Use: Make Wile E. Coyote run really, really fast.
• Description: Self-explanatory. Pills that make the coyote fast like the Road Runner.
• Did it Work? Yes, in that he ran really fast. No, in that he's an idiot and kept running and smashes himself into something while the Road Runner stopped to escape. 
• Analysis: Seems like the type of product that would be banned in Olympic competition. Still though, the fault was in Mr. Coyote's own behavior and not the product itself. Anyway, this one ranks high because it was the ORIGINAL time that Wile E. popped some pills or medicine that made him run super fast. As you'd see from the first part of this ranking, once they ran out of new ideas they just copied this idea over and over again. First time is best time.

 1. ACME Rocket-Powered Roller Skates

Such a good bad idea he did it 40 different times.

• Featured in Episode: Beep, Beep (1952)
• Intended Use: To go really fast in order to catch the Road Runner, who is also very fast.
• Description: A set of roller skates, with rockets on them. Again, self-explanatory.
• Did it Work? For a while, because he caught up to the Road Runner. Alas, the Rocket-Powered skates don't have a very good ability to turn fast. So when the Road Runner turned, Wile E. continued to rocket forward, hitting into old west dessert buttes before being rocketed off into the air before the skates ran out of gas and he fell back to earth.
• Analysis: This is way too dangerous to sell and should be taken off of the market immediately. You basically have no directional control.You might be surprised to see this one ranking this high at #1, based on how low I ranked all the other "Wile E. Coyote puts a rocket on something" products. However, as with the leg muscle vitamins immediately above, this gets the bonus points for being the first time they used this idea, which would be repeated countless times afterwards and be a staple of the cartoons for the next decade and a half.