The New Yorker Radio Hour - Ian Frazier and Samy Burch on “Coyote vs. Acme”

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

In the film “Coyote vs. Acme,” which was released this week, the ingenious but unlucky Wile E. Coyote sues the Acme Corporation for damages caused by its malfunctioning merchandise. That is also the premise of the New Yorker staff writer Ian Frazier’s original piece, which inspired the film. The screenwriter Samy Burch reimagined Frazier’s premise as a satire of legal thrillers. “What if Wile E. was actually like a Dustin Hoffman character?” Burch wondered. “This guy out in the desert, working on something obsessively, addicted. . . . If this were humans, would the plot make any sense?” The film features actors such as Will Forte alongside Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, and other “Looney Tunes” characters. Frazier talks with Burch, who was nominated for an Academy Award for “May December,” a drama starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.  Further reading: “Coyote V. Acme,” by Ian Frazier “Toons Have Seldom Been Loonier Than in ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ ” by Justin Chang New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And in 1990, years before I was editing this magazine, staff writer Ian Frazier published a brilliant piece about a legal case. Case number B19294, Judge Joan Cajaba presiding, Wyle E. Coyote Plaintiff. It was the opening statement of a lawyer representing

Wiley Coyote, the clever but very unlucky coyote of the old Warner Brothers cartoons. Mr. Coyote states that on 85 separate occasions he has purchased of the Acme Company, herein after defendant, certain products which did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labeling. Such injuries sustained by Mr. Coyote have temporarily restricted his ability to make a living in his profession of predator. It's a classic work of humor, one of my favorites, an ingenious premise that Frazier carries out totally straight-faced. He never breaks character.

At that moment, the animal he was pursuing veered sharply to the right. Mr. Coyote vigorously attempted to follow this maneuver but was unable to. Due to poorly designed steering on the rocket sled, and a faulty or non-existent braking system. Shortly thereafter, the unchecked progress of the rocket sled brought it and Mr. Coyote into collision with the side of a mesa. He goes into legal detail that can only be called excruciating. The premature detonation of defendant's product resulted in the following disfigurements to Mr. Coyote.

One, severe singeing of the hair on the head, neck, and muzzle. Sooty discoloration. Three, fracture of the left ear at the stem, causing the ear to dangle in the aftershock with a creaking noise. Four, full or partial combustion of whiskers, producing kinking, frasling, and ashy disintegration. Five, radical white. Ian Frazier, Sandy, to his friends,

says he watched the cartoons over and over to get it all right. Well, I was dealing with my parents' estate in 88, and I was back in Cleveland in their apartment. and they had a cassette from our childhood of just coyote roadrunner cartoons. And I just watched those cartoons over and over. And at some point, the two things I was doing, you know, reading and talking to the lawyer about the will

and watching these wonderful cartoons, which I think are great works of American art, and somehow the two things sort of blended. More than 20 years later, director Dave Green made a movie based on Coyote v. Acme. It's a satire of legal thrillers with cartoon characters alongside actors like Will Forte and John Cena. But there was also some drama. After production, Coyote v. Acme was shelved by its studio as a tax write-off, and public outrage soon followed.

It even reached Congress. Joaquin Castro of Texas called for an investigation. He said, the, quote, tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive. So after three years in limbo, Coyote v. Acme is now being released by another studio. The screenwriter on this project who reimagined Ian Frazier's New Yorker essay as a film

is Sammy Birch. Birch was nominated for an Oscar for her very first film, the drama, May December. And the other day, Sammy Birch sat down to talk with Ian Frazier. Hi. Hi.

So nice to meet you. It's really nice to meet you. I saw the movie finally. And it's really funny. Back when it was optioned a long time ago, I was saying, how would you ever make a movie out of that? And I knew May December, which was one, I thought it was great and blew me away. Thank you.

Were you writing both of them at the same time? Yes, it was very funny. And they were really on the same course for a long time. They shot the same year. I thought there was a chance they would come out in the same year. It felt like they were intertwined, and then Coyote was thrown into the vault. In 23, right? In November of 23, the same month that May December premiered.

The day that we got the news that they were putting it in the vault, that was the same day the SAG After Strike ended, which was fantastic. news. And I, you know, so it was like these highs of, oh, they're going to get to come to the premiere, these, you know, Natalie Portman. And it was such a happy day. And then, so it was kind of a whole, the ups and downs of a life in one, about one hour. Did you get to live in Albuquerque when you did this? No. I visited set. And it was very funny to be there. I have a picture of a crew guy, a really big guy holding these huge sacks. It's a bird seed.

They were like props. You know, there were all these craftsmen. There's all these, what do you call? Real practical effects guys that had worked on all these, you know, Star Wars and Roger Rabbit and all these things. And they're, you know, having to figure out, okay, how do we get a car to crunch on its own so we can animate a piano falling on it later? Like, these kinds of problems are so funny to me. But when the piano falls on the car, there's something about just cartoon violence that just makes me sane somehow. Like, just because you're thinking about there's violence everywhere.

And somehow cartoon violence, I don't know, it makes it seem like you're not really subject to violence. I mean, and the fact that cartoon characters can get up and walk away after things happen. D.H. Lawrence said that the American character was isolate, stoic, and a killer. And Coyote covers the first two, but he can't do the third one. He's trying. God love him, but you've watched him. I have, you know, my whole life from when I was a little kid. And you had no idea that he had such depth.

