Crazy question, but I was downloading some Looney Tunes characters for my nephew like Wile E. Cyote, Sylvester, etc. and I notice they all have mostly four fingers. The Simpsons do, too. In fact, they even have an episode where Homer is somehow interdimensionally transfered to our universe and makes a comment about how weird it is that we have five fingers.
Why do they do that? Is it a psychological thing or what?
I’t so they can have fat cartoony fingers without having enormous hands.
In the early days of animation it meant less work for the animator. When you’re making hundreds of drawings, any little shortcut can save you hours of work. Plus, as **Manduck **points out, thicker fingers are easier for the audience to read.
These days, it’s just tradition.
I saw a documentary about the history of cartoons a few years ago. Basically, the old animators who had to draw hundreds of pictures a day to make the animations cut out one finger to save time. I guess taking out that one finger thousands of times adds up to quite a bit of saved time.
If I remember correctly, the movie said that the reasons that today’s animations (that are no longer laboriously drawn) still have four fingers is because they just kept with the tradition of four-fingered hands.
Its difficult to draw realistic hands. It adds a lot of labor and really doesnt add anything.
Animation these days isnt much different. Many shows are done by hand such as the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, etc. The move to CGI is fairly limited. A lot of this work is done in Korea where labor rates are cheaper than domestic, and its all done by hand. The Simpsons people just hands over storyboards and audio tracks.
Not to mention that this isnt really a lack of realism. How many fingers should a talking duck or rabbit really have? 
The actual reason is because cartoon ducks and cartoon mice are a different species and they actually have four fingers.
Did you ever read “Family Circus” they have a huge issue with giantism. Sometimes the kids legs are HUGE and everything is disproportional.
“The Flintstones” have this issue with Pebbles and Bam-Bam. Those kids are huge and out of proportion, because you have to draw the kids big enough so they look recognizable and real, but to do this, puts them out of proportion to the adults like Fred and Wilma
From “When Do Fish Sleep? and Other Imponderables of Everyday Life” by David Feldman:
As others have noted, it was originally to save time and money by not drawing five-fingered hands, which are remarkably finicky to draw, let alone animate. Four fingers is the right number to look sufficiently “handy”, with three fingers and an opposable thumb; less than four and a hand just becomes a weirdly distracting claw.
In addition, cartoon characters are frequently gloved…avoids drawing all those knuckles and nails.
Or save time and do a Power Puff Girls flipper. Heh. I love that episode where they all switch bodies and Buttercup complains that the Professor’s hand doesn’t work when she tries to answer a phone.
Mr. Weber (can’t think of the first name) always draws five fingers in his strip Shylock Fox
Or just draw them without knuckles and nails. The Simpsons don’t have 'em, Family Guy doesn’t have them, etc.
Cecil answered this once:
I hope that works. First time trying.
Which also works occasionally: I remember one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in a congratulatory moment, saying to another “Gimme three”.
Funny. Everyone notices the fingers, but no one notices that cartoons of human rarely put the ears in the right location (thought it looks like Family Guy does it right) and always have disproportionately large heads.
Whenever God appears on a Simpsons episode he has all five fingers…
Well, would you want to risk the wrath of a vengeful deity for drawing him malformed?
Cheers,
bcg
Well, actually …
IIRC the characters in King of the Hill have all their fingers.
Which reminds me–if I remember correctly, on the Simpsons Homer one time made the comment that a newborn had all four fingers and toes, yet in another episode one of the bullies makes what I consider an inappropriate comment, for their universe, that stealing is a “five finger discount”.
