Toon is a contraction of "cartoon", probably popularized by the name of the Looney Tunes series of animated shorts by Warner Brothers (though the spelling is different). It became a popular way to refer to an animated character in the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. These two works created and established the Toon Noir sub-genre, which features toons and non-toon humans living together, each playing by their own set of physics. The small sub-genre includes Disney's Bonkers and Warner Brothers' Animaniacs and Freakazoid cartoon series, and more recently, the films Space Jam (1996), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000) and Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003).
Among animation fans, Toon is often used to refer to Western characters, as opposed to Japanese cartoon characters.
Toon is a Role Playing Game in which the players take the parts of cartoon characters. It is published by Steve Jackson Games.
The term toon occurs in the books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card, and is short for platoon, a section of an army in Battle School that is usually comprised of ten children. However, in Ender's army, there are five toons and one pseudo-toon, which was Bean's.
"Toon" is Canadian slang for their two-dollar coin.
"Toon" is often used in MMORPGs to refer to a player's digital avatar. In this usage, it is a contraction of cartoon.
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Last updated: 10-12-2005 01:33:44
