Sep 1, 2026 · 16 min
A shelved Coyote film turns cartoon violence into legal satire
Ian Frazier and Samy Burch on “Coyote vs. Acme”
The episode traces how a deadpan essay became an ambitious film—and what its shelving reveals about the precarious economics of movie-making.
- 1Ian Frazier’s mock lawsuit transforms Wile E. Coyote’s repeated injuries into a deadpan argument against Acme.
- 2Samy Burch combines legal thrillers, film noir, and Looney Tunes logic to build a feature around Coyote’s refusal to settle.
- 3The completed film’s tax-write-off fate gives its playful defiance an unsettling real-world counterpart.
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Frazier and Burch connect Coyote’s refusal to accept a settlement with the film’s own defiant survival after being shelved.
The brief
Ian Frazier’s 1990 essay imagines Wile E. Coyote suing Acme over the injuries inflicted by its products, treating cartoon catastrophe as a deadpan legal complaint.
Screenwriter Samy Burch explains how Frazier’s essay became a feature shaped by legal thrillers, film noir, Looney Tunes shorts, and the practical demands of recreating animated destruction.
The conversation centers on Coyote’s stubborn resilience: unlike the cartoon gag, the film lets him reject a settlement and turn repeated failure into defiance.
Burch recalls writing the screenplay through quarantine, while Frazier and Burch repurpose familiar cartoon traits and noir clichés, including a Peter Lorre-inspired mad-scientist figure.
The film’s nearly discarded status sharpens its theme: a story about refusing to accept an unjust outcome was itself shelved as a tax write-off.