Man vs. Cartoon challenges students and researchers at New Mexico Tech’s Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center to re-create contraptions and situations found in Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.

Each episode begins with one or two cartoon clips that the competitors then try to re-create, attempting to succeed in killing the Road Runner where the Coyote had failed. In the first episode, for example, the students re-create a Rube Goldberg machine featured in Wild About Hurry that begins with a slingshot and involves a large number of steps, culminating in a cannon shot.