This is the lite version of my old project "Toons: Who Are They?". The original version draws parallels between *Bonkers*, *Roger Rabbit* and *Looney Tunes*, while the one presented here refers only to *Bonkers*.
The following text is copyright © 2004 Ambidexter. No part of it can be used without the permission of the author, blah-blah-blah...
Okay, here we go.

Toons are either animals (and elves, dwarves etc) with humanoid body structure or things that have eyes and mouth and can talk. In the first case, they have four fingers on each hand and usually three toes on each foot. In the second case, they may have no limbs at all (e.g.: Bonkers' shower in *Luna-Toons*, Mad Hatter's doorknob in *In the Bag*). In either case, toons are brighter than humans, which is clearly visible in *Color Me Piquel* (compare Lucky before and after Mad Hatter & March Hare *tooned* him).

Two stills (stolen from www.bonkers-online.com ^_^; ) merged into one. Lucky is in the shade, but nevertheless it's obvious that the human is dark, while the toon is highly colored.

A toon radio. Has got eyes, mouth and four-fingered hands.

As a rule, animal-like toons are much smaller and thinner than humans (e.g. Bonkers, Fall-Apart, Jitters, Fawn). However, some are huge and fat (e.g. Flaps the Elephant, Tanya Trunk, Bullfinch, Al Vermin). Small toons are so light that even a child or another toon can hold them (in *Poltertoon*, Bonkers jumped onto Marilyn but she kept her footing; in *Bonkers in Space*, he jumped into Fawn's arms and she did not object). Huge ones are extremely heavy (in *Cartoon Cornered*, a female hippopotamus nearly smashed Sergeant Grating and Wild Man Wyatt; in *Of Mice and Menace*, Flaps flattened Bonkers).

Bullfinch seems to be higher than Miranda (who is a human... a bit bright-colored though).

Al Vermin is a huge toon, while his minions are small.

Toons are always clean. On getting dirty they simply shake off the mud or wipe it off. Nevertheless, they take a shower every morning (Bonkers in *Dog Day AfterToon*, *Cereal Surreal*) and every evening (Bonkers in *Luna-Toons*), perhaps as an example to young audience ;)

Of course toon things do not need clothes. In this entry we'll speak of the animal-like ones.
Female toons are fully dressed: they wear dresses, high-heeled shoes, a bow or a ribbon, earrings and other girlish articles (e.g. Fawn Deer). Males usually wear a shirt or a pullover but no pants. Besides, they walk barefoot. Male toons dress from head to heels only if they represent a certain profession (plumber, astronaut etc). Human-like toons (elves, dwarves etc) are always fully dressed, like normal people (e.g. the Christmas elves in *Miracle on 34th Precinct*; the fairy in *Luna-Toons*; toon Lucky in *Out of Sight, out of Toon*).
Many toons, especially male (except birds) wear thick white gloves brought into fashion by Mickey Mouse that make their thin fingers look fatter. Is it a complex or what? Bonkers wears gloves, so does Fall-Apart (well, his left glove is missing, but never mind), however Jitters and other actors from the *He's Bonkers* crew do not. Don't they care about their looks? :-\
If a toon needs to change his clothes, he does it in a moment, usually by rotating like the Tasmanian devil (or Sailor Moon :D). For example, at the end of *Witless for the Prosecution* Bonkers *quickchanged* into hockey uniform; in *Hand over the Dough* he dove into a box of fruit and came out in an exotic disguise made of these fruit; in *Tune Pig* he dresses up as a plumber, postman, waiter etc; there are dozens of other examples.

Toons cannot control their emotions. When a toon is upset, he cries until his tears flood the whole room (Bonkers in *Going Bonkers*; Fall-Apart and the bird in *Color Me Piquel*). If a toon hears good news, he starts jumping with joy and kissing everyone, often on the lips (Bonkers kissed Lucky in *Going Bonkers*, Shirley in *Quibbling Rivalry*). If a toon is frightened, he jumps into the arms of the person that happened to stand near.

Bonkers has just heard terrifying news.

Fawn has just got into Bonkers' field of vision.

