The Coffee Place's Joke Stack
Subj : Toon Physics
Cartoon Laws of Physics
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Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Exception: This does not apply to cool characters who've never studied law.
Appendum: Any species capable of flight, upon distraction or vertigo, will lose ability of flight. Conversely, any two feathers held in each hand and waved will (temporarily) give flight to any character that does so.
Cartoon Law II
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Cartoon Law III
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
Cartoon Law IV
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
Such an object is inevitably priceless, thus the attempt to capture it will be inevitably ultimately unsuccessful; while the attempt will often be initially successful, an essentially valueless object such as a feather or anvil falling on the head of the character will indirectly cause the destruction of the priceless one after a short pause in which the character who has caught the object has taken a deep breath.
The feather, anvil, or other object in question is likely to have been dropped by a mouse, IFF the character trying to save it is a cat.
Cartoon Law V
All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
Cartoon Law VI
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Cartoon Law VII
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.
This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
|Exception: It has been observed that some toons actually have been able to enter holes painted onto solid backdrops while chasing otherwise unsuspecting toons into these holes. However, the consequence of obtaining this ability is that they almost immediately collide with an exiting train or truck.
Cartoon Law VIII
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self-pity, they reinflate,elongate, snap back, or solidify.
Corollary 1: A cat will assume the shape of its container.
Corollary 2: Cartoon cats have the uncanny ability to emit piano sounds when their teeth are transformed into piano keys after having a piano dropped on them.
|Corollary 3: Toon coyotes tend to have feline properties.
Cartoon Law IX
For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.
Cartoon Law X
Everything (especially a coyote) falls faster than an anvil, or a boulder,or a large chunk of terra firma, or...
Cartoon Law Amendment A
A sharp object will always propel a character upward.
When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a pin), a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great velocity.
Corollary: Such upward motion will usually be restricted by an overhang of the nearest cliff wall, even though said cliff wall was never visible at any other point in the cartoon.
Cartoon Law Amendment B
The laws of object permanence are nullified for "cool" characters.
Characters who are intended to be "cool" can make previously nonexistent objects appear from behind their backs at will. For instance, the Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking.
Exception 1: Only objects capable of being lifted by the toon can be produced from behind his/her back, unless they are to be used to clobber an opponent.
Exception 2: Only objects needed by the toon to express him/herself (e.g., signs for Road Runner or Calamity Coyote), or props needed for the situation (e.g., Buster's magnifying glass for the Roches)), or to humiliate an opponent for a laugh may be produced in this manner. Objects that serve solely to gratify the toon (money, a Porsche, etc.) cannot be produced in this manner.
Cartoon Law Amendment C
Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries.
They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky.
Cartoon Law Amendment D
Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths.
Their operation can be witnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first,causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground.
Corollary: The force of gravity increases with distance above the ground or floor. Proof: as soon as characters who can (barely) fly (with or without mechanical assistance) cross the threshold of the cliff edge or windowsill, their trajectory takes a sharp downward trend, but upon further exertion by the toon and/or its mechanical assistance, level flight is re-achieved.
Cartoon Law Amendment E
Dynamite is spontaneously generated in "C-spaces" (spaces in which cartoon laws hold).
The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which postulated that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large (stick-sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in "cool" characters (see Amendment B, which may be a special case of this law), who are able to use said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where all matter and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding. A big bang indeed.
Cartoon Law Amendment F
Any bag, sack, purse, etc. possessed by a cool character is a tesseract -any number of objects of any size may be placed in it or removed from it with no change in its outer dimensions.
Cartoon Law Amendment G
Characters can spin around and change into any set of clothes appropriate to the situation.
Cartoon Law Amendment H
|Cartoon Holes:
|Part 1: Portable holes work.
|Part 2: Toons (especially rabbits) can dig a burrow from here to there in less than 20 seconds and emerge spotlessly clean.
|Part 3: Any hole dug in the ground by a non-cool character will eventually lead to China. Any toon entering China via the hole will not be allowed to leave until they have been given Chinese garb or food, or heard the sound of a gong (which makes them shimmy back and forth).
|Part 4: Any hole dug from within a prison or jail will lead to a point underneath a person of authority (e.g. warden or policeman), or er a body of water, which proceeds to drench the poor sap, or into another jail cell.
Cartoon Law Amendment I
Movements are accompanied by funny sound effects.
Especially eye blinks, which usually are accompanied by xylophone or or other percussive noise type tinkles with each blink.