You know, that he was such a soulful individual. I mean, because he's like, I mean, the cartoon did start out with the coyote talking. I mean, the very early ones, he did talk. And he would say, while e. coyote, super genius. While e. coyote, super genius. And then when they silenced him, that's when he became mega, in my opinion. That if he continued to talk, that wasn't going to work. I mean, to me, one of the great moments in the movie is when he just pours gasoline on the torn-up check, you know, where they've tried to buy off Will Forty.

And it just blam, it goes up in this case. Okay. And everybody, you know, they're, because he's not going to settle for that. You know, he's not going to settle for $50,000. Like another, you know, explosion that they had to figure out. I'm sure. When it comes to an explosion, do you just put in the screenplay explosion?

Oh, my God. There's so many like, splat. Boom. But that's in the script itself. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then it's like, have fun. You know, that's a hand it off to the explosion people.

I mean, did you write grand piano falls on car? Fan piano falls on car, yeah. Okay. Definitely. Everything in the script that's animated is in bold. So there's always kind of a, you're trying to keep track of what in the frame is not in person. Screenwriter Sammy Birch of Coyote v. Acme, talking with Ian Frazier.

More in a moment. This was the first, though. You hadn't ever written this comedy script before? Not like this, no. I mean, my real approach was just really thinking about these characters who Wiley is, who Will Forte is, you know. But, yeah, I don't think I've ever written the word splat for boom. I mean, I picture like a storyboard and you're following this plot

and you're following the coyote's secret, you know, intention. We started with a lot of note cards on the wall, and then it was a month in when the COVID quarantine happened. Oh, wow. So then we all went home, and I was watching everything. legal thriller and every coyote short I could alternating. Yeah, just to get in the headspace. And it was really, it was a couple of years of drafts. So it really changed over time. But with your essay at the top of the pyramid and the looney tunes as well, of just feeling like, okay, we're going to try and take

some elements of this as straight as we can, you know, and in that, in the cinematic language, meaning, okay, we're looking at Grisham adaptations. We're looking at Aaron Brockovich in Dark Waters and these things of corporate corruption. And I think that can happen where there's almost like people can be moved and then they fall out and go, wait, this is absurd. And hopefully that's part of a bigger joke. Right at the beginning, we were always like, okay, what if Wiley was actually like a Dustin Hoffman character and it's just this guy out? the desert, you know, working on something obsessively, like, addicted and, you know, like, can we, can that play? Like, if this were humans, would the plot make any sense and trying to

aim for that, really? But we really did try to see it, like, all the Looney Tunes were on contract at the studio, or, like, they were sort of a theater company, and we cast them in these roles, like Foghorn, Leghorn, you know, you know, I don't think he's gotten monologues before, like that. Do you think progress isn't worth a little pain, a little discomfort? It is, son. It always has been. No, that was one of my objections back when I was a kid was there was not enough

Foghorn Leghorn, because they didn't really know what to do with him, I don't think. Yeah. And all this time, I had known there was something a little weird about Tweedy Bird. And now... Well, he's sadistic. There's something, yeah, I mean, he's getting a kick out of what happens to Sylvester. And so you can see it would just be a little step up to make him kind of a really treacherous spy. You would take like film cliches and then put him into cartoon the scene where John Sina is saying,

I don't pay you to tink Utah. Utah. I don't pay you to tink Utah. I pay you to talk. I did. What a two team? To take that dialogue and then put it in Tweety Bird, I thought I taught a putty tad dialogue. Yeah, we tried to take really any opportunity we could.

You know, there's so much to pull from with these characters. You know, we fought hard for Dr. Peter Laurie to be in the movie. I know too much. They're not going to let us leave. I'm sending for help. Everything is going to be okay, my little Tweety. I was surprised because I don't remember. I mean, he was, he didn't appear all that much, the Peter Lorry guy.

He appeared as himself in like the sort of satirical Hollywood nightclub ones, which I always loved as a kid. And then he's in a couple, a few where he's mainly with Gossamer and Bugs Bunny as the sort of mad scientist, Dr. Lurie. He's already got the coat. Right, okay. When we were looking for a scientist. I think early in the draft was a human, and then we stumbled upon this idea. I'm happy about that.

I love Peter Lorry. There was always a sense of camaraderie among the Warner Brothers cartoon characters, you know? And now you feel like, and also just the big picture that it was going to be shelved, and then it came out, I feel there's a defiance there,

and it's like fun defiance is the best kind. You know, like if you're really having fun and like in your face, hats off to you. That really came out. Thank you. I was so happy when I saw your name on the list for that screening. And I thought, well, if he doesn't like it, he'll probably cancel this interview. No, I, and the thing is, I'm old. I'm 75 years old.

And it was loud. I mean, that I would say. It was loud. I was also really shocked to hear that you didn't know the movie was being filmed. I was, that really. Oh, I had no idea. Shocked me. Nobody said a word.

And my friend Hannah Alby, who lives in Albuquerque, just said me, hey, congrats, you know. They're filming it on my street. And then it dimly dawned on me. Wait a minute. Aren't I supposed to get paid when this happened? I am just like a financial wizard. And Psycholovasia said, you know, You know, this is a kind of funny thing.

Could you check the contract? She said, well, of course, you get paid on the day the cameras roll. But by then it had been rolling for a while. And I wonder if I had never found out, and then they, you know, shelved the movie. I don't know what would have happened. Ryan. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me. Thank you for having me.

This was really fun. It's really nice to meet you. Sammy Birch, wrote the screenplay for Coyote versus Acme, which opens this weekend. You can find Ian Frazier's original essay at New Yorker.com, and I really recommend that you do. You'll never read anything funnier. I'm David Remnick.

That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Erica Huang, Elliot Wright, Alex Parrish, and Alejandra Deccan.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.