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The Road Runner cartoons were a series of Looney Tunes cartoons created by Chuck Jones for Warner Brothers.

They are very simple in their premise: the Road Runner, a cartoon bird, is chased down the highways of the Southwestern United States, by the hungry Wile E. Coyote. He is never caught.

Wile E. Coyote often obtains complex and ludicrous devices from the Acme Corporation, a fictitious mail-order company.

Occasionally, characters violate laws of physics. The Road Runner has the ability to enter painted caves, which the Coyote cannot. Sometimes the Coyote is allowed to hang in midair until he realizes that he is about to plummet into a chasm.

In his book Chuck Amuck, Chuck Jones explains some of the rules the artists followed in making the Coyote-Road Runner series:

1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "Beep-beep!"
2. No outside force can harm the Coyote - only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.
3. The Coyote could stop any time - if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." - George Santayana)
4. No dialogue ever, except "Beep - beep!"
5. The Road Runner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would not be called Road Runner.
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters - the southwest American desert.
7. All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.