FAQ

Chuck Jones's cat when he was a small boy. The cat had a passion for eating grapefruit. He also wore half a grapefruit on his head like a space helmet "at a time when there were no space helmets." (Jones) Often the "helmet" was rakishly covering one of his eyes.

Chuck Jones says he learned from this cat what's important about character: not how a character is like other characters but how it is unlike other characters. "Odd" or "unusual things" define a character.

Source: Chuck Jones's interview in this film

Chuck Jones: "I think you must learn - if you're in any filmmaking - you must respect the single frame. And there are twenty-four of those per second. If you don't respect that single frame you're in the same boat with a musician who does not respect an eighth note or a sixteenth note or a thirty-second note or whatever. You have to find the smallest unit and you have to love it and believe that one will make a difference. One frame to me will make the difference between whether the thing's funny or not."

Source: Jones's interview for this film

Chuck Jones: "George Santayana in his description - he must have seen one of our pictures - because he said, 'A fanatic is someone who redoubles his effort when he's forgotten his aim.' And that certainly is an apt description of the coyote. So when you think about it old George Santayana was watching our cartoons. It's rather - kinda touching."

Source: Jones's interview for this film. See also: George Santayana on Wikipedia