I am having a cartoon related debate with a colleague.  Was it Woody
Woodpecker of Roadrunner who could be captured if only you could place
salt on his tail?  If it is another cartoon character that would be
useful info.  Any sources for your answer would be appreciated.  I'm
not a rich man and this is not an earth shattering question so I'm
pricing this at a mere USD 2.50.  Good luck.

Dear Inquisitor and Colleague. 

I think you two are getting several different things mixed up here. 

The Road Runner
**************
The road runner’s nasal gland eliminates excess salt rather than using
the urinary tract like most other birds so this is where you may have
got the connection between the roadrunner and salt.

Superstition 
**********
Some people have misinterpreted an old wives tale, which was that you
could catch a sparrow by sprinkling salt on its tail and thought that
this was the case for all birds.

There is no scientific reason why this should happen and since it
comes from the same ancestors that say if you split a crows tongue it
will give it the ability to speak, I don’t think we should put too
much faith in it.

Woody Woodpecker
*****************
The only reference I could find to Woody Woodpecker was that you can
but some Woody Woodpecker Salt and Pepper shakers.
http://pages.tias.com/60/PictPage/19372.html


There was however a cartoon called “Catch The Pigeon” where Dick
Dastardly and Muttley also misinterpreted the old adage of putting
salt on a sparrows tale and they tried to catch the pigeon by putting
salt on it’s tail.

I hope this helps.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by inquisitor1234-ga on 18 Sep 2002 04:19 PDT

Can you give me some proof that Dast & Mutt used salt.  I cannot find
this anywhere for any of these cartoon characters and this is realy
eating at me.  Thanks, V

---

Clarification of Answer by johnny_phoenix-ga on 18 Sep 2002 05:24 PDT

I'm sorry to say that i have no proof of the same. 

I'm not sure which episode its in but all the episodes and a brief
description are at

http://www.tibonia.com/Dmeg1.htm

I'm sorry that i cannot be more specific.

It's a common legend that if you put salt on the tail of a bird (any
bird) that you can catch it.  Just a search on google
for "salt on the tail" revealed the following results:

://www.google.com/search?q=%22salt+on+the+tail%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

You can see there are legends about putting salt on the tails of
magpies, eagles, etc.  That legend was incorporated
into several cartoons from what I can personally remember.  So it is
possible that it happened on both cartoons.

A list of some Road Runner cartoons can be found at:

http://looney.toonzone.net/tv/rrshow/rrshow2.html

A list of Woody Woodpecker cartoons can be found at:

http://www.bcdb.com/pages/Universal/Shorts/Woody_Woodpecker/

Hope this helps.

The question was whether, *in the cartoons*, it was Woody Woodpecker
or Roadrunner that could be caught by putting salt on his tail,
correct?

The answer, though I cannot locate proof on the Net, is "both".  My
sons are cartoon fanatics, and have the things on constantly.  I've
seen both instances rather recently, in addition to having seen this
in other cartoons  (I seem to recall Sylvester attempting the same
thing with Tweety, but that could just be me conflating it with Woody
Woodpecker).

I think your best bet at getting this verified would be to enlist the
aid of a kid - son, daughter, niece, nephew, neighborhood pest - and
ask them to tell you when they've seen one or both episodes.  Kids
have a lot of patience when it comes to watching cartoons!

--Missy