I was thinking today about the many manifestations of the “magic bag of tricks”—a portable object that can produce any item the character needs—in cartoon culture. We’ve got:
Felix the Cat’s Magic Bag of Tricks
Meadowlark Lemon’s Afro
Inspector Gadget’s … um … entire body, I guess
Batman’s Utility Belt (some may argue this point, but come on—you know it’s true)
In myth and literature, there’s the idea of the cornucopia/horn of plenty. In the Finnish Kalevala, there’s the ill-defined Sampo, which can mill gold, salt, or flour out of thin air.
What other examples are there of this concept throughout literature? What’s the earliest version?
“Hank Pym: He’s Got The Whole World In His Pants.”
Back when changing his own size was really taking a toll on the crimefighter, he swapped out ant-sized superstealth and giant-sized superstrength to just concentrate on insta-growing the useful stuff he kept in his pockets. Need a baseball bat? A fully-stocked laboratory? Maybe a jet? Possibly a chainsaw? Or a movie camera? Perhaps a grenade launcher? If all else fails, he’ll solve the problem by throwing money at it – by which I mean he’s got a handful of coins that quickly expand to the size of manhole covers.
Prof. Jerome Lettvin of MIT claimed that the kibisis, the magical bag given to Perseus by the nymphs in his quest for Medusa’s head (he eventually stored the head in that bag) was such a magical bag that could expand to any needed size and contain an almost infinite amount of things in it. He built an elaborate theory relating it to the properties of the octopus (which, he maintained, was one of the roots of the myth’s imagery) Certainly the bag was meant to be something special – it had its own, apparently pre-Greek name.
On the other hand, I looked at considerable length, and could find no support for this – nothing I could find supported the idea that the kibisis could contain TARDIS-like amounts of space or material. So, in my opinion, this isn’t an early case of the trope.
The Frobozz Magic Boat in Zork could be used as a bag of holding for anything non-sharp: If you inflated it, filled it with loot, and then deflated it, it would only weigh as much as the deflated boat itself.
And my best friend in high school had an extradimensional trenchcoat, if we’re counting real life. He somehow managed to store all manner of tools, a large supply of duct tape, books, snacks, and I think even changes of clothes, in its pockets, but it still hung flat on him.
It’s really amazing just how much stuff I can get into a bookbag.
Stan Laurel’s lunchbox.
In the cartoon “The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop” there was a character named “Pockets” Guess what his specialty was?
Ricco from “The Penguins Of Madigascar”
Y’know, it occurs to me that there are two different sorts of things we’re talking about, here. One is the container that can hold a very large amount of stuff, but doesn’t necessarily have anything in it, while the other is the container that doesn’t necessarily hold all that much, but what it does hold is whatever it is you happen to need. There’s some overlap, but not completely.
Oh, and while we’re at it, Santa Clause and Mary Poppins both also have magic bags.
