Matters of Great Weight
Generally, cartoon characters are pretty reckless about the law of gravity. Makes sense — where they come from, it’s a rather loosely enforced law anyway. Sort of like prohibition. Character A., suddenly unsupported by any physical means, may instantly plummet with an off screen crash (or, upon impact, turn into pancake, an accordion, or simply leave a Character A. shaped hole in the ground.) As often as not, however, gravity itself might be a little late arriving at the scene. Character A. may remain suspended in mid-air, until he realizes he’s in trouble, whereupon the physics of his situation belatedly take hold, and pull him below. Sometimes gravity gives the guy time enough to FULLY realize his bad fortune before kicking into gear: it slowly dawns on Character A. he’s hovering in mid-air, he slowly feels beneath himself, to make sure he’s not standing on anything, he slowly waves goodbye to us, then BANG! he zooms down with the aforementioned crash. Sometimes gravity takes effect on Character A.’s body first, leaving the head (still connected by an elongated neck) in place for a few extra seconds. Sometimes gravity misses its cue entirely, giving Character A. enough time to spin his legs really, really fast, gain some traction on the atmosphere and zip back onto solid ground, thwarting regulation physics completely.
Come to think of it, in old-time cartoons, gravity isn’t so much a law as a rule of thumb.
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