Wile E. Coyote vs Tom Cat Death Battle Review

It’s about damn time. For those who are unaware or if you just forgot, this episode of Death Battle was voted on by the fans. See, about two years ago Death Battle held a special tournament called the Tournament of Champions where fans would vote on a matchup that would appear in the next season.

It was a tight race, but ultimately it Wile E. Coyote vs Tom Cat that ultimately prevailed, and we all waited until the following season to see it. Then Death Battle’s parent company Rooster Teeth went under, the show went independent, and the whole plan had to be changed.

The funny thing about the whole thing is that they wound up making a lot of the champion poll entries part of the Kickstarter which makes the whole poll pointless in hindsight. All that hype and speculation down the drain.

It’s hard to be mad at them for this. It’s not their fault Rooster Teeth shat the bed, and when circumstances change so to must your plans. But they did say they would eventually make this episode, and the day has finally arrived.

While we’ve had some truly hype episodes in the independent era so far, this was the episode I was most looking forward to seeing next to Bowser vs Eggman. For one, Death Battle have done really well with cartoon characters before. Saitama vs Popeye was a great episode and Scooby vs Courage is one of my all-time favourites.

Second, this is the first classic cartoon vs classic cartoon matchup they’ve done. So, we should be in for some insane toon shenanigans with this one, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate matchup for it.

As a kid I loved classic cartoons. I still do as an adult, but as a kid I would always put them on if they were playing on tv. Frequented a lot of Boomerang back in the day. And the two cartoons I loved the most were the Road Runner shorts and Tom and Jerry. The slapstick, the timing, the violence, I couldn’t get enough of them and I always got the biggest bell laughs out of them.

This right here is my match-up. Although it will be interesting seeing how Death Battle handles these classic cartoon characters in a vs debate. I am of the opinion that classic cartoon characters are impossible to scale with regular power scaling methods. Not because they’re unstoppably powerful, but just because they’re built different.

Cartoon characters have no logic in how they work. Trying to apply logic to them is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. I already have an issue with Toonforce as a general concept since it’s trying to add a logical explanation to how cartoons work when the entire point is there is no explanation. Cartoons just do what they do because they’re cartoons.

My only hope is that they get the comedy right. But enough jibber jabber, let’s take a look at this battle of the cartoon klutz’ and see how it goes.

Analysis

Right off the bat I love the tone the analyses went with. Starting with a more serious background around the two characters potential inspirations before jumping right in to the cartoony stuff. Sets up that this isn’t going to be a typical analysis.

Which it is and it isn’t. This analysis leaned a bit heavier on the jokes. Not the jokes in the episode, although there were plenty of that, but the jokes in the actual cartoons. They spent a lot of the analysis itemising the structure of the cartoons themselves which for this debate is actually important to deciding the winner.

They did still focus a lot on their stats and arsenals. Mostly on the arsenals and all the wacky stuff they had. I do wish they had gone into a bit more detail on some of the stuff, but looking at the side bar they had so much stuff it was impossible for them to go over everything they had. Sweet Jesus did these guys have a lot.

One part I loved relating to this is in Wile’s segment where the side bar listed all the fake Latin names he’d been given and it was so long they had to scroll down to fit them all in. legitimately loved that joke, I wish they’d do more things like that because it’s some of the funniest stuff they’ve done.

But while we’re on the subject of Wile’s analysis there is one thing about it that rubbed me the wrong way and does tie into a major issue I have with the episode. A t one point they tried to equate Toonforce powers with Naruto’s Chakra. Not quite that literally, they basically said that Toonforce is like a power set in an anime or a magic system, where stronger toons are capable of stronger feats of toonliness.

I really do not like this. I do agree with the principle that not all toons are created equal. Some are capable of the more over the top crazy stuff and some aren’t. I’ve seen enough of them to know that’s the case, but trying to tie it into a power system is missing the forest for the trees. The reason some toons aren’t capable of the same feats isn’t because of some vague powerset, it’s just because some cartoons are zanier than others. It’s like you’ve got stuff like Little Dot on one end which is grounded and you’ve got Screwey Squirrel on the other end who is just completely wild and off the wall and nothing in them makes any sense.

This is where the major issue starts, I don’t think Death Battle understands classic cartoons. Well, ok, they do but I don’t think they go about them in the right way. Cartoons, especially the classic stuff, defy analysis. If you think about them for a second they fall apart, but that’s why you don’t. you don’t think of the logic of a cartoon you just take what’s in front of you and accept the reality of what’s created.

Overanalysing toons is antithetical to a toons existence. It makes no sense to do so and sucks all the fun out. I get this is what vs debaters do, but I think these kinds of cartoons just don’t work with power scaling, at least not the typical methods. You can’t measure a toon because there’s no sense in how they work.

I know that’s the case for most fiction. Superman doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there an internal logic to how his powers work. Within the story there is an explanation. There is no such explanation for cartoons. And yes, I’m aware of the Looney DNA thing they brought up from Tiny Toons, I don’t like it there either. The writers of the reboot stripped the wizard with it and shows they don’t get it.

