1.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.
2.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.
3.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.
4.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.
5.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.
6.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.
7.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.
8.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. Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container.
9.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.
10.Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the
Roadrunner cartoons.
