The Plausible Impossible

The Plausible Impossible is a rule for animation where the character can break the laws of nature, but only if they don't know they are doing so.

One example is when Donald's cousin, Gus Goose, is shaking his hand so hard that he is actually picking Donald up and back down again with each handshake. The plausible effect is that since Gus doesn't know that he's actually lifting up Donald, he can do it without noticing he's that strong to lift up Donald with his hand. The impossible side is that no one can not notice that they are lifting someone up with a handshake. The fact that makes this believable is that some people, when receiving a handshake from a larger person, you feel like you're being bounced.

In the same clip, Gus is putting together sandwiches like he's shuffling a deck of cards. The reason it seems plausible is the effective sound effect that goes with the scene. Also, there's the fact that both the meat and the bread can be bent like cards, it could be possible to shuffle them. But it's impossible to do so as flawlessly as Gus does it. The reason behind it is that the bread and the meat could be as stiff, or bondable, as playing cards.

Later in the same scene, we see Gus having the bread and meat be thrown into his mouth at one time and swallowed in one bite. This is plausible because some people believe that they can stuff so much food in their mouths that they can eat even whole meals in entirely one bite. But this is impossible for Gus to completely eat the entire sandwich in one mouthful. The reasoning, that no one's mouth can hold that much food.

The fourth example I have found is Gus knitting a pot full of pasta noodles into a giant sock. This seems to be plausible to some audience viewers. Since yarn is similar to size and shape to noodles like these, that they can be knit together. Yet, another impossibility, as noodles are too soft and they aren't together in one giant noodle, they are in individual pieces much too small to make an entire sock out of them.

The final example I found in this clip of Donald and his cousin Gus is when Gus uses a straw to suck up all of the peas from a plate from the opposite side of the table, and that the train of peas can twist and turn easily. This is plausible, as if you are up close to peas, and you use a straw to suck the air around them, you can suck up the peas as well. So the reasoning, is that it must work far away as it does up close. But this is impossible, because the suction from the straw can't reach as far away as they depicted in the cartoon. Also, the peas can't swerve in a line like ants, as they are inanimate objects that can only be moved with a constant stream of air pulling them towards the straw.