Idlers will stop to gaze at a machine in motion where there is building going on, or they will stop to peer into the windows of a busy factory. There is something in all this that shows that the human mind craves the periodicity of stimulation.
Perhaps one of the reasons why those crudely executed white on black animated cartoons—alluded to in a preceding chapter—are so laugh-provoking is that they represent the characters performing their antics more or less mechanically. A windmill effect, a twirling, a spinning, and a merry-go-round movement are of striking import in animated cartoons. They never fail to cause laughter when depicted in some such fashion or other.
Sometimes in a pursuit in a comic picture there is an introduction of a chase around a house or around a tree. The gyration about the house is particularly productive of laughter. The slight interruption while the figure passes back of the house gives occasion for the necessary pause in this comic business.
The author recalls a film of real people and scenes that exemplified the potency of a mechanical turning and the value of a pause for laugh-provoking purposes. The scene represented a tiny bungalow that was blown from its foundation by the force of the storm and made to revolve as if it were pivoted in the centre. The droll character of the play saved himself from being blown away by clinging to one corner of the porch. The laughter of the audience although continuous came in waves of different strength. The twirling house itself caused laughter, but it increased when the ludicrous figure clinging to the porch came into view, and it decreased when he disappeared while he was being twirled around the far side of the house.
Possibly one of the reasons why this performance was so successful was because this movement allowed for the physiological necessity of a rest on the part of the spectators. The emotional excitement would have been fatiguing to the breaking point had the incitement to laughter been continuous. The humorous proceeding operated so that any individual member of the audience was not compelled to shake or be agitated by laughter all the time, but could slacken up and rest rhythmically.
A cycle of drawings, like those above, used in turn and repeated for a time will give the screen illusion of a man spinning like a top.
The need of a rhythmic slowing-up, or pause, to allow for a respite for the emotions and the convulsed physical organism is well illustrated in the following incident often introduced into animated scenes. A little figure is observed running up hill and down dale. The manner of his performance is like this: he runs up the first hill and disappears; there is a moment or so when the scene is empty and during which he is supposed to be running down the far side of the hill. Soon he is discovered running up the second hill, at the top of which he again disappears for a time to run down its far side. In another moment he is scrambling up the next hill and down the other side again. This continues until he is lost as a tiny black spot near the horizon.
A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a turning wheel is regarded as funny in comic picturing.