Rename or merge with Catch That Pigeon: Road Runner Vs Coyote

Road Runner vs. Coyote is an unhealthy trope, with only 52 wicks and 16 inbounds. Worse than that, it's named after characters. Famous characters, yes, but the trope name is excessively similar to the name of their own page. A better, more indicative name for this trope would be Can't Beat 'Em or perhaps Can't Catch 'Em.

Similar to this is an even less healthy trope, Catch That Pigeon!, which has only 16 wicks and 4 inbounds. The tropes overlap very frequently, as the chase rarely, if ever, ends in success for the pursuer. I think the trope might as well be merged with Road Runner vs. Coyote. I can see why there would be disagreement with that because Road Runner vs. Coyote does not strictly imply chasing, but let me know what you think.

52 wicks actually isn't bad. Do you have evidence that it's actually underused? And, to bring up an argument that frequently bugs me when used in favor of stuff I want to rename, just being a character named trope is not, in itself, enough to rename on.

edited 22nd Jan '12 6:08:46 PM by Arha

Are you kidding? 52 wicks is shit. The inbound count is even worse. And this trope is 3-years old.

edited 22nd Jan '12 6:16:53 PM by MyTimingIsOff

Is there a good "back of the envelope calculation" or rule of thumb for judging whether a trope is healthy, from wicks/inbounds? Like "wicks + ( inbounds * 2 ) / age * popularity > 1", or something.

edited 22nd Jan '12 6:29:24 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Um… okay… regardless of wick count, this needs a rename and maybe a tidying too. It's named after a series of cartoon shorts, which is almost as bad as being named after an entire work.

No, the "named after" guideline is having the same name. The trope name is not the official name of those shorts.

52 is not an acceptable number for something like, I don't know, Defrosting Ice Queen. But this trope isn't as common as that. Whether or not something is underused depends on how popular it is.

You need to make an argument for underuse or that the name is being misused. In fact, one easy way it could be misused is to refer to the actual cartoon shorts.

edited 22nd Jan '12 6:29:58 PM by Arha

BTW, I'm not against a rename, but the reason I chose the name in the first place on ykttw is I honestly couldn't think of a better way to put a trope about comically trying and failing repeatedly to catch a rival/prey.

OK, wick check. I should've done this first thing. By the way, I considered Zero Context Examples correct, because they weren't obvious misuse.

• YMMV.Armageddon - Sinkhole, seems to be talking about the characters.
• Catch That Pigeon! - Correct.
• Cranial Eruption - Refers to the characters. Incorrect.
• Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines - Correct.
• Film.Despicable Me - Correct.
• Characters.Destroyers Of Helpless Tribes - Correct.
• WesternAnimation.Dexters Laboratory - Inaccurate, with an unnecessary mention of the characters themselves. Hardly correct.
• Fridge.Dino Crisis - Seems to be correct.
• Dinosaur Revolution - Correct.
• Dynamite Candle - Referring to the character. Incorrect.
• Manga.From Eroica With Love - Referring to the characters. Incorrect.
• Garfield And Friends - Correct.
• Humiliation Conga - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Ice Age - Correct.
• Instant Home Delivery - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Looney Tunes - Referring to the trope. Correct.
• Meat-O-Vision - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift - Seems to be correct.
• Mime and Music-Only Cartoon - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Nonindicative First Episode - Seems to be correct.
• Now You Tell Me - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Nu Pogodi - Correct.
• Out-Gambitted - Referring to the cartoons. Incorrect.
• Painted Tunnel, Real Train - Should be Catch That Pigeon!. Incorrect.
• Punny Name - Referring to the character. Incorrect.
• Running Gag - Referring to the character. Incorrect.
• Saturday Supercade - Correct.
• WebOriginal.Seth Mac Farlanes Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy - Correct, but it assumes the reader knows that the characters involved are the Trope Namers.
• Machinima.Spriggs A Halo 3 Machinima - Correct.
• Stargate SG-1 - Correct.
• WesternAnimation.Superman The Animated Series - Correct.
• Super-Speed - Refers to the character. Incorrect.
• Tex Avery - Correct.
• WesternAnimation.The Ant And The Aardvark - Correct.
• The Dreamstone - Correct.
• YMMV.The Dreamstone - Correct.
• Trivia.The Dreamstone - Seems to be correct.
• The Golden Age Of Animation - Correct.
• The Great Race - Correct.
• WesternAnimation.Tom And Jerry - Correct, but refers to the shorts as if they are directly related.
• Characters.US Acres - Correct.
• Wacky Races - Correct.
• TropeNamers.Western Animation - Correct, but that's to be expected from a Trope Namers page.
• TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.Western Animation - Correct.
• ShoutOut.Western Animation - Refers to the character. Incorrect.
• Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner - Correct, of course.

Several of the wicks were referring to the cartoons and the characters. Not good.

edited 22nd Jan '12 7:15:05 PM by FinalStarman

Are you confusing being in the style of the cartoons to be misuse? Because the Dexter's Lab example is an example of this trope. Being an homage to the cartoons requires also following this trope.

EDIT: Okay, just saw that page reworked the example to make it look like misuse. If examples actually are just referring to the Looney Toons characters, it shows this does need a rename.

edited 22nd Jan '12 7:17:34 PM by DragonQuestZ

How is Dexter always chasing Deedee out of his lab an example? If I recall correctly, he's trying to get her to stop interfering, not trying to be mean to her.

edited 22nd Jan '12 7:18:27 PM by FinalStarman

See my edit on that post.

edited 22nd Jan '12 7:17:56 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm saying it is misuse, not that it looks like it.

Okay.

edited 22nd Jan '12 7:29:40 PM by FinalStarman

I was agreeing with that. I cut out the parts in that wick example that were misuse.

Ok, now that you've checked the wicks and indicated that there is a great deal of misuse that a rename would certainly fix, I will agree that a rename is a good idea.

Even if the "misuse rate" were lower, I think it's clear the name is responsible.

14 out of 52 is about 25%; that is significant.

The problem inherent to naming tropes directly after characters is that it can get confused for references to the characters themselves instead of the trope. We seem to have a bit of that.

Also, the trope name isn't sufficiently distinguished from Catch That Pigeon!. Road Runner and Coyote are natural enemies (Catch That Pigeon!), and the title only conveys the relationship between them, not that it's an episode comprised of repeated attempts by one to do in the other.

And comically failing.

So what name would show the trope best? That other trope name isn't any more indicative.