Toon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Toon (disambiguation).
Toon is an abbreviation of "cartoon", probably popularized by the name of the Looney Tunes series of animated shorts by Warner Brothers (though the spelling is different). It became a popular way to refer to a cartoon character in the 1981 Gary K. Wolf novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and its film adaptation Who Framed Roger Rabbit. These two works created and established the Toon Noir sub-genre, which features toons and non-toon humans living together, each playing by their own set of physics. The small sub-genre includes Disney's Bonkers and Warner Brothers' Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Freakazoid cartoon series, and more recently, the films Cool World (1992) (where Toons are called "Doodles"), Space Jam (1996), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) and also the video game Go! Go! Hypergrind.
Toon is often used by animation fans to distinguish characters from those in Japanese anime, even if the latter features comedic funny animal type characters (e.g., Doraemon). The American fandom jargon 'hentai' also typically excludes toons.
[edit] Common features of toons
- An exaggerated, usually anthropomorphic appearance based on some realistic animal or object
- A grossly caricatured appearance, if human (South Park)
- An innate sense of comedic timing (Bonkers)
- Being put into funny situations if ostensibly unfunny (i.e., deadpan characters such as Droopy Dog)
- An intense focus on a single-minded goal, such as hunting (Elmer Fudd), catching prey (Sylvester the cat, Wiley E. Coyote, Humphrey Bear), or capturing the object of one's romantic feelings (Pepé Le Pew), generally with comedic results.