To be honest I think the episode would have been better served if they didn’t bring stats into it at all. Stats require some measure of consistency. The reason outliers and anti-feats are a thing is because there’s a general power scaling method within the story. We know that Batman isn’t on Spectre’s level so him knocking him out is an outlier, and Thor tangles with Hulk so often that him losing to a nuke is an anti-feat.

Point is, there’s enough consistency in fiction that we can get a general idea of how powerful they are. There is no such consistency with cartoons. A lot of the things they do happen at the will of the gag. That’s why you have Daffy being erased then popping back in on one cartoon, and him blowing himself up and dieing in others, both at a similarly frequent rate.

Any and all feats of a toon are effectively meaningless then. Because they shift so radically that you can’t pinpoint exactly what they’re capable. I think for cartoon battles like this, stats shouldn’t be a factor. I think that’s why Scooby vs Courage worked because stats weren’t that big a deciding factor.

I just think the whole power scaling aspect was handled wrong. These kinds of characters require a different approach, and it’s obvious the team didn’t have the time, or maybe even just the idea of how to do so. I’m sure most are fine with it, but as an old-school animation fanboy I had serious misgivings with it.

But aside from the powerscaling stuff, I thought the analysis was great. It could have slowed down a bit, but it worked to this episode’s favour since it meant they could keep the jokes coming. This is a much bigger humour centric analysis, which are often cringe for this show, but ever since they got rid of the cutaways the jokes have gotten a lot better because they don’t dwell on them for too long.

Does anyone even miss those? I don’t. In hindsight they were a terrible idea. Not only does removing them make the pacing better, but it means they have to focus more of the humour on the banter of Wiz and Boomstick which is where the series humour is strongest anyway, and they can put the jokes throughout the episode like in the sidebar or black boxes.

The editing was great as usual and had a more comic and colourfully cartoony vibe to it. I especially appreciated them using as much different material as they did. I though Wile’s part had a bit too much Tiny Toons, but it still had the comics, the different iterations of the cartoons, and Space Jam obviously, although whether that’s a good thing I’ll leavy to you. Tom and Jerry had the shorts, the tv movies, the theatrical movies, uggh, tv ads, comics and the video games, which is where it gets weird.

I had not heard of Tom and Jerry Chase before this, which made their section on it fucking hilarious. That whole section is the best part of the analysis to me. I loved how they toned it down and actually treat it seriously, it made Boomsticks reaction funny as hell.

I didn’t think they’d include a fucking mobile game from China in this but I’m glad they did. I hope that doesn’t become the norm because a lot of series have those and it’s going to get messy if they do it for everyone of them, but I’m ok with it here. It’s Tom and Jerry; there’s no real canon to worry about with it.

So a very good analysis. As a fan it gave me what I wanted, and I liked learning about the other media these two had. My only issue is with the powerscaling stuff since it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how toons work, I kind of see where r/CharacterRant is coming from now to be honest. But it’s Death Battle, they needed the scaling stuff in it, I can’t be mad at them for it.

Fight Animation

This was exactly what I wanted out of this animation. A wacky zany fight that didn’t let up on the gags at all. Instead of trying to do it like a traditional battle they basically did it like a Tom and Jerry and Road Runner cartoon which was genius.

The setting is even a mix of the two. A house in the middle of a desert. I do wish they’d used that setting more since they changed it a few times during the fight, which was so random in when it shifted and how that it made following along difficult at times. The use of spacing is one of the few problems with the animation. Like one of maybe two.

Right off the bat I knew it was going to be awesome. They opened it like a Tom and Jerry cartoon but with the fake Latin names of Road Runner. The names themselves were funny enough, I love the fight one they gave as a cute shout out to the fans, but I don’t like calling Jerry an asshole. He is, I just don’t like that kind of language in these kinds of cartoons. I’m not that anal, I swear like a motherfucker, I’m just very protective of them.

But once the fight starts in earnest, it’s basically just a series of gags. That’s basically what the fight is. It’s not even a fight; it’s really just a Tom and Jerry cartoon but with Wile instead of Jerry. It’s just the two throwing everything at each other and slapstick hijinks ensue. Which is exactly what it should be.

What else could they have done. Have an emotional battle with two hardened warriors? That’s not these characters, there frigging losers who blow themselves up. This was the most perfect way of handling this.

The question then becomes, is the fight funny? Yes. It’s very funny. They go through a lot of classic gags like the old tunnel paint joke, things dropping on their head unexpectedly, blowing up with dynamite, there’s a scene where they chase each other across America and get tired, tons of great bits. Not only are the gags classic, they feel ripped right from an old timey toon, but the timing is great.

You can tell the animators watched a lot of classic toons for reference. They tried to get the timing as close as possible to those old shorts and they got as close as they could with the more limited time they had to work with. Makes me wish the episode was longer because I’d love to see a full short of this.

