Rubber Hose Limbs: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

This 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 [[The Golden Age of Animation|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 [[The Twelve Principles of Animation|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.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] ==

* ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' - Sakaki turns all noodly when she goes to pet the cat.

* Excel in ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' does this whenever she gets excited, which is to say, [[Genki Girl|all the time]]. Actually this is very often seen in comedy anime.

* Leeron from ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' occasionally has these, particularly in the more comical scenes. He even has rubber hose ''fingers''.

 

* In ''[[The Mask (film)|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.

 

* [[Kate Beaton]]'s [[Hark! A Vagrant|comics]].

* ''[[The Optimist]]'': The guy in the second panel of [http://the-opt.com/?p=19 this comic] either has no arm joints, or too many. [http://the-opt.com/?p=1155 This man]'s knuckles would probably drag on the ground if he straightened his bendy appendage.

* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20130912190752/http://whynne.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Trolls-98357844 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]] ==

* Joe Swanson from ''[[Family Guy]]'' has legs which seem to follow no real joints due to being a paraplegic. [[Rule of Funny|It makes sense.]]

* Everyone in ''[[Word Girl]]''.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anatomy Tropes]]