This was the debut for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was also their only cartoon made in the 1940s. It set the template for the series, in which Wile E. Coyote (here given the ersatz Latin name Carnivorous Vulgaris) tries to catch Roadrunner (Accelleratii Incredibus) through many traps, plans and products, although in this first cartoon not all of the products are yet made by the Acme Corporation.
Wile E. Coyote unsuccessfully chases the Road Runner using such contrivances as a rifle, a steel plate, a dynamite stick on an extending metal pulley, a painting of a collapsed bridge (which the Coyote falls into while Road Runner passes right through), and a jet motor.
Wile E. Coyote uses, among other things, a dehydrated boulder to try to catch the Road Runner.
Wile E. Coyote uses a bottle full of bees, a brick wall, a boulder in a catapult, and a harpoon gun in his attempts to catch the Road Runner.
Wile E. Coyote's plans for catching the Road Runner involve a giant elastic spring, a gun and trampoline, TNT sticks in a barrel, and tornado seeds.
The Coyote makes various attempts to get the Road Runner with an explosive-tipped arrow, by shooting himself out of a sling shot and by covering the road with quick drying cement.
Hypnosis doesn't help the Coyote catch the Road Runner, nor do a clutch of string-controlled rifles or dozens of mousetraps, but they all manage to backfire on him, naturally.