Hook, Line and Stinker (1958) User Reviews

Well the gag with the piano was good...

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 17 March 2010]

...but Hook, Line and Stinker is not what I consider a favourite. The animation is not too bad, it is solid enough, some of the gags are decent namely the piano gag and the overall quality when watching it on TV or DVD is nice. Also Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote's antics are reasonably funny. However, the running time is disappointingly scant, and I found the pacing rather hectic. But the most disappointing asset was the music. These Looney Tunes usually have great music, with quirky motifs and rousing rhythms, but here I(a musician myself) found the music, as others have pointed out, annoying and repetitive.

Overall, not bad, but not great either. 6/10 Bethany Cox

When Warnologists translate cartoons such as . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 16 September 2016]

. . . HOOK, LINE AND STINKER into 21st Century Prophecies, the Road Runner's scientific name Morphs from "Burnius Roadibus" to Hotrodhammer Clintospeedius, while Wile E. Coyote's Latin Name ("Famishius-Famishius") becomes Dumpius Trumpius. STINKER is surely keeping the U.S. Secret Service up at night as this review is being written, since it foresees Trumpius being blown up, bludgeoned, railroaded, lightning-struck, piano-crushed, blown up again, and finally Rube Goldberged to smithereens. As Hotrodhammer wolfs down Coyote Trumpius' lunch, Dumpius has to content himself with eating her dust. (The Transgendered Clintospeedius would have to debate what public rest rooms to use for her "disgusting" business in North Carolina, which will have to rely on Trumpius Rallies as their ONLY form of live entertainment for the long-term future, now that all the institutions of the Civilized World have canceled every scheduled event within the borders of America's Tarry Heels state.) Given all the carnage wreaked against him in STINKER, perhaps the best post-election option for Trumpius would be to seek political asylum with his buddy Vlad "The Impaler" Putin in Russia. Maybe he could make another "sacrifice" by erecting a Trumpius Tower next to the Kremlin.

This episode is actually a bit of a "stinker"

[DaniGirl1969 · 7/10 · 14 August 2011]

After creating the two best episodes in the entire "Road Runner" series ("Zoom & Bored" and "Whoa Be-Gone"), I guess it was inevitable that creator Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese were due for a less-than-stellar go-round in Episode #13 of the series. It wasn't helped by the fact there was a musicians strike on at the time, so the music used was basically commercial-production music -- including a melody that was later used (slightly altered) as the theme song for the "Dennis The Menace" TV show. The gags in this episode seem a bit forced, and only a few really stand out as being genuinely funny, such as the bundle of dynamite that chases Wile E back to his hiding place and the grand piano that he somehow decides would be the perfect weapon to squash Road Runner with! This is probably my least-favorite episode of the series -- at least until after Chuck Jones left WB and it became shadow of itself 1960s.

Burnius-Roadibus

[utgard14 · 6/10 · 23 May 2016]

Lesser Chuck Jones Road Runner & Coyote short that's still better than all of the stuff that came after Jones left the series. The animation is solid, if not particularly exceptional. The colors are kind of dull, which is odd for the time. I thought maybe it was just the print I saw off TV but I checked out the DVD version and it appears to be the same there. As other reviewers have mentioned, the one notable gag involves a piano. The rest are pretty forgettable gags involving hammers, dynamite, and bird seed. What hurts the cartoon most of all is the canned music score, which is annoying and below the superior quality of the usual composers who worked in WB animation.

Pretty funny

[rbverhoef · 6/10 · 24 April 2004]

Another cartoon from the Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote series and again a pretty funny one. 'Hook, Line and Stinker' introduces the Road Runner as Burnius Roadibus and the Coyote as Famishius Famishius before Coyote starts failing to catch the Road Runner. This time he uses dynamite (twice), birdseed at a railroad crossing and even a concert piano that must fall on the Road Runner. Of course the Coyote will not succeed.

This cartoon had me smiling a couple of times and although predictable most of the gags worked for me. The fact that you know exactly what will happen and the cartoon will not disappoint you is one of the charms from the series. Here, the gag with the railroad crossing and the birdseed made me laugh quite hard.

Wile E. Coyote meets Rube Goldberg

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 1 June 2007]

No matter how many times Wile Ethelbert "Famishius Famishius" Coyote tries to get Road "Burnius Roadibus" Runner, we always know what's going to happen, though our sympathy always remains with WEC. The highlight in "Hook, Line and Stinker" is a Rube Goldberg-style scheme that WEC hopes will finally finish off RR; but of course you know what happens.

So, Wile E. continues hilarious engaging in fanaticism (defined by George Santayana as redoubling your effort after you've forgotten your aim) while Road Runner pretty much never becomes aware of the potential danger - or lack thereof - in which he could find himself. A real classic.

And yes, the coyote's middle name is Ethelbert. I learned that from "Jeopardy!".

Whoops! I goofed.

[archiveguy · 5/10 · 22 October 2000]

My previous comment inadvertently attributed a running dynamite gag to this film, whereas that actually appears in the (superior) "Lickety Splat". Without that gag, I have to grade this film even lower, because the heavy-handed non-Starling score still does diminish the overall effect of the film.

Carl Stalling is missed

[archiveguy · 5/10 · 22 October 2000]

Not a bad Roadrunner effort, the film is hindered substantially by a score that will not let up, hammering away at the comedy when silence usually works best when Wile E.'s plans start to fail. Especially unfortunate since this is one where an early Coyote mishap provides an ongoing thread throughout the rest of the short--a nice Jones touch.

Anybody out there want a cheap piano?

[slymusic · 1 June 2009]

"Hook, Line and Stinker", directed by Chuck Jones, is unfortunately not one of the better cartoons in the Road Runner/Coyote series. The reason for that is because once a gag occurs in this cartoon, we often do not see the aftermath (i.e., what happens to the Coyote after his devices backfire). The only gag of real merit in this cartoon involves a grand piano, and in this case, we DO see how the Coyote ends up, and it is quite funny!

One other footnote for "Hook, Line and Stinker": Although the music score by John Seely is not that great, there is one theme that he uses several times in this cartoon that actually became the theme song for the "Dennis the Menace" live-action television series in the early sixties.