No kidding, it’s loony to imitate toons

Anyone would go bananas trying to imitate or even approximate the exaggerated actions that characterise the average episode of those classic animated short films for kids, created between the 1930s and 1960s. After all, the gags in those cartoon stories lie as much in the incongruity of situations and actions as in the twists of the tales. But when a teenager today is intrigued enough by those typical images of loony toon characters slipping on banana peels to try that out for himself, matters are moving on to slippery ground.

Especially since the video he posted of the ‘experiment’ has gone viral on social media, precipitating a ‘banana peel challenge’. Realism is not the point of a cartoon; it is quite the opposite. The escapades of the characters are not meant to be any more real than talking bunnies and wily coyotes, not to mention daffy ducks, resourceful rodents and artless tomcats.

If other common calamitous cartoon memes are sought to be similarly replicated by curious teens, it will not be long before there are appeals to concerned authorities to crack down on them for inciting dangerous behaviour. That would be a sad exeunt indeed for accident-prone, perennially confrontational but eminently lovable creatures such as Sylvester and Tweety, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, Tom and Jerry, Porky Pig and many more.