Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

 Improbable Paths of Action

Humans love to experience stories. We all have those daily mundane duties to get through, and we all occasionally seek something to take our mind off the repetitive. For some, shifting their attention to cinematic media is the perfect outlet. We crave films that make us feel sensations we would otherwise rarely feel. That is why I, along with plenty of other folks, enjoy sitting down to enjoy animations. Growing up, my family didn’t have a TV, the only time my brothers and I were able to watch cartoons where when we would visit our grandparent’s home. There, we would huddle around a rather small tube television in my grandparents’ living room and watch whatever was on during the day. Naturally, we gravitated towards cartoons. These rare TV sessions became our favorite time. It was then that we were able to experience a story, and best of all we were doing so together. We were so jazzed about just being able to watch cartoons we didn’t care if they didn’t seem physically possible, in fact it was for that exact reason we loved the cartoons. For us, the funky physics of cartoon worlds are what caught our eye while flipping through channels. Cartoons are notorious for bending the laws of physics, especially when it came to exaggerating paths of actions. Extreme paths of actions in many of the cartoons would often make us laugh or even feel amazement. Such paths of actions are not hard to find in cartoons such as Recess, Ed Edd & Eddy, and Samurai Jack, a few of my favorite cartoons to watch with my brothers.

When it came to a cartoon that a kid could relate to, Recess was the show to watch. Recess is an animated cartoon that first aired in August of 1997. It didn’t take long for me or my brothers to realize that when it came to realistic physics, Recess did not follow the rules. This is evident in the episode titled “I Will Kick No More Forever” where Vince, one of the main five protagonists of the animation is playing kickball as other children watch and cheer him on. 

Vince is considered to be the best at kick ball. Of course to prove their point the animators of Recess had to push the laws of physic to really show off how talented Vince is at kick ball. Below is a snapshot of Vince kicking the ball so far and high up, that it lands a few blocks away in a garbage dump. Clearly if this was attempted in our world, a mere kick would not have landed the ball where it did in the show. The arc of a path of action of the kick ball is exaggerated to prove that Vince surely must be the best.  

His friend Gretchen comments: “No question about it, nobody can out kick Vince, and I mean nobody.”

Yet a few moments later, and unexpected and indifferent challenger shows off just how far more capable they are compared to Vince. Ashley begrudgingly goes up to the kick the ball merely to get it over with and go back to chatting on her cell phone. 

The children watch the ball rise far higher than expected and go on until the path of action lands the ball all the way in China. The ball lands with such tremendous force that upon impact it creates a crater in the ground. 

As the story progresses Vince loses all confidence in his ability and gives up trying to play kick ball. It is only when he is encouraged by his friends that he tries again, and this time his kick becomes even more outlandish than the last. Vince kicks the ball so hard it ends up leaving Earth’s atmosphere and ends up in space.  This feat is only possible in the realm of cartoons, as a ball kicked by a normal fourth grader in the real world would simply not be able to reach escape velocity.

Recess was not the only cartoon that had questionable physics. In the show Ed Edd & Eddy, there are plenty of wacky moments one can remember. Ed Edd & Eddy is a cartoon that aired in January 1999. The physics of this world are reminiscent of Warner Brothers Looney Toons. Just as in Looney Toons, Ed Edd & Eddy pushes physics to extremes for comedic effect. In the episode titled “Sir Ed-A-Lot” the three Eds find themselves babysitting Ed’s younger sister, a spoiled and short tempered little girl named Sarah. She demands that the boys entertain her and her best friend Jimmy. It is then that Eddy is forced into entertaining Sarah by juggling for her and her friend. 

To make this scene funny, animators of the show decide on exaggerating the amount and size of the objects Eddy juggles. He ends up juggling more than eleven items, such as a canoe, a refrigerator, and a recliner just to name a few. 

Not only would this be impossible if attempted in our world, but the path of action that the objects follow are also inaccurate. If a person were to attempt to juggle in our world, the path of action an object takes, such as a ball, follows a parabolic arc.

Even if Eddy was somehow miraculously strong and coordinated enough to juggle objects of that mass and shape, the path of action needed to represent it accurately would need to be changed.

This brings me to the next cartoon where exaggerations are done not only for comedic effect, but also to showcase astonishing accomplishments. Samurai Jack is an animated show that began airing in 2001. Jack is a samurai that is extremely capable with a sword and an open minded individual who capable of quickly picking up new abilities. In one such episode titled “Jack Learns to Jump Good” Jack is taught by a wild man and his family of apes how to jump at a super human level. The wild man startles Jack with his extreme his jumps, which puzzles Jack. He states “I have never seen man fly.” to which the wild man replies “I no fly. Jump good.”

To prove his point, the wild man then takes off into the sky in one jump and does not come back down until thirteen seconds later. It is then that the wild man and his family agree to teach Jack how to “jump good”. At the end of the episode Jack’s hard work pays off and he is able to jump just as well as his teachers. In one scene Jack jumps from one tree top to another.

The path of action’s shape is a correct parabolic arc, yet the scale is incorrect. With Jack’s newfound talent he is able to jump more than six times his own height, a stunt that a normal human without any aid would not be able to accomplish. Assuming that Jack is of average male height (6 feet and 3 inches) the jump he made would reach a height of approximately 43 feet. A jump of that scale made by a human in our world would break the current world record of highest jump (8 feet).

When it comes to attracting an audience, cartoons don’t always need to correctly portray real world physics to be memorable. In the examples from the cartoons we have discussed, we clearly see paths of actions greatly altered and exaggerated. It’s true that the laws of physics of these animations when in comparison to our physics are flawed. Whether due to negligence, comedic effect, or even because of low animation budgets the lack of actuality does not bother me at all. In my opinion, it is just the sort of feature that I feel makes cartoons from my childhood so much fun to watch.