Cartoon
Eyes Vs. Total Darkness
By Chris Clark |
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 As
your favorite cartoon character races away from the evil, yet hilariously
stupid cartoon villain, he plummets down a steep shaft into darkness.
As expected, none of his body is visible in the depth of the blackness.
Wait, what's this? His eyes seem to show up just fine?
Just
what the heck is going on?!?
It's no
unknown fact: cartoon characters are able to keep their eyes visible despite
the level of light in the surrounding space. Thanks to modern science,
we can now know why this is even possible.
 Our
Syndicate Science team chose at random a cartoon character with which
to experiment on in the field of low-light ocular visibility. The cartoon
chosen happened to be the lovable Beany, who can be noted mostly
for his many appearances on British child literacy teaching videos.
Beany
was at first skeptical about our proposed experiment but agreed when we
said the whole process should only take a few minutes. At the time, Beany
was apparently awaiting a callback for a soap commercial job that afternoon.
Our
first order of business: Making sure Beany was no exception to the
rule and testing the visibility of his eyes. We made sure to document
the entire experiment with photographs, shown here:
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Placing
the Subject in the Locale
We
found a nice kitchen with hardwood floors that was ideal for testing
Beany's eyes. After setting up our equipment, blocking all means
for natural light to enter the room, and once again convincing Beany
this would go very quickly, we were ready to begin!
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Lights
Out!
We
shut off all lights in the area simultaneously creating a total
blackout. Viola! As myself and the rest of the science team expected,
everything in the room was impossible to see, save Beany's eyes.
The eyes were especially bright, though they cast no light onto
anything else. The team took some basic readings for radiation and
geomagnatheric energy and we moved on.
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Is
Beany Still Intact?
One
theory behind the phenomenon is that any cartoon is completely visible
in blackness but the darkness causes the character to shrink up
and occupy only the space its eyes take up, somewhat like a turtle
into its shell. We tested this theory with a simple Radioactive
Emission Resonance Device, showing all physically solid objects
outlined in green. The theory was quickly debunked, as all of Beany's
body was still there. Remarkably, even his impatient speech bubble
showed up on the scan.
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So it seemed as if
it was back to square one. However, the science team did have one trick
left up its sleeve. Dissect the eyes and see what the heck is inside!
It was a radical proposal and Dr. Stevens was laughed at for even proposing
it. Why the science team laughed is anyone's guess, because they all agreed
with the idea after the hilarity subsided.
Once Beany was held
firmly in place so he could not escape to get to his phone, he was sedated
and procedure began. Inside the eyes the science team stumbled upon the
answer they had been tirelessly searching for.
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Before
Dissection
The
cartoon character's eyes vary in type, size, and color. Sometimes
the eyes are elliptical (as in the case of Beany) and sometimes
that can be circular, square, or even diamond shaped. Most eyes
have pupils not unlike Beany's, one for each eye, while some eyes
are just white shapes. Then of course, there's the cartoons that
have only glasses with no eyes behind them, but we won't
get into that here. It isn't even well documented if glasses without
eyes are visible in the dark.
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During
Dissection
What
the science team found was truly astonishing. Not only are the pupils
hollow and filled with antifreeze, but the eyes themselves seem
to have glowing rods filled with a strange alien liquid that gives
off its own light. These rods are made of a titanium alloy and are
powered by a small watch battery located in the back of the eye.
Each eye in this case had two rods, but it is speculated that the
average cartoon eye can range in having anywhere from one to seven
of such devices.
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Once
Beany's eyes were sewn back up and Beany was revived, we questioned him
to see if he knew what was built into his eyes. Whether he truly didn't
know or if he was just "playing dumb," Beany denied any such
knowledge.
This information will
certainly revolutionize the animation world. There's no doubt that cartoon
characters will be more highly considered for jobs in spelunking and other
positions involving darkness. Who wouldn't want a Beany powered
flashlight?
-Chris Clark
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