Usual disclaimers. This short featured this chapter is "Hare Breadth Bunny," available on YouTube.
As soon as everyone came in and settled themselves with giant bowls of Chinese—with a fork for Reid, naturally—Morgan wondered aloud which short should be first. "My man Bugs is always good for a laugh, but then again that coyote is pretty funny too," he said.
"Oh, well, in that case…" Reid said, reaching for his laptop. "I've got the perfect short."
A few minutes later the wild browns and purples of the American Southwest flashed on the screen, and a familiar puff of smoke zoomed along a seemingly deserted highway.
"All right—Road Runner!" Kevin said. "Now there's a smart bird…"
"How so?" Emily asked. "It doesn't take much to run at top speed and say 'Beep, beep!'"
"True, but think about it—no person, or animal in this case, is ever that lucky," the tech said.
"I dunno…" Will countered between bites of orange chicken. "I've met people that were positively charmed."
"Hey…wait a minute…" Morgan said. "That's not the Road Runner!"
"Well, duh," Garcia said playfully.
"I suppose you were expectin' the Road Runner! Well, he pulled a giblet turnin' a sharp corner the other day, so I'm standin' in for him…"
"Oh, terrific," Kevin moped a little. "Instead of just blind dumb luck, now that coyote's going to get the Bugs special."
"Bugs special?"
"He never gets the short end of it, you know? Always has a plan or the physics work in his favor, stuff like that."
"I take it you're not a fan of the rabbit," Emily surmised.
"Nah. Daffy was better," Kevin replied. "More realistic."
There was a hush in the room as the cartoon continued, wherein the coyote tried his usual capers to catch the…well, Bugs.
"That set of pipes was genius," Rossi mused. "He knows he can't outrun the coyote, so he's got to resort to other methods."
"True," Kevin agreed. "But this bit here…now, that's just wrong…"
An anvil managed to thwart time and space to land on the coyote's head.
"I'm beginning to see his point," Emily said. "I mean, that anvil should have fallen on Bugs. The standard 'rules' for Road Runner cartoons shouldn't apply here, as one half of the dynamic is missing."
Kevin gaped. "There were rules?"
The room launched into professorial mode as they began explaining the 'fourteen rules' of Road Runner cartoons, one of which was 'no harm could come to the Road Runner' and another was 'no harm could be inflicted by the Road Runner onto the coyote except the words 'Beep, beep".
"Wow. I guess that explains a lot," Kevin said.
"It is kind of an interesting dynamic, though—a pairing often used to show a battle of wits used here to show a battle of invention and luck," Hotch pointed out.
"What do you…oh, yeah," JJ said. "We should watch one of those kind next…"
Reid was already searching his laptop. "I think I found one," he said.