Cartoon Law Amendment J
Vehicle Uncertainty Principle:
A vehicle travelling along a straight path which extends to the horizon uninterrupted remains in state of indeterminacy-- existing invisibly at all points along the road simultaneously-- until its waveform is collapsed by a villain entering the road. This causes the vehicle to coalesce into an observable form at that location, maintaining high velocity. Classical cartoon physics take over at this point.
RDB translation into plain English:
As soon as Wile E. Coyote steps into the road, the bus appears to run him down.
|Cartoon Law Amendment K
|Fudd's Theorem of Wunaway Vewocity (see Law V):
|A "cool" cartoon character who has been severely startled and attempts to run |away from his/her adversary seemingly posesses infinite inertia for a short |time. The character's feet move at incredible rates, often blurring into an |indistinguishable circular haze. The energy generated by this furious |rotation is often sufficient to actually excavate a pit in the ground beneath |the character attempting to flee, yet he/she is unable to move for several |critical seconds, during which the adversary may >almost< make physical |contact. Yet after the initial period of resistance, this overwhelming |inertia releases suddenly, and the character vanishes at a speed too great |for the eye to follow.
Corollary: It is occasionally observable that the period of irresistible inertia may be prolonged if the character has some amusing aside to utter, either to the audience or to the pursuing adversary. In this case, the inertial effect vanishes upon completion of the amusing remark.
|Note that the duration of infinite rest inertia of a cartoon body is most |elegantly expressed in the following equation:
| D = (U - P) + E
|Where D is the duration of the rest inertia in seconds,
| U is the urgency of the need to get away from one's adversary |
(expressed by a scale of 1 to 10),*
| P is the proximity of the adversary in centimeters from 1 to 10, and |
E is the time in seconds required for a humorous aside before escaping.
|* The 1-to-10 scale is not arbitrary, as the non-mathematically-inclined might suspect. Degree of urgency for escape from an adversary is a function of the psionic force of the adversary's lust for mayhem factored against the |counterforce of the runaway's need for escape, plus his/her general cockiness |and insouciance.
Recent theoretical work at the Acme Institute of Advanced Arithmetic suggests that the use of "fuzzy logic" may provide further refinement of Fudd's pioneering work. "Fuzzy logic" advocates hold that the Theorem may in fact exhibit different resolutions for cartoon characters with fuzzy surfaces, e.g. rabbits, cats, and even borderline examples such as Yosemite Sam. However, like the Acme Institute's recent "lukewarm fusion" project, this approach is regarded with considerable skepticism.
|Cartoon Law Amendment L
|E = mc^2 really means Entertainment = more crazy/cute/comedic cartoons
|Cartoon Law Amendment M
|The Vertically Unavoidable Doom Principle:
|When an object such as a boulder, piano, anvil, etc. starts to cast its shadow starting its descent on a character, said character can try to get out of the object's path but will either:
A) Only run in place inches over the ground
B) Move out of way only to discover that the object has "followed" him/her
Exception: Cool characters, and only cool characters, may move out the path of the object by simply stepping out of the way at the last possible second.
Cartoon Law Amendment N
Law of UPS (i.e., toon snail-mail):
|The placement of a piece of paper within a conveniently located mailbox will |cause the immediate appearance of a large weapon or other such item designed |for the elimination of the opposing character.
Cartoon Law Amendment O
Law of transvestism:
As a device for entrapment characters may dress in drag. The 'cool' character will be very convincing and will cause the opposing character to have his main blood pumping organ to protrude from his chest repeatedly. He |is also likely to levitate in a reclined position. His eyes may also increase rapidly in diameter. Non-cool charaters dressing in drag will not have any |effect as a disguise on cool characters, though this will not be apparent |immediately.
Cartoon Law Amendment P
Cartoon time is quantized into units of 1/24 seconds.
Corollary 1: In the event that seasons must change, or other signifigant time must pass, days pass at a rate of 2 1/3 a second, assuming a calender is available to lose pages.
Corollary 2: The inverse of this is of course true, if any wait is required. Often extras will turn to skeletons, and large amounts of spider webs accumulate in the area.
Cartoon Law Amendment Q
When running or chasing someone into the sunset at the end of a cartoon, the shortest distance between two points is a zigzag.
Cartoon Law Amendment R
Cuteness of non-human toons as a function of size:
Recent unauthorized experiments in a neglected portion of the Texas |supercollider have resulted in the discovery of a basic cartoon subatomic particle which we have christened the Cuteon.
This particle seems to be responsible for the inherent cuteness of toons. |Strangely, each toon character appears to contain the same number of Cuteons. This means that the percentage of Cuteons is inversely proportional to the size of the toon. Hence, the smaller the cartoon character, the cuter it will be.
