quote:

Originally posted by jmkfive:
Would anyone like to know why - in every Roadrunner cartoon - there is someone blowing something up with dynamite? It's a wild story, told to me years ago by a guy who owns a gold mine near Idaho Springs Colorado.

Back in the late 1940's, Warner Brothers wanted to create a new animated kids' cartoon with a Western theme. These cartoon shorts would be shown in movie theaters before the main attractions. To create names for characters for the cartoon, they began researching historic individuals from Western states during the 1840's : Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nevada. In the process of doing this research, they stumbled across a little known gold miner named Wiley who had been nicknamed "Coyote" because of his secretive and shrewd ways of looking for new gold mining sites. But "Coyote" Wiley had another attribute : he was an amateur inventor, who created a plunger-style electrical detonator for dynamite, for use in mining.

So when Warner Brothers went to Mr. Wiley's heirs, to ask them if they could use their great, great Grandad's name as a character in their new Saturday morning cartoon, they said "Why sure! On one condition : you have to show our family's invention in every single cartoon."

And this is why, in every Road Runner cartoon, you'll see somebody gleefully blowing something (or someone!) up with dynamite.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
As a kid my dad and my grandfather used to buy dynamite and help remove tree stumps on his uncle's farm in eastern Iowa.

He said twice a year they would blow up stumps.
Evidently it was readly available back then.

Big cartoon fan as a child

IN 1970 legislation was passed requiring a special license from the BATFE to possess explosives.
Just last weekend
I found out that
Both Clutch Cargo and Space Angel are on again.