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From: crshnider@watnot.UUCP (Chuck Shnider)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion
Message-ID: <11508@watnot.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 14:20:26 EST
Article-I.D.: watnot.11508
Posted: Fri Feb 21 14:20:26 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 20:58:14 EST
References: <37@randvax.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 80

> 
>                 O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion
>                 [Quoted without permission from Jun '80 Esquire]
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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, the attempt to capture
>                 it inevitably unsuccessful.
> 
> 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 crewst 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> VII.    Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble
>         tunnel entrances; others cannot.
>                 This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

  X.      Everything falls faster than an anvil.
                  Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.


crshnider@watnot.uucp