I've read that Disney actually had live animals in their art departments so the animators could draw their characters' features and movements from real life.

As a pet owner, I can see why. Some days I feel like I live in a cartoon... take yesterday, for example:

I was in my bedroom getting ready for work. Dakotah our black cat, as usual was sitting ON my clothes laid out on the waterbed. Casey our dog, was at my feet tripping me at every chance she had.

Our older cat Sheba decided she wanted to join us. However, instead of her usual graceful leap, she unfortunately chose the end of the bed to pounce on.

This was unfortunate for two reasons:

1) She mis-read the distance and came up short

2) She came up short on our quilt, folded and partially hanging off the end of the bed.

Now our waterbed is quite high, with two sets of drawers underneath.

Like Sylvester in a Looney Toons cartoon, there was Sheba, frantically clawing her way up the quilt, which was slowly sliding off of the bed.

One paw up, the quilt descends.

Second paw up, her unsuccessful advances being thwarted even more by gravity and a heavy quilt.

Soon all I can see (in between my howls of laughter) is her small face, HUGE eyes pleading for help disappearing off the end of the bed. It was so funny to see it all happen in what seemed like slow motion (and I swear she even had that cartoon-style last gasp of dread while suspended in mid-air)...

At last, with a "thump", Sheba landed on the floor, soon followed by the quilt covering her.

With her last bit of dignity, she re-emerged from below the pile, flicked up her tail and walked out of the room as if she never even WANTED to get up on the bed anyway.

I guess it didn't help that I was laughing so hard I was near tears.