Squash and stretch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Squash and stretch is a common animation technique applied to characters or machinery in motion, giving it a cartoonish feel as opposed to realistic jerky motion. It was used to great effect in early 1920s American cartoons such as Felix the Cat and Betty Boop. It can also be used in comics or still cartoon art.

When done in accordance with the principles of animation, squash and stretch keeps the volume of the character constant. This is often explained by analogy to a half-filled sack of flour.

In one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, Babs Bunny mentions that the technique makes cartoons inherently funnier.