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Cartoon Law of Physics



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 9.8 meters per second squre takes
over.

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 a boulder retards their forward motion suddenly. Si
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 codds 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 catalyses 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, the attempt to capture it
inevitably unsuccessful.

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 'whacky' 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.

Cartoon Law VIII
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats posses 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: A cat will assume the shape of its container.

Cartoon Law IX
Everyting falls faster than an anvil.

Cartoon Law X
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 Amendment
A sharp object will always propel a character upward.
When poked (usually in the rear) with a sharp object (usually a pin), a
character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great velocity.