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SearchResearch Challenge (4/17/17): Finding cartoons despite their descriptions

Dan Russell • May 17, 2017
 SearchReSearch
Republished with permission from SearchReSearch
SearchResearch Challenge (4/17/17): Finding cartoons despite their descriptions Dan Russell
The other day...

... I was chatting with some friends and we started to talk about the great cartoons from back in the day when we were kids.

Naturally, the conversation went something like this: "You remember that cartoon where... the rabbit did that weird thing with the edge of the film?" Or "I'm sure you recall that one cartoon series with Russian characters... what were their names?"



The big problem with remembering cartoons (or movies, or books, or short stories) is that we often get the details all wrong. Doing our SearchResearch thing means that we can figure out the names and titles despite having almost all of the details be incorrect. It's search in spite of the data...

Here are two cartoon descriptions that we had a bit of trouble with, but I was able to figure out in the end with just the information provided here. Until I did the searches, these "facts" were all we could remember.

Given these descriptions, can you figure out what these two cartoons are?

1. This cartoon features a character that's playing with (or fighting with) the frame of the cartoon. It collapses, and he’s given a stick to prop it up. Then the frame has a vertical hold problem, and keeps slipping down. Of course, the end title (“The End”) comes in too soon and he ends up pushing it out of the frame. Very funny—very meta-cartoonish. Who is the main character in the cartoon, and what is the title of the cartoon?
2. This cartoon series is set in International Falls, Minnesota, with two animal characters who talk (naturally). There are also two Russian characters whose names are puns. What is the name of this cartoon series? (And, for extra credit, what university did these two characters attend?)

This is a bit outside of the normal SearchResearch Challenges, but it's an important category of research skill... finding something where the description is fairly inaccurate... but you've got enough information to find it anyway.

Let us know how YOU found the answers to this week's Challenge!

Search on!

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About the Author

Dan RussellDan Russell

I study the way people search and research. I guess that makes me an anthropologist of search. While I work at Google, my blog and G+ posts reflects my own thoughts and not those of my employer. I am FIA's Future-ist in Residence. More »

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