Rubber Hose Limbs



Rubber Hose Limbs is when a cartoon character moves without any visible elbows or knees, but his limbs aren't stiff, but rather bendy like rubber hoses. For examples, see pretty much any black-and-white cartoon. In cartoons made before 1930 or so, this was an intentional style, started by Felix the Cat animator Otto Messmer and Bill Nolan, which was meant to prevent the motion of the limbs in question from looking like they were drawn through a strobe light and flickering - the idea was that if you didn't draw joints, you could make absolutely sure that the limbs in one frame overlapped with where the frames were in the last frame. Higher frame rates, the development of Squash And Stretch, and an awareness of camera blur reduced the need for this as time went on, and cartoon characters all of a sudden had joints. These days, this is a deliberate decision on the part of the animator, probably to creep you out ... but early on, it was just how things were done.

In Anime, it's often used in conjunction with Super-Deformed, possibly to accentuate the childish nature of the Art Shift.

Related to No Knees, though that's mostly a side effect of the Lazy Artist. Noodle People is the non-laziness-induced version of this.

Anime and Manga

 * Guu in Haré+Guu usually has no elbows or hands.
 * Azumanga Daioh - Sakaki turns all noodly when she goes to pet the cat.
 * Excel in Excel Saga does this whenever she gets excited, which is to say, all the time. Actually this is very often seen in comedy anime.
 * So does Poemi in the Spiritual Successor Puni Puni Poemi
 * Justified Trope with Luffy in One Piece - he actually is made of rubber.
 * Kuro from Kodomo no Jikan displays an extreme version of this during one of the show's endings.
 * Happens quite a bit in Yotsuba&!.
 * Fuu from Tamayura undergoes this when she becomes scared or excited.
 * Leeron from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann occasionally has these, particularly in the more comical scenes. He even has rubber hose fingers.

Film

 * In The Mask, The Mask gets rubber hose limbs during the "El Pachuco" dance number.

Video Games

 * Sonic the Hedgehog. Justified, as his original design is based on Mickey Mouse.

Web Comics

 * Kate Beaton's comics.
 * The Optimist: The guy in the second panel of this comic either has no arm joints, or too many. This man's knuckles would probably drag on the ground if he straightened his bendy appendage.
 * The trollface comic took it Up to Eleven, forever associating "schwoopy-loopy limbs" with the meme.

Web Original

 * In Homestar Runner, Bubs originally had jointed limbs, but they eventually became rubber hose limbs.

Western Animation

 * The Mr. Men, especially Mr. Tickle.
 * Olive Oyl from Popeye is like a walking pipe cleaner.
 * Gumby's legs, and those of his horse, Pokey. Justified here though as they're made of clay.
 * The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy featured an episode that homaged Walt Disney's famed cartoon The Skeleton Dance (Episode title: "Hill Billy"). Billy chants, "Hey Mandy, I'm from the rubberhose school of animation!"
 * Mickey Mouse, his predecessor, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix the Cat, Flip the Frog - basically any cartoon character created before 1935 will have these, as it was the standard style at the time. A major exception is Betty Boop, notable for being the first character with anything resembling proper anatomy. (She couldn't have been the original Ms. Fanservice otherwise.)
 * SpongeBob SquarePants has these from time to time. Justified in that he's an invertebrate. The same thing applies to Squidward's tentacles.
 * If this trope is seen anywhere these days it's when animators consciously imitate the style of old cartoons. Examples include the opening of The Triplets of Belleville and the episode of The Fairly OddParents where Timmy and his grandpa become '30s cartoon characters.
 * The Powerpuff Girls.
 * The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack has several human characters, mostly the titular character of Flapjack, with this. You mean this? - http://media.photobucket.com/image/misadventures20of20flapjack/skoolrocks_/flapjack8.jpg?o=87
 * Done intentionally in Horton Hears a Who!, where all the citizens of Whoville have gangly, slippery arms - the mayor can bend his arm into a perfect spiral.
 * This happens from time to time on The Ren and Stimpy Show: https://web.archive.org/web/20121026212846/http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/1026196992012870098MimGbCjriU
 * The entire cast of Adventure Time.
 * Oddly enough, when Jake gets his shape-shifting powers taken away, his body suddenly has properly jointed limbs, though this is never an issue with powerless characters like Finn.
 * Although in the episode "The Creeps," Princess Bubblegum's arms are randomly more realistic than in other episodes.
 * Betty Boop has these in her earliest appearances, though she got proper elbows as part of her general humanization.
 * This is seen on Fanboy and Chum Chum quite regularly, even within a few seconds of the show's opening.
 * Joe Swanson from Family Guy has legs which seem to follow no real joints due to being a paraplegic. It makes sense.
 * Everyone in Word Girl.

Real Life

 * Popper Phillip Chbeeb can create this illusion with his arms.
 * The Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tubemen car salesmen use on occasion, probably qualify, as their entire bodies act like this.