Toons have big expressive eyes. Usually the eyes of a male toon are just white ovals with black pupil and a patch of light. Sometimes they also have iris (Bonkers in Capizzi's episodes). Birds (e.g. Ludwig von Drake, Donald Duck, Darkwing Duck) have blue whites (so that their eyes stand out against white skin). Negative characters usually have yellow whites (Wacky Weasel from *Get Wacky*, Chick from *Comeback Kid*, TJ Finger from *Final Review*). However, a yellow-eyed toon is not necessarily a villain and a toon with white eyes can turn out to be a bad guy.
Female toons have eyelashes, while males do not (see also: Males and Females).
When a toon sees something frightening, his eyes pop out of their sockets.
If he notices a beautiful girl, the pupils turn into hearts and pop out as well.
When a toon is upset, his eyes enlarge, the pupil widens, the whites change color to light-blue (look at Bonkers being fired from Wackytoons in *Going Bonkers* or the three toons discharged from the factory in *Cereal Surreal*).
If a toon wants to look cute, his eyes open wide, colorful iris appears, sometimes eyelashes appear, too. Remember Bonkers in *Weather or Not* when he started making eyes at Lucky reminding him of St. Valentine's Day?
When a toon is worried, it may result in appearance of limpid iris (see Fall-Apart's pics below), sometimes the iris is green (remember Bonkers investigating the cereal box in the beginning of *Cereal Surreal* or pushing the cart with Lucky at the end of *In the Bag*).

That's what happens to shocked toons.	Bonkers' reaction to a cute girl.
This illustrates how toons' eyes change when they are worried or frightened: note the transparent iris.	When Bonkers got worried, his eyes turned green for a moment.

Everything is quite simple: those who have five fingers are humans; the ones who have four fingers on each hand or do not have hands at all (see also: Appearance) are toons. This rule helped Bonkers expose the real idenity of the Collector in *Going Bonkers*. But there's one problem: who is Mad Hatter? He acts like a toon (especially in *Color Me Piquel*) but he's got five fingers! The only excuse I can find is, that this character was created for *Alice in Wonderland*, where the problem of toons and humans was not so acute.
Humans cannot do many things that toons can (see Morphing, Movements, Slapstick). They cannot walk through toon black holes and use things created by toons (in *Color Me Piquel* Lucky ran into the fence despite there was a toon hole in it; in *Hand over the Dough* he could not catch the ice cream that Bonkers got out of nowhere). There were only two exceptions: in *Basic Spraining* Lucky managed to get through a painted door due to Bonkers' help; in *Color Me Piquel* he walked over an imaginary bridge.
There are two ways for a human to get tooned. The most radical one is, to catch toon flu. It will turn a human into a toon, either temporarily or forever (ask Professor von Drake for details, he dealt with toon flu in *Out of Sight, out of Toon*). The second method is, to get into close contact with toons (e.g. get stuck in a drain pipe - *Color Me Piquel* - or just join hands - *Basic Spraining*) and to make yourself believe that toonization is possible.

Sometimes it is rather difficult to distinguish between a toon guy and a toon girl, since many toons have childish voices. Here are a few differences:
~ Animal-like female toons have short smooth fur. Compare Bonkers with Fawn Deer and Katia Legs-go-on-a-lot who appeared in *Casabonkers*. However some male toons (e.g. Jitters) are bald, too.
~ Animal-like females are fully dressed, unlike males (see also: Clothes).
~ Females have eyelashes.
~ Females do not go in for slapstick, they behave like princesses.

Facial muscles of toons are so well-developed that they can imitate almost everyone. In *Out of Sight, out of Toon* Bonkers almost turned into a monkey, in another episode he imitated Lucky (that was really weird), in *Tokyo Bonkers* his face stretched when he wanted to look like Tatsumo.
The toons' body is almost as flexible as the *mimetic polyalloy* of T-1000 (*Terminator II*). They can stretch into a thin line (Bonkers did it in *Quibbling Rivalry* and *What You Read Is What You Get*), squeeze themselves through any hole (in *Fall-Apart Land* Bonkers slipped through the car's exhaust pipe; in *Cheap Sheep Sweep* he slipped under the door of a shop). In *Stand-in Dad* Bonkers turned into a postcard (even T-1000 could not do it!). Toons can break into pieces when struck, turn into colorful blots when slammed by something heavy, become accordion-shaped when straightening up after getting flattened.

