The Cartoon Laws of Physics, and More

Originally published March 20, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1270

More assorted things…

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On Usenet, a fellow named Greg D. posted, “I’ve been searching, with no success, for a Kingdom Come Theme for Windows 95.”

I have no idea what this means. I’m sure that lots of other people do, but I don’t. However, anyone who reads this column on any sort of regular basis knows that lack of knowledge on a subject has never slowed me down before.

So, ever-eager to be helpful, I composed the following, which I dubbed, “The Theme To Kingdom Come.” Considering I wrote it online in about ten minutes, it’s not half-bad. Not half-good either, but not half-bad. I’m not even going to bother to tell you what super-hero-related tune it’s set to; it should be fairly obvious. Heck, if it’s not obvious, then telling you wouldn’t help.

THE THEME TO KINGDOM COME

 

Kingdom Come, Kingdom Come

Read it or you will feel dumb

Watch it, kids, duck your heads,

As it spawns a million threads

Look out

Here comes the Kingdom Come

 

Alex Ross painted art

And Mark Waid did the writing part

Issues it numbered four

Then there weren’t any more

Look out

There went the Kingdom Come

 

It had Superman and he looked pretty old

Didn’t matter though ’cause it still really sold

 

Kingdom Come, Kingdom Come

In trade paperback Kingdom Come

It will not be ignored

As it wins each award

Look out…

There’ll never be an equal

When can we have a sequel

Sequel to Kingdom Come!

 

Anyone else need a theme?

 * * *

I was chatting with a friend of mine who happens to be Irish Catholic, and somehow or other the subject of Michael Flatley came up. And she informed me that the term “Lord of the Dance” actually refers to Jesus. Apparently “the dance” is the dance of life, and for those who follow Jesus, he is termed the Lord of the Dance.

Wouldn’t that make a terrific segment of South Park?

I mean, I thought when a bunch of us did “Riverborg” that that was warped, but this could set new heights of glorious tastelessness. Jesus is a semi-regular on that series, after all, appearing in the opening credits. What if he decided to reclaim his title of “Lord of the Dance” from Michael Flatley?

Granted, the animation on the series is so aggressively minimalist that it would be tough to portray visually. On the other hand, Jesus could just zap him with the death rays from his eyes… but not before Flatley’s entire dance troupe stampeded over Kenny.

* * *

Speaking of cartoons, this was sent to me on AOL by Howard Margolin, who got it from who-knows-where…

 

THE CARTOON LAWS 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 32 feet per second per second 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 an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir 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 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.

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 `wacky’ 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 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.

Cartoon Law IX: Everything 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 XI: Any character can fly by holding two feathers and flapping their arms.

Corollary: Flight is temporary, lasting only long enough to bring the character over a large drop.

 

AMENDMENTS TO THE CARTOON LAWS OF PHYSICS

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

Cartoon Law Amendment B: The laws of object permanence are nullified for “cool” characters. Characters who are intended to be “cool” can make previously nonexistent objects appear from behind their backs at will. For instance, the Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking.

Cartoon Law Amendment C: Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries. They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky.

Cartoon Law Amendment D: Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths. Their operation can be witnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first, causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground.

Cartoon Law Amendment E: Dynamite is spontaneously generated in “C-spaces” (spaces in which Cartoon laws hold). The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which postulated that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large (stick-sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in “cool” characters (see Amendment B, which may be a special case of this law), who are able to use said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where all matter and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding. A big bang indeed.

* * *

I have never had such an urge to fly out to a foreign country and punch someone.

So there was Michelle Kwan and Tara Lupinsky, sitting side by side some hours after the latter had won the Silver Medal in Women’s Figure skating while the latter had won the Gold. The interviewer proceeded to grill Kwan about the medal she didn’t win. “How did you feel about not winning the gold? Did you think you skated well enough to win the gold? Where were you when you found out you didn’t win the gold?” The girl handled the questioning well enough.

But I wanted to belt that sportscaster. Just hand his head to him. I personally considered his line of questioning an affront. He could have asked her what was the first thing she did after winning it. Or where she was going to hang it at home. Or her future plans. Anything. Instead he treated her like a loser rather than a winner. There was a poster on a billboard outside Atlanta during the Games there two years ago that read, “You don’t win silver. You lose gold.”

Bull. This young woman won a silver medal. An Olympic silver medal. Most of us will go through our entire lives without ever being close enough to even touch such a thing, and she gets to wear one around her neck. But when she stepped up onto the podium to receive it, if you watched carefully, you saw that she actually covered it with her hands as if she were embarrassed. And she even said at one point–half jokingly, but only half, I suspect–that she hoped that her friends and family “still loved” her.

I think it’s appalling. I know this country emphasizes “We’re Number One” above all else, but Kwan and Lupinsky were both on the same team. People have spoken endlessly about the quality of the Olympics, particularly the relentlessly terrific consideration from everyone in Nagano. That’s because the Japanese know how to operate as a team. We could follow that example.

It wasn’t a loss of any sort for Michelle Kwan. It was a win for her and for her country, and that is all that should be focused on.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. Gold medals welcome.)