88 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
88 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion
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[Quoted without permission from Jun '80 Esquire]
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I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made
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aware of its situation.
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Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland.
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He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he
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chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle
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of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
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II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
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intervenes suddenly.
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Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
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characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a
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telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward
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motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden
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termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
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III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation
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conforming to its perimeter.
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Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the
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speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of
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reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit
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directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-
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perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often
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catalyzes this reaction.
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IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater
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than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the
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ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
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Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture
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it inevitably unsuccessful.
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V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
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Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to
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propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky
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noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion
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upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or
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the crewst of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is
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running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch
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the ground, especially when in flight.
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VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
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This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in
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which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the
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cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This
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effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or
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being throttled. A "wacky" character has the option of self-
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replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off
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walls to achieve the velocity required.
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VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble
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tunnel entrances; others cannot.
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This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, but
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at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a
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wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue
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him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened
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against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting.
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This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
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VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
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Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional
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nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated,
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spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled,or disassembled,
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but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking
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self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.
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IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
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This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also
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applies to the physical world at large. For that reason,
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we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.
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X. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
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