CODIFIED CARTOON LAWS OF PHYSICS

DANGER: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Only trained professional toons can safely
attempt the feats listed below.

These laws of physics apply to cartoons, not to real life:

Laws of Force and Motion:

  1. A body in motion will remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
  2. The force applied times the comedy modulus equals the acceleration.
  3. Every action has a reaction of an amount that causes the funniest result.
  4. A red traffic light can cause all toons that can see it to stop where they are, even in midair. Motion resumes when the light turns green.
  5. A policeman blowing a whistle can do anything a traffic light can do.
  6. As speeds increase, objects can be in more than one place at a time.
    • Ricocheting off walls increases this effect.
    • Spinning, fighting, panic, and throttling are common examples.
  7. Motion is always accompanied by funny sound effects.
  8. Several motions, formerly quite possible for a toon, are now impossible, now that vocal sound effect creator Mel Blanc has died.
  9. The following items generate attraction forces:
    • Money, food, pleasant scent, mud puddle, pond, magnet, cliff, policeman.
  10. The following items generate repulsive forces:
    • Hazard, bully, jumping in water, ugly toon, ghost, skunk, matrimony.

Gravity:

  1. A body suspended in space will remain suspended in space until made aware of the situation.
  2. Gravity is transmitted by slow waves of long wavelength, stretching a falling object until the highest part starts to fall.
  3. The time it takes an object to fall 20 stories is greater than the time it takes whoever knocked it off to spiral down 20 flights to catch it.
    • Usually the object breaks
    • Sometimes it flattens the catcher.
  4. All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
    • A sharp object will always propel a toon upward.
    • The feet of a fleeing toon, and the wheels of a fleeing vehicle, need not ever touch the ground.
  5. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
    • A safe or a large rock can fall slower than an anvil only when falling behind a falling anvil.
  6. A red traffic light can halt objects that are falling. This lasts until the light turns green, when they resume their original falling speed. A toon can climb out of a falling vehicle halted by a red light and walk out of frame if the "WALK" sign comes on while the light is red.

Properties of matter:

  1. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
    • The main forces generating this effect are skunks, ghosts, and matrimony.
    • This effect can be negated by paint (see next entry).
  2. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to look like doors or tunnel entrances. Others can't.
    • The toon who painted the opening is always constrained to the original reason it was painted.
    • A toon successfully passing through the entrance does not leave a perforation in the wall.
    • A toon failing to enter is stopped by solid matter intervening suddenly, unless driven by a skunk, a ghost, or matrimony, where it will leave a perforation.
    • The toon passing through the entrance may enter a different environment than the toon leaving a perforation.
    • Once a perforation has been made in the wall the opening was painted on, the painted opening no longer functions.
  3. Doors knocked off their hinges can create or destroy openings in whatever they happen to lean against.
  4. A toon can take a hole from one surface and apply it to another surface when needed. Holes can also be dragged.
  5. Toons and scenery can be extremely flexible when necessary.
    • A toon can hide behind anything, unless failure to hide is funnier.
  6. Rabbits can tunnel from here to there in less than 20 seconds, and emerge clean.
  7. Robots and computers will always make stupid mistakes:
    • A robot approaching an already open door will swing the door the other way and crash through the wall.
    • A robot stopped by suddenly intervening solid matter will always lose its head. It will then grope around trying to find it, and put some other device (such as a toaster) on where the head goes.
    • A robot will fall apart at the funniest moment.
    • A computer making a mistake will behave like a stuck record.
    • Computers blow up or burn out when given impossible to solve problems.
  8. A fat toon jumping into a body of liquid can displace the entire amount of liquid forcefully into the surroundings.

Object permanence:

  1. The laws of object permanence are nullified for "cool" toons, who can make items appear at will.
  2. Toon solid wastes can be recycled just by throwing them outside the frame (e.g. an empty spinach can).
  3. Violent rearrangements of toon matter are temporary.
    • A toon will always assume the shape of its container.
    • A toon taken apart can reassemble itself.
  4. Explosions and weapons are never fatal. They temporarily turn toons black and smoky.
  5. Drinking a chemical makes a toon change color or size, makes it grow hair, or turns it into something else.
  6. Only ink solvent can kill a toon. But the cartoonist can resurrect the toon by drawing it again.
  7. When a toon is aware of being in a cartoon, it can play with the elements used in making a cartoon:
    • Toons in any medium can do fantastic things with pencils, pens, ink, and erasers.
    • A toon in any medium can interact with the cartoonist.
    • Toons in comic strips can play with the talk balloons, the frames, the artist's signature, or the copyright message.
    • A toon in a newspaper or a comic book can play with other parts of the publication by cutting a hole in the page it is printed on.
    • Toons in cine cartoons can play with the soundtrack, the framing, the camera, the cameraman, the projector, the screen, the titles, subtitles, or the credits.
    • A toon in a cine cartoon can jump into or converse with the audience.
    • Real actors in mixed action/animation films can have all of the powers of toons.
    • This entire effect is called Comic Existentialism.

Other laws:

  1. For every vengeance, there is an equal, but opposite revengeance.
  2. Dynamite is the quantum unit of (and always appears with) animosity.
  3. Favored weapons: mallet, anvil, dynamite, pie, cake, seltzer water, skillet, dishes, rolling pin, boxing glove on a spring, boulder, huge flyswatter, safe, piano, jello, flypaper, guitar, broom, skunk, glue, and beehive.
  4. Spinach imparts powers of strength, and ability to change into other objects.
  5. Nothing can happen unless it eventually leads to something funny.
  6. Brand names in cartoons fall into two categories:
    • Acme
    • Something punny (e.g. Haxwell Mouse Coffee)
  7. Stupidity is reflexive, symmetric, transitive, and indestructible.
  8. The following cartoons follow terrestrial laws of physics instead of cartoon laws of physics:
    • Documentary and instructional material.
    • Adaptations of non-cartoon literature.
    • Science fiction.

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