The latest Looney Tunes feature film, Coyote vs. Acme, sees Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme corporation after years of having his various plots and schemes to catch the Road Runner foiled thanks to their defective products.

Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Space Jam (1996), Coyote vs. Acme is a hybrid animation and live-action production, as animated characters interact with the human characters and non-animated worlds.

Films using a mixture of animated and live-action elements have been around since the earliest days of animated cinema.

During animation’s silent era, Max Fleischer (who would go on to found Fleischer Studios with his brother Dave, home of Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor) became known for pioneering the rotoscope technique.

This is a method where the animator traces live-action reference footage to create fluid and “realistic” looking animated movement.

He would use this technique in animated films, but he also advanced the use of live-action/animation hybrids in his Out of the Inkwell series (1918–21).

This series saw Fleischer (playing himself) drawing various scenarios featuring Koko the Clown. In each short film, Koko and Fleischer would find themselves in some kind of tussle over the........

© The Conversation