Cartoon Law Amendment S
Cartoon Chemistry:
Part 1: Any two substances when mixed by an uncool character will explode.
Part 2: Any gas, when injected into a toon in very high amount, causing said toon to expand to many times its original volume, will become lighter than air, thus causing said toon to float. A toon thus inflated will behave like a hollow rubber balloon. Use of a sharp object (say, a needle) will cause said toon to immediately deflate and to propel across the room or landscape at a velocity as predicted via Newton's Equal-and-Opposite Law of Force.
End of laws
Credits:
Trevor Paquette & Lt. Justin D. Baldwin for Laws I through IX. Daniel Shelton for the exception to Law I. Charliec42@delphi.com for the addendum to Law I.Tim Linnell for the modification to Law IV. ??? for Law X and Amendments A through E. Amberle Ferrian for inspiring the exceptions to Amendment B. Bob Repas for Amendment F, modifications to Law X, corollary to Amendment A, addition to Amendment I.
|Mike Phillips via Dave Burnham for Exception to Law VII. |Ron Bauerle for Corollary to Law VII and Amendment D, and Amendments F | through I, and L (yes, it's self-serving - sue me :^)) Peter J. Tampas for Corollary 2 to Law VIII. |Lar3ry (sic) Gensch for Corollary 3 to Law VIII. |Brendan Dunn, Brian Coe, and B.H. Bailie for Part 3 of Amendment H. |Michael Neylon, Peter Trudell, and Jeff McAdams for Part 4 of " H. Brendan Dunn for Amendment J. John Wagner for Amendment K. |Andrew Fitta for Amendment M. |Rick Carlsen for Amendments N and O. |Hiroshi ? (hiroshi@cgate.hipecs.hokudai.ac.jp) for Amendment P. |Legion O.D.D. for Corollaries to Amendment P. |John Quintanilla for Amendment Q. |Mark Taylor for Amendment R. |Michael Neylon and J.J. Nicholson for parts 1 and 2 of Amendment S. Margeret Gerberi, Charles A. Leone, and others? for posting these to various Usenet newsgroups. Jon Michaels, Dan Harrington, Mr. Kim Moser, and others? for propagating them via e-mail.
Also, in a post to rec.arts.animation, (article 9vq@Unify.com), mmt@unify.com (Manuel A. McLure) writes:
I saw these laws many, many years ago printed in "Esquire" magazine. I don't know who the author was, but at least it's a pointer...
However, a search of the Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature in a library for the last 20 years of Esquire showed no entries like this under Television Broadcasting, Animated shows; or under Motion Pictures, Animated Films. So, until I get a better reference, the credits will stay as shown above.
|Mark Taylor reports via e-mail: "I saw a comedian on Comedy Central doing a |routine called the Laws of the Cartoon Universe. Pretty funny, included |numerous jokes not yet on your list."
|If anybody knows who this comedian is and/or if his material is recorded |somewhere, please let me know.
|In another e-mail, Thomas M. Shim writes: "There is a list of very similar laws listed in the Bugs Bunny 50th Anniversary Magazine that back in 1990 was inserted in many Time Warner magazines (as well as an expanded edition |as a standalone product). It cites a book by someone named O'Donough, but past that my memory withers. It may very well be that the guy lifted it off this list. :-D
|If anybody knows where I could get a copy of this, please let me know.
Revision history:
4/17/90 Laws I to IX posted to rec.games.frp, rec.arts.tv, and rec.arts.comics by Charles Anthony Leone (cl2g+@andrew.cmu.edu)
12/ 9/93 Laws I to X and Amendments A to E posted to rec.arts.disney by Margaret Gerberi, from an e-mail by Dan Harrington, from an e-mail by Jon Michaels.
12/??/93 Reformatted and posted to rec.arts.animation by Ron Bauerle.
4/ 2/94 Added amendments F through I and posted to r.a.a and r.a.d by RDB.
6/ 7/94 Included info from a 4/3/94 e-mail from Mr. Kim Moser and posted to more groups by RDB.
|8/ 9/94 Added Expires header (hope that's not bad netiquette); modified Laws IV and X; added Amendment J, exception and addendum to Law I, corollary to Amendment A, exceptions to Amendment B, info to Amendment I, and note about possible Esquire magazine origin.
|1/21/95 Latest revision (see top of post). Added info from misc. replies and follow-ups to the August posting.
RDB
--- Maximus/2 2.02
* Origin: The Back Counter BBS (1:382/109)
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Changes were last made on 11-20-2001
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