You're an urban explorer, and after years of crawling around subway tunnels and derelict
houses with only a camera and a backpack, you've finally gotten what you've always wanted:
10 thousand subscribers on your YouTube channel.
You know you're gonna have to really wow all your new followers with the biggest and best
exploration yet.
You think over your options.
The abandoned mental hospital?
Too depressing.
Chernobyl exclusion zone?
Too far away.
That's when it hits you: You should check out the dead mall on the outskirts of the
city!
You know, the one where all the mysterious disappearances have happened?
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, not long after you break the chains on the doors and walk through into the derelict
JC Penny's, you find yourself face to face with Cartoon Cat, a terrifying, reality-bending
animated demon.
Cartoon Cat's first recorded appearance was in 1939, during what is often called the golden
age of animation, a period of film history that gave us such icons as Betty Boop, Mickey
Mouse, and Felix the Cat.
Although Cartoon Cat is a shapeshifter, able to take the form of any cartoon character
it wants, perhaps the fact that it first entered our world in the late 30's explains why more
often than not, it seems to favour forms that evoke that classic style of animation.
Most sightings describe a huge anthropomorphic cat, with an all-black body and four-fingered
gloved hands.
Its appearance is simple and highly stylised, just like an old cartoon character, aside
from its extremely lifelike teeth, which are often stained with the blood of its victims.
Cartoon Cat is described as “incredibly cruel”, and it's responsible for countless
mysterious disappearances from abandoned locations around the world.
If all of that didn't sound bad enough, Cartoon Cat also possesses a number of strange supernatural
abilities.
It doesn't just look like a cartoon character; it also seems to follow the rules of cartoon
physics.
You turn around and try running out the door as soon as you see the creature, but its long
rubber hose arms stretch out and trip you before you can reach your exit.
As you land on the tiled floor, getting the wind knocked out of you in the process, you
can swear you hear a laugh track coming from somewhere, like some invisible audience is
taking joy in your misfortune.
The laughing gets louder as the horrific cartoon creature comes running towards you.
Thinking fast, you reach into your handy explorers' backpack and pull out the handgun that you
carry with you for self-defence.
Scrambling back, you take aim square at the creature's body and unload three shots into
it.
The bullets leave holes, but Cartoon Cat doesn't stop, or even bleed.
So, you do the only thing you can think to do, you get up and start running.
Cartoon Cat doesn't give chase at first, but this isn't because it doesn't want to catch
you- it's just toying with you for a little while before it decides it's had enough fun.
But you still manage to get out of the department store and into the rest of the mall.
You run into a partially boarded-up radio shack and duck behind a display, safe for
now, but not for long.
You have to think fast before the beast finds you again and come up with a plan on how to
defeat it once and for all.
Regular weapons clearly don't work on this thing, so there's no point even trying.
However, since Cartoon Cat seems to have all the abilities of a cartoon character, maybe
you can beat it by thinking like a cartoon character.
After all, the best plan of action in any confrontation is to know your enemy.
Earlier we referred to the idea of Cartoon Physics.
If you weren't already aware, the term describes an unspoken set of rules adhered to by animators
at Warner Bros, MGM, and Disney during the Golden Age of animation.
These rules were finally written down and canonised in 1980 when humourist Mark O'Donnell
wrote an article called “O'Donnell's laws of cartoon motion” for Esquire magazine.
Though these rules were unofficially being observed as early as the 1920's, the idea
of Cartoon Physics is pervasive throughout western animation, and it's reasonable for
us to assume that even if Cartoon Cat had decided to take you on in the form of, say,
Spongebob Squarepants, or Sonic the Hedgehog, the rules of cartoon physics would still apply.
Much like Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King's It, Cartoon Cat is ultimately bound
by its victims’ perception of it.
As long as you think of it as a cartoon and a cat, it will be forced to follow the rules
of both.
Now, it's important to note that, as any Loony Toons fan can tell you, you can't keep a cartoon
character down for very long.
Wile E Coyote, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy Duck have been blown up, run over, shot in the
face, and had pianos dropped on them more times than you could count, and they're always
fine - save for maybe a comically large bump on the head as soon as it cuts to the next
scene.
But, all you really need to do is make it out of the mall alive, and if you can stall
him long enough with a series of wacky mishaps, that's good enough.
With that proviso in mind, let's have a look at some more of the rules of cartoon motion,
and see how you could potentially use them in this horrific game of cartoon cat and mouse.
Admittedly, many of the 10 core rules outlined in O'Donnell's article are more on Cartoon
Cat's side than yours.
One law states “As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once”, which
doesn't bode especially well for when Cartoon Cat decides it wants to start chasing you
again.
Then there's the classic “Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware
of its situation.”- that would be useful if you wanted to try and lure Cartoon Cat
over the mall's third floor railing, but since you, as a human, obey the laws of regular
physics, there's no way you could get him to chase you over the edge unless you were
willing to jump to your doom to do it.
Maybe if you had a grappling hook in your explorers' bag, that would be more of a viable
option, but you forgot to pack that today.
You've been hiding in the Radio Shack display for a few minutes now, and you start to hear
the approaching footsteps and laughter of Cartoon Cat outside.
In an instant, the creature is on top of you again, wiggling its long, bendy arms in anticipation,
its mouth wide open in a twisted smile.
