Topic: Laws of physics of the Stooge universe

[strubachinkoscow]

A knife can maintain a straight line of sight trajectory when thrown like a javelin (Spooks).
A leg throwing a kick to the butt has a tremendous whooshing sound (Spooks).
A bat (with a hedious monsterous face) can fly without flapping its wings (Spooks).

[Boid Brain]

Ditto for the final scene in HALF SHOT SHOOTERS.

 
Inexplicably, a two-fingered eyepoke can sometimes travel over a telephone line or through a pane of glass to be delivered to its victim (perhaps this is attributable to a temporary anomaly in the space-time continuum).   

And in that same vein, a man can simply feel the kitchen door to gauge a punch through the wood to "Cheffie" with a resolving clang of a bell. Not to mention that the chicken "soup" is jettisoned from the kitchen but does not spill a drop until dropping slowly on Moe's back.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Not to mention that the chicken "soup" is jettisoned from the kitchen but does not spill a drop until dropping slowly on Moe's back.

Mugs of beer have a similar property: they can be flung through the air without spilling their contents until they are caught (and sometimes not even then) (Yes, We Have No Bonanzas).

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I guess I've been away for a while: the site has changed its name (and its address) since I was last here! Well, I still watch the Stooges and think about topics like this one, so here are two more laws of physics of the Stooge universe:

(1) A firearm fired haphazardly into the air will always strike and bring down something. A handgun will strike a lamp, bringing it down upon the head of the shooter; a rifle will bring down a duck or other game bird.

(2) If you drop a cake out of the window of an upper floor of a building, it is possible to catch it before it hits the ground by running downstairs (False Alarms).

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Not sure if this is of sufficient generality to count as a law of nature, but it is at least a curious fact of nature in the Stooge universe:

In buildings in which the position of an elevator is indicated by a dial, one can send the elevator to another floor by merely forcing the hand along the dial (Dizzy Doctors). 

[Lefty]

Not sure if this is of sufficient generality to count as a law of nature, but it is at least a curious fact of nature in the Stooge universe:

In buildings in which the position of an elevator is indicated by a dial, one can send the elevator to another floor by merely forcing the hand along the dial (Dizzy Doctors). 

It's also done by Lupe the Wolf Man in "Idle Roomers."  It's also something I would like to be able to do at work, to get the elevator off the 2nd floor, the least-needed floor for an elevator in a place with no basement.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

It's also done by Lupe the Wolf Man in "Idle Roomers."  It's also something I would like to be able to do at work, to get the elevator off the 2nd floor, the least-needed floor for an elevator in a place with no basement.

Thanks for the reference. I was pretty sure that there was another short in which somebody did that, but I couldn't recall which it was. I seem to recall that the trick was a common occurrence in the animated cartoons that I used to watch on Saturday mornings as a child. I wonder who did it first.

Edited to add: I also remember that, as a child, I thought that you actually could make an elevator go to a floor by moving the hand on the indicator!

[ILMM]

A barrel rolling down a hill will, when hitting a small bump, be shot in the air with
much greater force than when it was rolling down.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

A barrel rolling down a hill will, when hitting a small bump, be shot in the air with
much greater force than when it was rolling down.

Yes, those beer barrels have their quirks (Three Little Beers). Another weird thing about them is that one can run on top of one of them with one's feet moving from front to back, just as if one were running on the ground, while the barrel continues to roll in the direction in which one is facing.

[Bruckman]

Thanks for the reference. I was pretty sure that there was another short in which somebody did that, but I couldn't recall which it was. I seem to recall that the trick was a common occurrence in the animated cartoons that I used to watch on Saturday mornings as a child. I wonder who did it first.

Buster Keaton does this in THE GOAT (1921), the earliest use of this gag I've seen, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone had done it before Keaton.

Buster is also able to pin the elevator halfway between floors by hammering a nail into the dial in between the 2 and the 3.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Propelling someone headlong across a room will cause him to get a fish bowl stuck on his head. (I am surprised that this gag is not indexed among Stooge routines; at least, I couldn't find it under "fish," "bowl," or "head.")

