Cartoon characters obviously exist in a different dimension where skewed laws of physics apply -- consider the poor coyote in "The Roadrunner" series.
The rules include:
- 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 takes over.
- Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter suddenly intervenes. 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. Newton called this sudden termination of motion the 'stooge's surcease.'
- 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 perfect cookie-cutout hole.
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