Bonkers flattened by a mallet.

A moment after being smashed, Bonkers is trying to straighten up.

Bonkers' neck stretches as if it were rubber. As soon as Al Vermin releases it, the neck will restore its normal form.

Don't worry, neither toons nor humans in *Bonkers* die, first of all because the show is rated *G* ;) However they assume that death is possible. In *Is Toon Fur Really Warm?* Skunky was accused of killing a human; in *New Partners on the Block* Lucky was believed to be killed in an explosion. Toons usually do not get hurt at all because slapstick is their lifestyle (however there are some exceptions: see Vulnerability).
Nevertheless, a couple of ways of killing toons still exists. Reversion of toon time will lead to their return to the drawing board and then complete erasure (this process was described in *The Day the Toon Stood Still*, fortunately it was not put into practice). When deprived of dreams, toons will vanish bit by bit (that's what happened to Bonkers in *Do Toons Dream of Animated Sheep?*). If you rob a toon of his laughter, he'll sink into depression: actually, this won't kill him, but at least he'll be put out of action (this was shown in *The Toon That Ate Hollywood*).

Toons do everything rapidly. Their speech is quick, their movements are fast. Toons cannot sit quietly. They need to burst out their energy, so they always rush up and down chattering endlessly.
They can get all necessary things (especially mallets and anvils) out of thin air (Bonkers in *Trains, Toons and Toon Trains* extracted a mallet out of nowhere; in *Going Bonkers* he produced a bowl of cereal from under his shirt; in *Color Me Piquel* Bonkers took out a toon black hole; in *Hand over the Dough* he got food out of his dreams; etc etc etc).

Toons are born for making fun. They are fond of sliding on banana peels (Bonkers in *Going Bonkers*, *Luna-Toons*), throwing anvils at each other and pies at people (*Going Bonkers*, *Stand-in Dad*).
When toons get bombed, they have little birdies flying around their heads (this quote is from *Is Toon Fur Really Warm?*; Bonkers in *Trains, Toons and Toon Trains* can be a good example). Okay, not necessarily birdies: sometimes stars, planets or other objects.
If a toon ingests a bomb and it explodes in his stomach, there will be smoke out of the toon's ears and sometimes fire out of his mouth, but he will never be torn into pieces. If a bomb detonates in the toon's hands, it will result in singed fur and torn clothes (*Fall-Apart Bomb Squad*), sometimes he will be burnt to ashes. Anyways, the toon will recover in a few seconds.
Toons can challenge gravity. They run above a chasm for several seconds until they realize that there's no support under their feet. They stop, smile stupidly, wave to the audience and fall, usually making much noise (Bonkers in *Going Bonkers* and *Luna-Toons*). If there's asphalt below, they break through it, leaving a hole which has the shape of their body (Bonkers in *Stork Exchange*). Toons also leave the silhouettes of their bodies when breaking through a window or a wall (Fall-Apart in *Fall-Apart Bomb Squad*).
See also: Mortality, Vulnerability.

Despite toons are born for slapstick, they sometimes can be hurt. My theory is, that it happens when they forget that they are toons. Jitters often suffers because he is a pessimist (he was taken to the hospital in *Quibbling Rivalry*, while any other toon with such injuries would recover immediately). In *Bobcat Fever* Al Vermin can be seen bandaged after an explosion (perhaps because he is a bad guy). In *Do Toons Dream of Animated Sheep?* Bonkers gets a bump on his head, which never happened in other episodes (he probably lost control over his body because of sleepy state). In *Of Mice and Menace* Bonkers wears a bandage after his *helicopter flight*, and his clothes remain torn for quite a long period of time (it's one of those rare moments when we can see Bonkers' real fingers).
However, in all above-mentioned cases toons recovered quickly: usually they return to normal state right in the next scene. The same refers to humans. Lucky often has accidents after which he finds himself in a bed, bandaged from head to feet. He simply takes off the bandages and stands up (e.g. *Color Me Piquel*). Sometimes he recovers directly after the accident, with no hospitalization required (*Fall-Apart Land*).