Why do cartoon figures have four fingers (one thumb and three fingers)?

[Wise Young]

Mickey Mouse and other animals have always been drawn with three fingers and a thumb. How did this come to be?



There are lots of books about this subject. Some writers speculate that it is easier to draw a thumb and three fingers. It wasn't until I saw Ratatouille recently that it was clear... the rat in Ratatouille has three fingers and a thumb but the human has four fingers and a thumb.
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/...ille/main.html

Animals have only four fingers on their paws with the thumb a useless vestigial appendage higher up on limb. A look at the pawprint of dogs show this clearly. The thing in the back of the fingers is the "palm", not the thumb.



Cats have four "fingers". So, the original cartoon artists are correct in drawing four fingers. They just took a little artistic license converting one of the fingers to a thumb-like appendage.
http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/...aw-feather.jpg

Now the panda is the only animal besides human and monkeys that have fingers and an opposing thumb pad.



Wise.

[Lazlo]

Reminds me of one of my favorite Simpsons quotes. Homer, during a flashback on the birth of his son Bart:

"As long as he's got eight fingers and eight toes, he's fine by me!"

[harley-lynn]

Interesting subject...I always wondered about why only three fingers and a thumb is drawn on a cartoon figure...lol...Someone told me it was easier on the eye to see three fingers instead of four...easier to draw and not overwheming...I've seen people drawn cartoon figures with four fingers and it seems so unreal to me, properly because I'm used to seeing three fingers...oh well, the world's not going to end if I don't know why?...lol...

[Lindox]

"Leaving the finger off was a great asset artistically and financially. Artistically five digits are too many for a mouse. His hands would look like a bunch of bananas. Financially, not having an extra finger in each of the 45,000 drawings that make up a six-and-one half minute short has saved the studio millions."

~Walt Disney~

Also during WWII Mickey even lost his tail as the result of an executive decision to save even more time and money.

[Buck503]

The Simpsons creators draw the characters with 4 fingers as well.
But when they put God in an episode, he always has 5 fingers?

I had nothing but Simpsons dvd's in rehab, leave me alone.

[Tiger Racing]

during WWII Mickey even lost his tail as the result of an executive decision to save even more time and money.

I don't know about the drawings, but the characters in the Disney parks don't have tails because little kids and teenagers would rip them off.

C.