There were studies conducted, if memory serves, back in the early days of CGI movies, which determined that viewers would be way too weirded out by super-realistic animated characters. That’s why, we guess, the Final Fantasy movie flopped so hard. While we don’t really buy the argument – we’d like to think that given the time and opportunity, people can deal with just about anything – a recent series of images posted at The Fire Wire has us re-evaluting our beliefs.

Their listicle of 21 Cartoon Characters in Real Life, as you’ll note based on the example at right (Homer Simpson, of course), is extremely unsettling, and there’s no doubt that we would never watch live action versions of our favorite cartoons if they looked anything like that.