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 pasture land.  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 catch it
unbroken.

Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to catch it is
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 Amendments
 ----------------------------

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.

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.

Amendment C:
Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries.

They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky.

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 theground.

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.

Amendment F:
Any bag, sack, purse, etc. possessed by a cool character is a tesseract - any number of objects of any size may be placed in it or removed from it with no change in its outer dimensions.

Amendment G:
Characters can spin around and change into any set of clothes appropriate to the situation.

Amendment H:
Rabbits can dig a burrow from here to there in less than 20 seconds and emerge spotlessly clean.

Amendment I:
Movements are accompanied by funny sound effects.

Men vs. Women
Differences Between Men and Women

Names
If Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice go out for lunch, they will call each other Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice.
If Fred, Luke, Bradley, and Jeff go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Bruno, Scrappy, Peanut-Head and Godzilla.

Eating Out
When the bill arrives, Fred, Luke, Bradley, and Jeff will each throw in $20, even though the total is only $34.25. None of them will have any smaller bills and none will admit they want change back.
When Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

Money
A man will pay $10 for a $5 item he needs.
A woman will pay $5 for a $10 item that she doesn’t need, because it’s on sale.

Bathrooms
A man has five items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Motel 6.
The average number of items in a woman’s bathroom is 284. The average man would not be able to identify most of them.

Arguments
Women always have the last word in an argument.
Anything a man adds after that is the beginning of a new argument.

Cats
Women love cats.
Men may say they love cats, but when women are not looking, will men kick cats.

The Future
A woman worries about the future — until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future — until he gets a wife.

Success
A successful man is one who makes more money than can be spent by his wife.
A successful woman is one who can find that a man.

Marriage
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

Dressing Up
A woman will dress up when she goes shopping, empties the garbage, answers the phone, waters the plants, gets the mail and reads a book.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

Natural
Men wake up looking as good as when they went to bed.
Women will somehow deteriorate during the night.

Children
A woman knows all about her children. She knows about their best friends, romances, secret hopes and dreams, favorite foods, fears and dental appointments.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Maturity
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

Handwriting
To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationary and they dot their “i’s” with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their “p’s” and “g’s”. It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she’s dumping you, she’ll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

Groceries
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett’s car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 12-items-or-less lane.

Going Out
When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her earrings and finishes putting on her makeup.

Low Blows
Let’s say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says, “Oh, gee. That must have hurt.” The man groans and doubles over, and actually FEELS the pain.

Laundry
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the laundromat.

The Wedding
When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about “the ceremony”. Men talk about “the bachelor party”.

Mirrors
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in a mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, and bald heads.

The Telephone
Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

Directions
If a woman is out driving and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. Men wil never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like,”Looks like I’ve found a new way to get there.” and, “I know I’m in the general neighborhood. I recognize that Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Admitting Mistakes
Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last man who admitted he was wrong was General George Custer.

Toys
Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and silly and impractical. Examples of men’s toys: little miniature TV’s. Car phones. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 “D” batteries to operate.

Plants
A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes home five or six days later to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

Time
When a woman says she’ll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she’s using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football game’s just got five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.

Conversation
Men need a good disagreement to get talking, e.g., “Wow, great movie.”, “What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size.”,”Well, maybe he got it because he knew about those Mafia guys”, etc. Women, not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying something agreeable: “That garden by the roadside looks lovely.” “Mm hmm.” Pause. “That was a good restaurant last night, wasn’t it?” “Yeah.” Pause. And so on.

Friends
Women on a girls’ night out talk the whole time. Men on a boys’ night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are “Pass the Doritos” or “Got any more beer?”

Public Restrooms
Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restroom will never speak a word to each other. Women who’ve never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, “Hey, Toots, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?”.