Cartoon Physics

Another great post from Wikipedia. Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without it.


Cartoon Physics: Dynamics

No matter what happens to cartoon characters, they always return to their default shapes.

Any body passing through solid matter will leave a dent conforming to its perimeter.

Explosives, even if detonated close to a character's face, will cause only scorching of the
skin. (Prior to the efforts of the American Civil Rights Movement, characters would often take on the appearance of blackface.) Similarly, a gun discharged directly into the face will not fire an actual bullet.

If a character walks off a cliff, they will not fall, and continue to walk on thin air, until they notice they have walked off the cliff. In some cases, they will not fall until they look down, regardless of their awareness of the situation.

Alternatively, when a character runs off a cliff, notices the situation, and begins falling, at first only the body below the neck falls, during which the neck is stretched for a few seconds before the head follows.

If a character falls from a tall building, another character from the same floor will be able to run all the way down to ground level in order to catch the falling character before he/she hits the ground.

Characters are allowed to "swim" or blow themselves upwards a short distance in the air before falling normally to gravity.

When a character chops the only thing holding another character from falling (such as a tree branch) the chopper will fall, together with whatever he/she was standing on (such as the tree or the ground) and the other character will remain floating in the air (branch included).

An explosive device taken by one character will not explode until it is given back to the original character who triggered the device. Also applies to booby traps.

A boomerang, when thrown, will not only change direction, but will actively hunt out its thrower so that the thrower may catch it, regardless of his or her relation to the initial point of the throw.

Motion reference frames are arbitrary. For instance, an outboard motor in a pan of water on wheels causes the motor and pan to move together. Likewise, a fan and a sail attached to a wheeled platform will cause the platform to move.

A gun may be fired any number of times without being reloaded.

Any fall is survivable.

Holes can be physically picked up and moved. This also applies to mouths.


Anvilology (The study of anvils)

Everything falls faster than an anvil (so that the evil character can hit the ground first and then be crushed, but not killed, by the anvil).

Anvils are readily available.

Anvils have mass but not much weight, so that they are very hard to push around, but it is possible to jump out of a plane with an anvil instead of a parachute and not notice until the parachute is opened while airborne.

Anvils can stay in the air until noticed by a character, at which point they fall on the character.

If a character moves out of the way of a falling anvil, the anvil will shift its position over the character before falling, so that it crushes (but does not kill) the character.


Cartoon Physics: The Second Law of Motion.

For a given cartoon character C:

1. If C runs into a wall,
a: If the wall is too thick, C will strike it and flatten out like dough, often regardless of clothing.
b: If the wall is thin enough, he will leave a hole in the wall in the shape of his body.

2. If C runs into something made of metal, he will dent it in the shape of his body.

3. If C runs off a cliff, the impact crater he leaves will conform with Rule 1b.

4. If C has a fragile body,
a: Running into any wall will cause him to be squashed into a musical instrument (usually an accordion), or
b: Any collision or fall will fracture him into a zillion pieces.

5. If C runs into a wall which has been painted to look like part of the landscape or a tunnel:
a: If the "camera" angle blends the painting with the actual landscape, he will enter the landscape or tunnel as though it were real.
b: If he was the one who painted the wall, he will just run into the wall — see Rule 1.
c: If the "camera" views the painting at an angle such that it is, without doubt, a painting on a wall, he will just run into the wall — see Rule 1.
d: Trains or large trucks are often known to drive out of walls painted in this way, usually just after the painter has slammed into the wall and is feeling sheepish for having fallen for their own ruse. However, if the view of the oncoming vehicle is blocked, then the vehicle will apparently stop.

*Cartoon collision physics are a subset of cartoon physics regarding the laws of collisions. Note that these laws deliberately refer to male subjects; bad things do not generally happen to women.



...It’s a shame that Physics 4 finished some time ago.

*Plagarism courtesy of Wikipedia.org