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If a magic slide isn't fantasy I don't know what is.

I've been watching The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with my 21 month old and I'm becoming more and more frustrated by the "Upslide".

When one person goes on the upslide, let's say Mickey, he sits on it backwards and the upslide pulls him up. When he comes back down he's facing the right way. Cute.

When multiple people go on the upslide (for example, on the episode Daisy's Grasshopper, see video )

Mickey is the first one on, but the also the first one off. I would have expected him to be the first last one off, and the Daisy, the highest up on the upslide, would be the first one off.

The only way it could do this is if it treated the entire person-load of the upslide as one entity. If this is the case, how big is the buffer capacity of the upslide? Have the inner workings of the upslide been explained in any Mickey Mouse episodes or books? Or is this one of Professor Von Drake's tightly kept secrets?

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    No doubt this is the same technology that ensures that both Mickey's ears are always visible, no matter what angle his head is at.
    – Daniel Roseman
    Commented Oct 1, 2012 at 15:43
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    A similar technology is employed to enable Donald Duck to hover as long as he is yelling.
    – Gorchestopher H
    Commented Oct 1, 2012 at 16:36
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    I'm curious why this might have been downvoted. I tried very hard to ensure it was on-topic and met all the criteria of desireable questions. Nevertheless, I'm open to improvement!
    – corsiKa
    Commented Oct 1, 2012 at 19:11
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    @corsiKa It's a children's series, which puts off a lot of people - the answer is likely to be "the writers/animators didn't really think about it". I usually just try to avoid them, rather than downvoting.
    – Izkata
    Commented Oct 1, 2012 at 23:32
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    @Izkata As an avid watcher of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (not exactly by choice, mind you, but...) in most cases the actions they take are quite logical and make sense. As a parent I try to avoid showing her shows where things "aren't thought about" because I don't want her thinking there isn't logic to the world. While I didn't find the post you linked, I did consider the idea that it would be considered, shall we say, frivolous, and was sure to do my due diligence that things like this are explained. For example the Handy Helpers have been explained in one episode and Toodles in another.
    – corsiKa
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 2:21

2 Answers 2

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Taking the upslide for granted (which I could only explain if Mickey had some big magnets in his pockets -- and even then, the movement wouldn't be linear, but parabolic), this can make sense, depending on the slide's architecture.

I've drawn a picture that highlights one possible architecture, omitting the curliness of the original slide. However, in order not to infringe on Mickey's precious copyright, I took the freedom to put Tuxes on the slide.

Two tuxes ride an upslide

In the picture, the blue tux is sitting in front of the green tux, that is closer to the end of the slide (like Mickey in your video). If the upslide magically slides them upwards with an initial velocity of v0, they will end up in a position in the middle, the blue tux being closer to the ground. I'm assuming that the slide is high enough so that all initial kinetic energy of the tuxes can be transformed into potential energy, meaning that they come to a full stop for an infinitesimal amount of time (v = 0).

At that point normal physics kick in and gravity pulls them down. Choosing at random (if the slide is built in a safe fashion, otherwise ... well let's say the occupants couldn't have future offspring otherwise) or with a bias the right side of the slide to descend. Note that this will restore the original kinetic energy and they will get off the slide on the same velocity as initially accelerated to (if you disregard friction) as well as it restores who was sitting in front (i.e. the blue tux).

Note: This is not canonical, but I don't think Disney would bother with physically correct entertainment apparatuses.

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  • Who finds the pun? :)
    – bitmask
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 9:08
  • I'm not sure what the pun is, but I'm guessing that the phrase, physically correct entertainment apparatuses is an allusion, to another of Disney's quirks...
    – John C
    Commented Dec 12, 2012 at 11:23
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    Perhaps: "I took the freedom to put Tuxes on the slides." (Emphasis mine.) Free as in speech, not free as in beer.
    – bishop
    Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 2:07
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    @bishop: That took almost 10 years for someone to figure out. Congratulations :)
    – bitmask
    Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 3:01
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    @bitmask Better late than never. :) Cheers!
    – bishop
    Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 16:13
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Mickey Mouse is not human! He transforms in tho other clubhouse members (and so do the others) and he is then the first one off.

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    Maybe not so correct? How does he transform into other people and how do they transform into him?
    – DavidW
    Commented Aug 29, 2022 at 0:25

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