
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994                   TAG: 9412150049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

FROM THE ACME CO.: WILE E. VS.I R.R. (AGAIN)

For 30 years, two of America's most ferocious rivals have, like the figures on Keats' Grecian urn, remained frozen in time, the one in hot pursuit, the other a blithe step ahead.

Now, for the first time since the cartoon ``War and Pieces,'' which was made in 1964, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner resume the chase in ``Chariots of Fur.''

The cartoon, which was directed by Chuck Jones, the Road Runner's creator, is to be shown for the first time, on Saturday at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

It is part of the museum's retrospective program devoted to the work of the 82-year-old Jones, ``Chuck Amuck: The Cartoons of Chuck Jones.'' The retrospective runs through Jan. 1.

Elsewhere in the United States, the cartoon is to precede the film ``Richie Rich,'' which opens Wednesday.

Three decades have not taken the edge off the Coyote's hunger or the Road Runner's fleetness of foot. In the space of five minutes, the Coyote loads himself onto an industrial-strength metal spring, shoots himself from a bow, disguises himself in a cactus suit, lays down several miles of fake road and tries to hurl commercially made lightning bolts.

The equipment, of course, comes courtesy of Acme, still in business after all these years.

Acme devices never work, which leads one to wonder why the Coyote sticks with the company.

- The New York Times

by CNB