Cartoon Physics. A brief essay. Hopefully brief.

[hellofourthwall]

Cartoon physics that characters like Yakko live by are not the same laws of physics we are bound to. A toon is not invincible. Not exactly. A toon is not all-powerful. A toon lives by different rules and laws, and by these it must abide.


1. Rule of Funny
This is the main standard by which all antics are ruled by. This is what it all depends on. A cartoon character can endure a lot of hits - if it's blunt trauma only; a stab wound and in some cases a bullet will still kill one pretty easily and they'd really prefer if you didn't try that - run on air for a while, pull anvils, refrigerators, model trains, books and penguins from behind their backs and perform all sorts of breaks in reality if it's funny. They can bend themselves into any shape, get turned into piles of dust with blinking eyes, and crumble - if it's funny.

And almost always, ONLY if it is. Of course, in some cases - Woody Woodpecker, Screwy Squirrel - it may be a sense of humor bordering on psychopathic. It's important to note that these cartoons don't last as long as the classics do. They're just not as funny. (The Warners CAN now and then get dangerously close to this... but don't quite.)

You will fail, if it's funnier for you to. This is the dangerous flip-side, and where most villains and woobies fall into. You'd better be funnier than your adversary, or your adversary just may be able to turn the tables on you - and then you're screwed by a force far stronger than karma - comedy.

God help you if your enemy figures this out. Let the best toon win, then. Of course, there's also --


2. Suspension of Disbelief/Schrodinger's Principle
Someone is after you. Someone didn't appreciate a pie in the face - why not? Everyone loves pies! ...except of course this guy, who's out for blood. You didn't plan ahead, and now you're running along an increasingly narrow mountain ledge.

... oh. Wait. Are you?

If you ever look to confirm something YOU are doing, you will confirm the 'real physics' version of the truth. If you were in the air, you are now falling; if you were climbing a tree and are not something that can climb trees, you are now clinging for your life or falling. If you keep running, you can either get back onto the ledge, or even, if you're very lucky, make it to the other side -- provided you no longer look down.

The basics of this principle are as follows:

1) An area undefined is malleable.
• It could contain you, a mallet, an anvil, or a rhino - if YOU manage to believe it's there before others can assert their realities.
Note: You must know an area before you can truly randomly appear there.

2) A defined reality always overrides creativity.
• If someone's watching the area you try to access for whatever purpose, be it a one-shot sight gag, a mallet pull, or a teleport, you can't do it. Someone else already knows nothing is there.

3) If you confirm you cannot, you cannot.
• The really savvy toon doesn't look down. The smart toon knows better. Look at Bugs - he just goes with it. And that's how to get away with walking on air. However, that's extremely hard to do, for every instinct in you will have to know.

THOSE ARE THE TWO MAIN TOON LAWS. THE REST OF THIS IS ALL GUIDELINES, EXPLANATIONS, AND EXPANSIONS ON RULES ONE AND TWO.

3. Hammerspace
Hammerspace is an old toon standard, usually found by pulling something from behind your back. Some characters, like Wakko and Felix the cat, use a bag full of items - others will use pockets, or just the small of their back in some cases. All toons capable of breaching reality enough to access a hammerspace tend to be able to pull one item without fail - and that tends to be a mallet.

Hammerspace, though, is anywhere. It could be pulling things out from under a bed, and stashing them there again. It depends on Schrodinger's Principle - if no one can see you actually do it, or see where your hand goes, the only limit to what you can pull out tends to be ruled by Rule Of Funny, your imagination, and some preparation beforehand.

IF you want anything to be real, have real effect, and exist, it had to exist beforehand. You can pack things away in your own little hyperspace of holding or pocket of holding or bag of holding for later use, and these are very real things. If you don't care, then pull it out of nowhere and it will have little to no effect on reality. A cannon you pull out of hammerspace just makes an explosion, and its cannonball is only good for catching someone in the stomach and flinging them harmlessly across the room. A cannon that you packed beforehand... can actually cause damage. A goat you pull out exists only until it's out of sight.

•ONLY that which existed beforehand exists after.
This rule cannot be broken. You cannot pull food out of nowhere and be filled with it, but you can pull a cream pie out of nowhere to throw at someone, only to have it vanish the next moment.

It's great for backpack use, though. Just don't forget to restock it with things you really DO want to exist, or you'll probably be sorry.

-- on anvils and mallets: If these existed, they'd hurt. They may break bones, they may kill you. These are typically NEVER real, and the most they'll tend to do is flatten you for a few seconds while your antagonist gets a head start. Cartoon-created objects are, and I cannot stress this enough, harmless. It's not actually funny if someone dies, and they will never be capable of causing that level of damage. Rule of funny comes, surprisingly, to the villain's rescue.



