[0:00]We all know that cartoon logic is silly, right? Lots of ridiculous things happen in cartoons that make no sense. Maybe you've heard or made jokes about the ways that the laws of cartoon physics are different from real world physics. The classic example is how gravity doesn't work until you look down. Cartoons are full of stuff like this, and it makes a lot of what happens in them feel arbitrary and random. But what if I told you that it wasn't random? These genre conventions don't come out of nowhere, they exist for a reason. These impossible moments serve a key function in the narrative of a cartoon. By studying the placement and purpose of cartoon physics, we can learn a lot about what a cartoon is communicating to us. So, let's talk for a while about how a cartoon tells a story.
[1:01]I never really watched Looney Tunes as a kid. I was more of a Tom and Jerry person myself. But now that I suddenly have all this extra free time on my hands, I thought it would be fun to go check some of them out. I mean, they're just great. Watching Bugs Bunny outsmart jerks who want him dead is so much fun. But that got me thinking about cartoon physics and how they work. Why do all these old cartoons do stuff like this?
[1:25]First, let's get the obvious out of the way. The out of universe artistic reason why cartoons have such exaggerated physics. Part of that answer is just that they can. Because cartoons don't look like real life, the audience's suspension of disbelief will stretch a lot further. So cartoons can depict a lot of absurd nonsense and the audience will still be willing to accept what's happening. But it's not just that cartoons can do these things, they have to. Because cartoons don't look like reality, it's harder to get the audience to identify with what's happening on screen. It needs to have visually exaggerated representations of what's happening, because otherwise the audience won't feel the appropriate emotions. Like in a live action movie, if a character gets hit on the head really hard, you flinch, you recoil, you think, ooh, that must have hurt. But in a cartoon, if a character gets hit on the head, part of your brain is telling you, that's not a person, that's a drawing of an animal. Nobody really got hurt. So what does the cartoon do to show you that it hurts? It has the character grow that big bump on its head to tell you that this hurts. Usually, cartoon physics are about showing us the emotional truth of what's happening. It shows us how the character feels and by extension, tells us how we're supposed to feel.
[2:38]A character gets pricked with a pin and shoots up into the air to show us that they're surprised and in pain. A character eats an entire meal in one bite to show how hungry they are and or how tasty the food is. A character gets tied up in a knot to show you just how badly they've been beaten and humiliated. That's why moments like these never carry over into the next shot. Once they've told us how to feel, they've served their purpose. But let's dig a little deeper. It's easy enough to say that cartoon physics are different from reality. No doubt. But why do cartoon physics seem to be enforced so inconsistently? Why are some characters able to do things that others can't?
[3:25]For that, we need to identify the butt-monkey. What does that mean? Butt-monkey is a TV trope's term for a character who never has anything go right for them. They're constantly failing and losing because the world of the story is out to get them.
[3:42]If you look at the average cartoon, there's pretty much always a clear power dynamic between two main characters. One character will constantly get beat down by cartoon physics. The world is conspiring against them to make them lose over and over again. On the flip side, the other character can seemingly bend reality to their will. They can use cartoon physics to do anything they want to or need to to win. For example, in most Bugs Bunny cartoons, the butt-monkey is whoever is bothering Bugs. Or in Tom and Jerry, Jerry always beats Tom. Donald Duck always loses every conflict he's in. And we love seeing Goofy be an idiot and mess things up. There is always a character that we want to see having a bad time. We enjoy their suffering. In a cartoon, anything can happen as long as whatever happens causes harm to the butt-monkey.
[4:36]But wait, this seems like it's breaking some pretty key conventions of good writing and storytelling. How can you make a compelling story when random nonsense can happen at any point that helps one character and screws over another? It would seem like that robs the story of all stakes, especially since the butt-monkey is usually the antagonist. We root against them as they try and fail to hurt the good guy. But that's not really what's happening. I've mentioned this before, but there's a rule of storytelling from Pixar that goes, coincidences to get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. Again, it would seem like the world bending to help the good guy and hurt the bad guy would break this rule. But look closely at some of these cartoons. In a lot of them, you're actually made to identify with the bad guy, with the butt-monkey. Even as you're rooting against them, they get more time in the frame, and we see things from their point of view. Have you ever heard people online talk about how as they got older, they stopped rooting for Jerry and started feeling sorry for Tom? This is why. We watch these more villainous characters persist through impossible odds, where the universe is literally against them, but they keep trying anyway. Even as we hope they fail, we can't help but admire them for trying. That's why these contrivances don't bother an audience. It's a coincidence that gets a character we care about into trouble. Let's unpack that a little further. What makes certain cartoon characters become butt-monkeys? Looking at cartoons in aggregate, you start to notice a certain ethos among all of them. There's a karmic justice that operates in the cartoon world. In cartoons, everyone gets what they deserve.
[6:20]When two characters come into conflict with one another, the one who we're instructed to root against is always the one who starts the fight. The one who goes looking for trouble, the one whose thoughtless actions inconvenience someone else, or the one who demonstrates a lack of empathy.
[6:44]Or even if there isn't a direct character conflict, we can still watch a character get themselves into trouble because they're too stupid to understand that there's a problem.
[7:02]Cartoon worlds and cartoon physics have a cosmic order to them, where characters with big egos are always brought down a peg. That brings me to my final point. You might have thought back to some cartoons you've watched and found some moments that don't apply to the rules I've laid out. Times where the good guys lose. That's because there's one major law of cartoon physics that matters more than anything else and encapsulates everything I've said so far. There's one cardinal sin that a cartoon character can make that destroys them every time. That sin is overconfidence.
[7:41]A cartoon cannot sustain a character who is certain of their own victory. As soon as a cartoon character feels like they're going to win, it comes back around to bite them every single time. The laws of the cartoon world dictate that every character must know their place, know their limitations.
[8:04]Once they humble themselves and accept their lot in life, the world opens up to them and they can shape their surroundings to their will. But as soon as they start to think that they've got this in the bag, the world turns against them. That is the only time when good guys lose, when they get cocky and start taunting their opponent.
[8:27]Let's bring this all back around to that first little law of cartoon physics that I mentioned at the beginning. Gravity doesn't work until you look down. We all know that trope, where a character runs off a cliff and stands on empty air for a few seconds until they look down and then fall. It's a classic. But it's not universal. Nine times out of ten, that's how the situation plays out. But sometimes, something like this happens.
[9:10]They're still running on air, but in these situations, the character is able to run back to safety somehow. Why? What makes this different? It's all about confidence and humility. If a character is able to recognize that they made a mistake, the cartoon world will allow them to correct it. A character will only fall if they run straight off that cliff, having full confidence in the fact that they're still on solid ground. Because if they do that, the cartoon world will be right there to prove them wrong. Waiting just long enough for them to realize what a fool they've been before gravity kicks in. I know this defies the law of gravity, but you see I never studied law.