You're cornered, and as Cartoon Cat's gloved hands come towards you, you reach for your
phone.
Should you call the police?
Your family?
No, you're going to use your last crumb of 4g data to find the perfect escape plan.
The laws of cartoon motion state that “all principles of gravity are negated by fear...A
spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will introduce motion upward.”
And since, like we said, this creature is bound by your perception by the rules of being
a cartoon cat, its natural adversary is, obviously, a dog.
So, you pull up the first recording of a barking dog that you can find and play it as loud
as you can.
Cartoon Cat hears the sound and jumps into the air, leaving a big Cartoon Cat-shaped
hole in Radio Shack's ceiling.
You now have a few precious seconds to escape and find somewhere else to hide before Cartoon
Cat reappears.
You head for the escalator, and you're able to make it to the top before Cartoon Cat's
arms start stretching after you.
Thinking quickly, you look around and find that the electronic mechanisms of the escalator
are exposed.
Miraculously, the mall still has electricity, so you're able to get the escalator going,
trapping Cartoon Cat's long, wiggly arms in between the teeth of the stairs.
Cartoon Cat is ground into a fine paste in front of you, but even though you might think
nothing could survive that, you know you still need to plan your next defensive strategy.
All cartoon characters are functionally immortal, but that goes double for cat characters like
Tom, Sylvester, Felix, and, unfortunately, whatever's after you right now.
O'Donnell's laws of cartoon motion state- “Cartoon cats possess more deaths than even
the traditional nine lives afford.
They can be sliced, 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.”
As you look around the mall, you spot another weapon that you could use against this cartoon
creature - some black paint, probably left over from some ill-fated earlier attempt to
remodel and reopen the mall.
You take the paint with you and go up to the second floor, to the food court.
As fast as you can, you paint a black rectangle on the wall.
What you're attempting here is one of the oldest tricks in the Bugs Bunny playbook - the
false door.
Another well-known law of cartoon motion states that “Certain bodies can pass through solid
walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.
Especially the one who painted the entrance to trick an opponent.”
The idea is to trick Cartoon Cat into running face-first into the wall, buying you more
time to run away.
But since, once again, you're not a cartoon character and can't actually run through the
painted tunnel, for this trick to work, you have to make sure that Cartoon Cat sees you
from the right angle.
If you put your false door close enough to a sharp turn, corridor, or on a column, you
might just be able to fake it out.
If that doesn't work, you might feel tempted to try the dog trick again, but be careful
not to fall back on that too many times.
While it's not in O'Donnell's article, one of the other great unspoken rules of both
animation and comedic storytelling in general is the rule of three.
The rule of three, also called 'trebling', suggests that to keep things from getting
stale, a running joke should be repeated twice, then one more time with some kind of added
twist.
So, to apply that to your situation, when Cartoon Cat fails to fall for the false door
trick and gets close enough to grab you again in the food court, you can play the dog sound
effect again to send it leaping up to the top of the McDonald's sign for long enough
to allow you to head to the exit.
But when it reappears in front of you in the Macy's beauty department, the trick isn't
going to work if you try it again.
In fact, there's a very high chance that Cartoon Cat will make the trick backfire on you, and
given how sadistic Cartoon Cat can be, you won't want to find out how.
At this point in your urban exploration turned night from hell, you can almost see an exit.
Cartoon Cat is laughing at you, taking delight in your fear and exasperation after all of
your tricks have failed to kill it.
The animated abomination flails its arms and gnashes its teeth, and if you can't outrun
it now, you're a goner.
But, just as you think all hope is lost, you realise you've got one more Hail Mary in your
arsenal.
You're in the beauty department of the store, surrounded by makeup, perfume and nail polish.
And where you can find nail polish, if you're lucky you'll also be able to find nail polish
remover.
This is a bit of a long shot, but hear us out.
If you've seen the 1988 Disney classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, you probably remember
the scene where Christopher Lloyd's Judge Doom reveals his method of toon execution
- a toxic mixture of turpentine, acetone, and benzene that he calls 'The Dip'.
The scene where Doom uses the dip to dissolve a defenceless cartoon shoe may have scarred
a generation of children for life, but it provides insight on how you might be able
to, if not kill, seriously maim a rampaging cartoon character in real life.
Turpentine is a natural solvent derived from distilled pine resin, most commonly used as
a paint thinner.
Benzene, a chemical found in crude oil, is another solvent, used both as an industrial
degreaser and paint stripper.
Both of these materials might be hard to come by in a mall, but acetone, the third ingredient,
is a key component in most brands of nail polish remover.
So, as Cartoon Cat wraps its arms around you and pulls you towards its open mouth, you
grab a bottle of nail polish remover and start pouring.
The acetone in nail polish is highly diluted, so it's not enough to melt your opponent completely,
but your attack still causes enough damage to Cartoon Cat's structural integrity that
you can slide out of its grasp.
The creature flails, dripping ink everywhere, and you make your escape.
You're badly bruised, probably traumatised, and you didn't even manage to get any footage
for your YouTube channel, but at least you're safe, right?
Well, keep in mind that you still haven't killed the creature yet, and the very last
rule in O'Donnell's laws of cartoon motion is “For every vengeance there is an equal
and opposite revengeance.”
Check out “Siren Head - Explained” and “Cartoon Cat – Explained” for more of
Canadian Horror artist Trevor Henderson’s creepy creatures!