4. Damage
You can probably survive blunt impacts. Probably. If they're toon-created, and pulled from Hammerspace by Schrodinger's principle there is absolutely no worry, but there's always that off-chance that you may be confronted with a real anvil, piano, safe, hammer, gun or other weapon. As a toon, though, you're more fragile than you look. You're not built to get impaled. Don't do this if you want to live. As a cartoon character, you may get resurrected for the next short, but you can die in the meantime.

Damage is usually by means of flattening - the reaction is amusing, and your dying is not amusing - therefore you have some refuge in rule of funny. Villains practically live off that rule, and will get pounded with everything under the sun. They can even get their faces blown off and go hunting for them, if they're good enough.

There are two keys here to surviving impacts, explosions, flamethrowers and the like. If one or the other applies, you can usually make it.
• See it coming, or be prepared for it to. Bonus points for saying 'Uh oh', looking distressed or worried, or giving the audience a wave good-bye.
• Be able to contort your body to some amusing length. Be slammed into a wall, ooze down onto the floor, blacken, or crumble - it has to be something entertaining to see. Remember, what doesn't kill you makes great Youtube videos comedic takes. Why? Audiences are made of sadistic, evil assholes. You tell me.

If you get stabbed, shot, or wounded with a real weapon that isn't blunt force damage or something you can think of in a split second a way to shake off... then you're looking at something a lot more serious.

Show's over then. It's not funny any more, you've lost your game, and you may have lost your life. Fortunately, MOST cartoon characters that know this (usually instinctively on some level) and perform these antics would never actually go this far. They like their nemesis too much - if for nothing else they like having someone to pester and annoy the hell out of the next day. Other people aren't so courteous. Watch out for these other people.


5. Costume Changes/Disguises
This ties back into hammerspace and rules 1 and 2. If you can spin around fast enough, you can actually make yourself hard enough to see for a moment you can edit your appearance -- but most of the time you'll have to go off-screen into another room or area to do this. This disguise won't last, and usually stays for an hour at most, or until you want it gone and no one's looking.

There are a few variants on this - one common one being unzipping yourself and stepping out of your own skin - fully clothed and in your skin or another's - as a reveal. You can do this as long as you have energy and imagination for it.

Of course, if it's actually real clothing and in your Hammerspace, the clothing lasts far longer. It all depends on your preparation beforehand. (This is a bit crucial for things such as a change to a superhero outfit, if you can't have it vanish at some point.)



6. Painted Exits
May or may not work. This depends on rule of funny and suspension of disbelief - if you're new at making these, you'll probably be running into a lot of walls. These almost never work for someone not clued in for one precise reason - you have to know, deep down in your heart and soul, where the exit is. You cannot just try to run inside and hope to live. You have to know the exit, and run through just as though you were running through a side-street. Hesitate one moment, or have less of an idea where it was created to go, and you've got a very fancy wall you're about to run into.
Brace for impact.



7. Mental Energy Level
You can wear yourself out over time, even if you've never any limit to physical energy.
Overall, this does after time put a strain on you, if not physically, mentally. You do have a limit - be it your patience, be it your creativity, or perhaps even be it a situation where something you really care about is compromised. One way to catch a toon is make him wear himself out. Pace yourself and know your limits - you can run out of gags, quips, limericks, and Tex Avery takes after a while if you're forced to do nothing but pull them to try to escape. This limit all depends on experience and intelligence, and varies from individual to individual, but every one of them has one. Mental exhaustion is all it takes for you to not think of pulling a pie.

Then again, if you're too exhausted to care, running on air may be easier.


8. Outside Visual Gags
These are somewhat similar to a painted exit, only on a far wider scale. You can have suddenly a massive backup choir of ferrets if you need one, a stage, even a made-up character for a joke or pun, but it's all just an illusion. These do not exist, and are not going to alter the room, building, park or other area in any way shape or form. They're gone the minute everyone looks away, and if one is pulled, you'll have more interesting things to deal with than staring at it for the rest of your life.

This is the biggest departure from reality, the hardest thing to do, and even harder - impossible, actually- to sustain for any length of time. They look very impressive if you pull one off, though, and are guaranteed to cause some confusion.

If you're really skilled, really lucky, and really desperate, you may be able to tie this into Hammerspace to create anvils, safes and pianos falling from the sky. This... usually requires an animator though - you're far more limited to what you can achieve on your own without one to randomly add things into the mix. Causing your own deus ex anvilica will, 99.9% of the time, be absolutely impossible without you getting up there to drop it yourself.

If your adversary says something along the lines of "What's the worst that can happen", "Hit me baby one more time", "Yeah, right - what're the odds of that happening?" or something else that's just tempting fate, you may even get the much better chance of 95% fail rate. Fate loves a chance to show off.