More on Boney and more ponderances

So, Boney is going to be what Kevin is to Jay Leno. He laughs at every stupid joke Poltergoose throws out there, Sometimes literally busting a gut in the process. How I'm going to get him to bust his own gut; in other words, make his rib cage open and fall apart, I have no clue.

Maybe if I use the "hide" method where I just key the original ribcage as being viewed and then when he busts a gut I can hide the full rib cage and unhide the broken one.
Dunno...

It might work.

Things like fog, which I'll need to make the cometary seem eerie and yet also give it that smoky "club" feel, should be no problem because of Maya's built-in ability to render fog.
One thing I'm trying to figure out how to do is have a character come up through the dirt. I mean, how do I do that? Do I animate each clump so it falls? I could use Maya's Rigid Bodies tool which makes one thing react to another's collision but I'm not sure that will work: or that I can get it to work.