What was your favorite joke in Coyote vs. Acme?

Honestly, I wouldn't even consider Coyote to be evil or a villain, because if you remember the original cartoons, they're basically a parody of a nature documentary. Both Coyote and Roadrunner are simultaneously intrinsically tied to their nature as amoral wild animals: on one hand, they're a prey escaping a predator and a predator trying to catch a meal, but at the same time, they go about it in the most bizarre, absurd, unnatural way imaginable, escalating a natural predator-prey conflict into anvils and dynamite and reality-defying ACME products.

Really it helps not to see them in any "moral" light: they're not heroes or villains, they're forces of nature acting on one simple goal. So Coyote wasn't "betraying" him when his court case had him have the ulterior motive of catching the Roadrunner: at the end of the day, the chase is the sole thing that ultimately motivates Coyote: a literal "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" case.

Him being mute also fit very well within the theme of Toons being a minority class. The way he’s treated, not being addressed directly, people talking only to Avery even in moments when he’s actively demanding to speak for himself, mirrors a lot of nonverbal experiences in real life. When he’s being deliberately ignored you really feel that frustration. Also when Avery turns his back to him during the hotel argument he pulls out an air horn and starts shoving his signs in his face, perfect, no notes 😂

I love how coyote’s silence is used to hide his motives from the viewer. It’s clever

“Morally ambiguous” is a great way to describe Wile E. In this movie, because we and the characters only occasionally get an insight into what he’s thinking, so we (and they) have to guess at it.  

And, it’s hard to call him truly evil, given we see him save the Averys from the train.  It’s more like he’s obsessed with catching the Roadrunner to the point that he can’t think of anything else.  Which is what makes the scene with Congress so great.

It's interesting, because Wile E. Doesn't HAVE to be mute. He talks regularly, especially when Bugs Bunny is involved. But keeping him just to the signs for this story really lets them play up the isolation of his character. When you realize that you haven't been on the same page as the cartoon you've been following, it hits that much harder. Of COURSE Wile E. isn't actually interested in compensation from ACME, but because there isn't clear communication, you can easily and reasonably be mislead, just like Kevin. And it makes Wile E. even more pathetic and pitiable when that communication finally does come through. He's single-minded, but you get to see him gradually develop beyond just needing to get the bird at all costs. And expressing that without needing to spell it out is genuinely impressive.

He's not a villain, Wiley is simply behaving like a Coyote. He lives in the desert and craves Road Runner,

I also think that Coyote's muteness adds to the movie's theme of learning to be a voice for the (literally) voiceless

Wile E. Coyote has never been a villain. He's just hungry, and Beep Beep is food. The coyote slander must end

Even when coyote did need words, he only had a limited amount of signs to hold up. It’s a funny gag and a great call back to the cartoons, but also a way to limit for the writers and animators. They could only get a few signs. Do the funny bit, get a peek in coyote’s head, but then we need to go back to visual storytelling.

One thing I really loved is that coyote doesn’t even know why he wants that roadrunner in particular. But the chase itself gave him purpose. Heck, the roadrunner revealed he didn’t have hard feelings for the coyote. Roadrunner didn’t want to be eaten, but he did feel sorry for the coyote always getting hurt. But both realized they needed each other because they give each other purpose. And that pursuit to keep trying is admirable.

Coyote is also shown to be a pretty chill dude when not chasing the roadrunner. In the train tunnel, he makes sure to help the humans because he knows they can’t take a hit like a cartoon can. He’s also seen trying to fix a wall that was destroyed by cartoon logic. It literally fell on his face, but he did try.

Even though he goes back to chasing the roadrunner in the end of the movie, he goes back to Albuquerque to visit the friends he made during the case. It’s a simple but very effective story to expand on a simple cartoon.

The movie has definitely made Wile E. Coyote one of my favorite Looney Tunes characters, and this movie had a lot of heart

The argument for Coyote being a villain is immensely weak, his only motive is to catch the roadrunner. He never really shows true malice.

The roadrunner during the final court scene is the best moment in the movie, hands down. I legit cried, it's really THAT good.

I honestly love how, although the road runner doesn't appear much in the movie, he essentially haunts the narrative for most of it as Wile's plan is LITERALLY REVOLVED AROUND THE ROAD RUNNER FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

Also i wanna say it WOULD make sense why the road runner likes the coyote, Wile's been the only person feeding the road runner consistently
who knows how else the roadrunner would be fed

Alan Becker is another example of S-Tier writing around silent characters, and the best part is that every character is silent not just the protagonist

Honestly I've never seen Wile E Coyote as the villain. He's a coyote trying to get his next meal. Roadrunners are his prey.

What's he supposed to do, eat grass?

"The Roadrunner is the Coyote's Holy Grail; You don't need a personality on a Holy Grail - you just need someone pursuing it." - Chuck Jones

I never really thought of the coyote as a "villain". He's just trying to do what nature intended him to do (though if he'd used the money he spent on Acme products on some KFC he' would have been better off). I like what George Newman (Weird Al Yankovic from the movie UHF) said about the coyote: :"Okay. Right now, I'd like to show you one of my favorite cartoons. It's a sad, depressing story about a pathetic coyote who spends every waking moment of his life in the futile pursuit of a sadistic roadrunner who MOCKS him and LAUGHS at him as he's repeatedly CRUSHED and MAIMED! Hope you'll ENJOY it!"

I think they do such a good job showing what Wile’s thinking at any moment with his body language and expressions. Kevin’s ability to say exactly what Wile’s words are during that big fight is impactful less because he’s speaking for both characters and more because being able to understand Wile that well even while they’re fighting shows how far their relationship has come

God this movie was so much fun and I’m so glad Coyote wasn’t given a voice. I know he has before but it just never really felt right to me. So the way they managed to keep him mute but give him so much emotion and convey his feelings so well, it’s absolutely amazing.