If you’re a fan of these shows, this battle is for you. It matches the tone and style perfectly. I love that despite the two being silent they still had banter through Wile’s sign and Toms voce clips. Not only is it a great throwback but it’s a clever way of working around their limitation. Although I’m ducking points for not having the full “IN ME POWER” line. Come on guys, you don’t cut it off like that.

The animation is awesome. It uses squash and stretch well, and it has a suitably cartoony look. Of all the hand drawn fights it’s the one that embraces classic cartoon tomfoolery the most. It’s not the best hand drawn fight since it looked a bit rough in places, but it’s got the spirit down and it’s still good for what it is.

It’s hard to judge the fight track “Wild Tomfooler’e” because it’s not really a fight track. It’s more of a score than anything, but as a score it’s fantastic. It sounds like the scores you would hear in those old shorts. It’s not something I would listen to outside the episode like other fight tracks, but in the context of the episode I loved it.

I can’t praise this animation enough. It had everything I wanted from classic gags to a healthy bit of fourth wall breaking, I just loved every moment of it. it isn’t perfect, but it is the fight animation I wanted out of this matchup.

Result

To my surprise, Wile wound up taking the win. At first, I was shocked, but in a pleasant way. It’s honestly nice seeing him get a win. Thankfully this is an episode where I found the argument solid that I didn’t mind disagreeing with it. But I still disagree and it still had flaws.

I’m not going to go over the stats since I already went over my issues with it earlier. All I will add is I think trying to argue cosmological scaling like they did in a black box is ridiculous since neither have any kind of established cosmology or canon. Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry don’t have lore, no classic cartoons do, so trying to argue cosmology for both is like pissing in the wind.

But stats aren’t important in this. The real argument was in Arsenal, Intelligence and Toonliness. They gave Arsenal to Wile and Intelligence to Tom which I agree with. Wile’s arsenal backfiring was still brought up, but he did have far too much on that front. Including a lot of counters to what Tom had, so I buy giving him that category. And Tom has actually won a few times in his own show so he obviously takes intelligence.

Toonliness is where the issues start with me. The big debate with this fight was Wile’s luck. I did concede that he was better than Tom in terms of stats, even if I think that kind of thing is stupid in this instance, but always felt like because he was always prone to failure that he would eventually screw up. Even with the Anti Loony DNA gun it was entire possible it would backfire.

Death Battle disagreed. Their argument being that Wile’s cosmic failures is entirely down to him battling the Road Runner. They do show that he is capable of getting a win like in Space Jam, and that the rules established by Chuck Jones only apply to the Wile’s battles with the Road Runner.

That isn’t a bad argument. I can even agree with it to a certain extent. My issue is we’ve seen Wile fail countless times due to his own ineptitude even outside of Road Runner cartoons. He’s failed against Bugs, and even in Space Jam he did still lose the Monstars and Goon Squad a few times. I would argue the few victories he had were flukes, and also only possible since he was in a team, which he was on with the Road Runner.

They said the Anti-Loony DNA gun only failed because the Road Runner was involved. Except he built the gun to deal with the Road Runner. I agree with them that the established Road Runner rules are bullshit, but Wile’s incompetence isn’t purely due to the Road Runner, it’s due to him. He literally cannot win because of his own ineptitude. Taking the Road Runner out doesn’t change that fact.

I think the real reason they gave Wile the win is because the Anti Looney DNA was the only win con. Except it shouldn’t be. I saw the episode it’s from and if I recall correctly, it doesn’t remove Looney DNA but suppresses it, and you can get it back by just laughing it off, which Tom can do since he’s prone to that kind of thing.

I don’t know, it felt a little weak, but it is the only way to have a winner. They even said that Tom had no means of permanently ending Wile. I can see that, but I have seen Looney Tunes die before. As I said, classic cartoons are wildly inconsistent, so you can make an argument for Tom winning too.

In my opinion I think Tom should have won. I think Wile’s luck is just naturally that bad, but I’m not mad that he didn’t. Am I going to take this debate seriously? No of course not, it’s fucking cartoon characters. It’s all in good fun.

Conclusion

I really like this episode. It ticked all the right boxes for me as a fan of classic animation. If you go into this just wanting to see two classic cartoon icons battling it out, and let’s be honest that’s all we wanted to see.

Unfortunately, this is the episode where I think I’ve realised my limit when it comes to power scaling. I really didn’t like how that aspect was handled, and as a fan of old school animation I feel like doing so is a massive misinterpretation of the art form. I wanted Bugs vs Mickey for the longest time, but this episode made me want it less. I just don’t think these kinds of characters work in a show like this. at least not in the current way it’s done.

But I still loved it. I had a big smile on my face throughout it, and I can’t bring myself to dislike something that does that. I only criticise because I love these characters so much. Everyone has those franchises and mediums they don’t want in Death Battle, and I think this is mine. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the attempt.

Next time Death Battle is doing something more traditional and honestly, it’s one of the least hyped I’ve been for an episode in a while. I do not care for the next matchup, and I’ve never seen the appeal of it. Oh well, bring on the filler.

Score: 9/10