I saw Buddy and Coyote vs. Acme within a couple of days of each other and I was struck by how much they occupy the same territory while still being wildly different movies. One is horror, and one’s a heartwarming comedy. Both are about the border between reality and children’s television; both are surrealist exercises. Will Forte and Cristin Milioti are the pivot points, the humans with a foot in both worlds. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion of this, but I suppose the circumstances of Coyote vs. Acme’s release were the elephant in the discourse room.
I imagine the discourse room as a nice wood-paneled library with lots of shelves. Also, there are spoilers there, so expect them if you read on.
Besides those circumstances, Coyote vs. Acme‘s animated characters don’t read as a children’s fare, despite the slew of kids who were at my matinee showing. (Some of them spent a lot of the movie crying.) Looney Tunes has become something for adults, or at least for NBA fans, which obscures its origins as kiddy cartoons. The real difference is that Looney Tunes was never intended as educational, while the fictional It’s Buddy! show is all about teaching lessons.
That’s the anarchic wink that gives Buddy’s horror power. We don’t believe for a second that anyone’s learning anything meaningful from anodyne songs like “Scared to be Brave.” The show within the movie is assumed to be cynical; it’s no surprise when Buddy himself is revealed as a monster.
Coyote vs. Acme also uses the audience’s cynicism to good effect. It’s an anti-corporate movie, casting Acme as the source of oppression. Foghorn Leghorn and Buddy are also the same character; both have a monstrous reveal in the third act, even if Foghorn doesn’t change physically. That courtroom speech of his is pretty mask off, though.
Let’s return to Forte vs. Milioti, or Avery vs. Grace, if you prefer. From one perspective they don’t look all that similar; Avery has been doing business with cartoons for most of his career and is well aware of the second world overlapping his own. Grace discovers Buddy’s world all at once, much to her surprise. However, a closer look brings them into alignment: Avery’s entire character arc starts with him never actually seeing his customers. The cartoons who come to him are just dollar signs, quick payoffs. It ends with him appreciating Wile E. Coyote as an individual. He didn’t actually understand the second world before.
And there’s the really important difference. Coyote vs. Acme is centered on Avery’s emotional journey; his growth is the payoff. The success of his crusade is icing on the cake; what’s important is that the lawsuit became a crusade to him.
Buddy splits attention between two stories. One is Grace’s discovery of her lost daughter, Freddie. The second is Freddie’s escape from the second world. They overlap considerably but the movie itself isn’t sure whether Grace or Freddie is the protagonist, and that lack of focus is why Buddy only works as a surrealist exercise. Even the final triumphant escape comes with a whipsaw rug pull — fitting for the tone of the movie, but unsatisfying as a narrative.