Horace Horsecollar star of the cartoon. In his earliest incarnation, Horace was presented as Mickey Mouse's four-legged plow horse. He could walk upright on his hind legs, at which time his forelegs became gloved hands; at other times, he got back down on all fours and reverted to form. Horace mostly played bit-parts in the 30+ films in which he appeared. Like Goofy in his early "Dippy Dawg" appearances, Horace's body seemed to be formed of rubber tubing. He and Clarabelle Cow had an uncanny ability to change from somewhat normal farmyard animals into anthropomorphized beings as necessary. After departing the Disney
Cartoon physics a cliff, gravity has no effect until the character notices. In words attributed to Art Babbitt, an animator with the Walt Disney Studios: "Animation follows the laws of physics—unless it is funnier otherwise." Specific reference to "cartoon physics" extends back at least to June 1980, when an article "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion" appeared in "Esquire". A version printed in V.18 No. 7 p. 12, 1994 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in its journal helped spread the word among the technical crowd, which has expanded and refined the idea. These laws are outlined on dozens of websites.