'character' = 'toon'. when and why?

[Furme]

If you REALLY want to know..

The origin of Toon is from way back in 1991ish when sierra came out with their first online gaming network.. Called "The Imagination Network" or nicknamed "The Sierra Network".. (might even be earlier /shrug)..

But the thing was, is before that for the most part everyone had been playing text based multi-player games over BBSes.. When The Imagination network came out they had a nifty little client where you could choose an avatar to go with your name.. They had very cartoony graphics, so people would nickname them their Toons.. This carried over to The Realm when it was released as well.. because likewise, it had cartoony graphics and it was just a little more catchy to say toon instead of "char"..

Source: Played on the imagination network, and the realm.. People called it a toon back then too =p