Buster Keaton does this in THE GOAT (1921), the earliest use of this gag I've seen, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone had done it before Keaton.

Buster is also able to pin the elevator halfway between floors by hammering a nail into the dial in between the 2 and the 3.

Thanks for the reference. That's pretty early in the history of movies, and it's not likely that the gag was done in some other medium, so I am inclined to believe that it was Keaton's invention.

[Faeriegirl]

In many hotels it is possible to walk in place when on moving carpet {Idle Roomers}

[ProfessorStooge]

Stooge Physics would make a great college course.

[horwitz-halfwits]

Don't forget about the horseshoe that was placed on top of a doorway, hanging by a nail, that would fall on one's head only to bounce straight back into place above said door. (Love At First Bite)

OR when a pineapple is being thrown at a person down the hallway and the thrown pineapple seems to hover through the air, in wavy up-and-down fashion, towards the person at which said fruit is thrown. (Pardon My Scotch)

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Stooge Physics would make a great college course.

I can imagine it being a great draw. Administering the laboratory could be a bit tricky, though. You would have to have the students sign a release form.

Don't forget about the horseshoe that was placed on top of a doorway, hanging by a nail, that would fall on one's head only to bounce straight back into place above said door. (Love At First Bite)

OR when a pineapple is being thrown at a person down the hallway and the thrown pineapple seems to hover through the air, in wavy up-and-down fashion, towards the person at which said fruit is thrown. (Pardon My Scotch)

Ah, you mean the pineapple that flies around the corner and hits its target off-screen! That is one of my favorite ballistic improbabilities on screen, along with the bit in The Simpsons ("Homer the Clown," season 6) in which Homer, employed as a stand-in for Krusty the Klown, crashes his car into a tree, sits motionless in the cab for a second or two, and then suddenly is flung through the windshield (without serious injury, of course).

Edited to add video: The magic pineapple is at 3:00:

"More pigs!"

[horwitz-halfwits]

Oh, and when consuming a bottle of grain alcohol, one's ears are bound to puff out smoke in large amounts. (A Bird In the Head)

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Mice can fly! Not only can a mouse fly across the room when propelled by a mere twitch of the leg, but it can spontaneously leap from a man's head to escape a blow from a hammer and land on the back of a woman on the other side of the room. (Ants in the Pantry, 1:15–1:25 in the video below.)

[Lefty]

Stooge Physics would make a great college course.

Football and basketball players would love it, although maybe it would be a bit over their heads.

[Lefty]

Someone could put his thumb in his mouth, light a match just above it, and have smoke come out as though his thumb were a cigar -- Curly in "No Dough, Boys."

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Birds that ingest explosives, such as a duck that eats gunpowder (Flat-Foot Stooges) or an ostrich that eats blasting caps (The Yoke's on Me), produce eggs that explode on impact.

[QuinceHead]

Jumped off (or been thrown off) a railroad car?

Don't worry -- a bovine quadruped will be there to break your fall!! 

For duty and humanity,
JohnH aka QuinceHead

[QuinceHead]

If bullets fall into -- or are fed into -- a hamburg grinder or similar device, it can immediately be used like a Gatling gun.   

For duty and humanity,
JohnH aka QuinceHead

[JWF]

Clothing taken from an adversary will  fit you perfectly (Three Little Sew & Sews, Booby Dupes).

Though, when said adversary is required to wear one of the Stooges outfits, it is invariably too small (Booby Dupes again).

Very clumsy description, but I love how Vernon Dent's suit fits Curly perfectly in Booby Dupes, yet when he's forced to wear Curly's, it way too small.

[ThumpTheShoes]

The human body has an infinite and replenishable amount of hair that may be ripped from the head (chest or thereabouts) in handfuls during peak moments of anger, frustration or otherwise. Regardless of the subject (read: victim), the removed hair has, invariably, a texture not unlike dark coloured lint.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

If Vernon Dent and a cake are brought within ten feet of each other, the cake (or, in case of explosion, pieces of it) will end up in Dent's face.