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Toon is an abbreviation 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 a cartoon character in the 1981 Gary K. Wolf novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and its film adaptation 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' Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Freakazoid! cartoon series, and more recently, the films Cool World (1992) (where Toons are called "Doodles"), Space Jam (1996), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) and also the video game Go! Go! Hypergrind.

Toon is often used by animation fans (mainly from the English speaking world) to distinguish characters from those in Japanese anime, even if the latter features comedic funny animal type characters (e.g., Doraemon). The English fandom jargon 'hentai' also typically excludes toons.

There is also a type of monster card from the card game Yu-Gi-Oh! that is called toon, such as Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon. These cards show monsters in the exaggerated style that is usual for toons.

'Toon' is also a terminology used by players of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) to describe ones character or avatar within the game. The term is believed to be used again as a shortened form of cartoon, used as the character in the game is often an animated representation of themselves, or a cartoon version if you will.

'Toon' has also been used as a slang term for cartoon characters in fictional worlds where these characters co-exist with human populations. Examples of this include the settings of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Cool World (where they were referred to as "doodles").

• An exaggerated, usually anthropomorphic appearance based on some realistic animal or object
• A grossly caricatured appearance, if human (South Park)
• An innate sense of comedic timing (Bonkers)
• Being put into funny situations if ostensibly unfunny (i.e., deadpan characters such as Droopy Dog)
• An intense focus on a single-minded goal, such as hunting (Elmer Fudd), catching prey (Sylvester the Cat, Wiley E. Coyote, Humphrey the Bear, Tom of Tom & Jerry), or capturing the object of one's romantic feelings (Pepé Le Pew, Johnny Bravo), generally with comedic results.
• A usual disregard for the physical laws that govern our Universe (and a reciprocal disregard of those laws for them)
• An almost complete immunity to any serious injury (being crushed, shot, decapitated, burned, etc.). This is especially seen in Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner and Tom and Jerry. Who Framed Roger Rabbit exploits this common feature by making its toon characters explicitly nearly indestructible.

• Animated cartoon
• Toontown
• Doodle