Hammerspace

A cartoon character producing an object from nowhere - from "hammerspace"

Hammerspace (also known as malletspace) is an imaginary extradimensional, instantly accessible storage area in fiction, which is used to explain how characters from animation, comics, and video games can produce objects out of thin air. Typically, when multiple items are available, the desired item is available on the first try or within a handful of tries.

This phenomenon dates back to early Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies and MGM cartoons produced during the Golden age of American animation. For example, in the 1943 Tex Avery short What's Buzzin' Buzzard, a starving vulture prepares to cook his friend by pulling an entire kitchen's worth of appliances out of thin air.[1]

  1. ^ Lyons, Jonathan (2015). Comedy for Animators. CRC Press. p. 185. ISBN 9781317679554.