I Don't Care What You Say

Here we have an eight-frame cycle of a camel chewing on, well, I’m not quite sure. Note the spacing of the drawings. There seems to be barely any movement at one point.



This is the cycle slowed down, which gives you an idea of how the mouth moved.



Yeah, I know. Not the post interesting of posts, unless you are into timing of poses and in-betweens. The director is Friz Freleng, and the cartoon is Hot Spot, a 1945 Snafu short. The gag is an example of how everyone borrowed from Tex Avery. In fact, the short is like an Avery travelogue in places.

In this scene, the narrator (the Devil, played by Hal Peary, complete with Gildersleeve laugh), informs us “Here, the native beast of burden, the camel, is the only one who doesn’t mind the heat.” After chewing a bit, the camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m hot,” and resumes chewing.



Say, that gag is familiar, isn’t it? Let’s think back to Avery’s Wacky Wildlife (1940), where a camel is strolling across the desert. Narrator Bob Bruce informs us the camel “plods over scorching desert sands, in terrific heat, never once desiring a cool, refreshing drink of water. The camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m thirsty,” and resumes strolling.



Say, that gag is STILL familiar. That’s because Avery used a variation of it earlier in the year in Cross Country Detours. In this one, a polar bear is shown on a chunk of ice. “Mother Nature has provided him with layer upon layer of fat, plus a thick coat of heavy fur, to keep him good and warm,” says the narrator. The camera moves in and the bear (Mel Blanc) tells us “I don’t care what you say, I’m cold.”



Is it any wonder that Avery came up with the idea of footage of real animals with superimposed cartoon mouths that made wisecracks. The idea ended up at Jerry Fairbanks Productions, which made the Speaking of Animals series for Paramount. If the “I don’t care what you say” routine was one of the gags in those shorts, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

What about the end gag of Hot Spot, you ask? Thanks for reminding me. The short has emphasized how hot it is in Iran, hotter 'n Hades as they used to say. The short finishes with the Devil discovering the camel is now in his office in Hell. The camel turns to him and casually remarks, “I don’t care what you say, I’m cool.” It resumes chewing to end the cartoon.



None of the artists who worked on this are given screen credit.

Cuckoo Kitten

It’s good some attention is being paid to the mid-1930s Warners cartoons so they’re upgraded from laser disc and VHS dubs to something more pristine.

But funny? Uh….

In The Cat Came Back, a kitten is being swept away in the sewage system. A cuckoo clock drifts into the scene. The kitten tries to grasp it. The cuckoo bird comes out. The kitten swats at it (never making contact). Apparently it was so funny the first time, it happens again with the same animation.



The third time, the bird pecks at the kitten before going back inside and the clock continues its journey over top of the cat.



Yeah, that’s the gag.

Friz pulls off one of those surprise turnabouts at the end where the happy cat and mouse families start fighting again (and why is the mother mouse the same size as the mother cat?)

The restoration is a Blue Ribbon (13 re-issues were released in 1943-44 because of a lack of raw film stock; this was one of them). This means there are no credits, though Jerry Beck must have seen a print with them as his book with Will Friedwald lists Bob McKimson and Ben Clopton as the animators.

There is no mistaking the score is by Norman Spencer, arranged by Norman Spencer, Jr. It features his beloved backbeat woodblock, and double-timed theme song played by muted trumpets in the “chase” portion. Spencer’s music, together with the squealy voice of Berneice Hansell, the Rhythmettes quietly crooning the opening song, and the concentration on kid animals makes this an atypical mid-‘30s Merrie Melodies short.

Tubby Fights the Civil War

A Union military commander gives a pep talk like a baseball coach in Friz Freleng’s Confederate Honey.



Cut to a shot of the Northern soldiers.



Movie fans in 1940 wouldn’t have noticed, but Warners staff would recognise three of these soldiers. On the left is writer Tubby Millar. Next to him is Leon Schlesinger’s office manager Henry Binder. On the right is animator, and future Lantz director, Paul J. Smith.

It was inevitable that some cartoon studio would parody Gone With the Wind. Friz and his writing staff (Bugs Hardaway gets the story credit on this) decided to stick Elmer Fudd, previously seen in Elmer’s Pet Rabbit (also 1940) in the part of the Rhett Butler send-up. Because the two have an awful lot in common.

The Exhibitor, in its April 17, 1940 issue, rated the cartoon “excellent,” adding it was “by far the slap-happiest and most laugh-provoking reel of color cartooning ever put out by Leon Schlesinger (and that takes in a lot of territory)” and that it “had a projection room audience doubled up with laughter.”

This was the third Warners cartoon where Bryan gave a character his Waymond Wadcwiffe voice from radio. The first was in Dangerous Dan McFoo (1939), which didn’t feature a Fudd role.

Warner Bros.’ pressbook for Tear Gas Squad suggests pairing the feature with Confederate Honey, calling the cartoon “a mirthful mélange of satire and good-natured fun.” Well, I guess in 1940, lazy Stepin Fetchit types were yuck-fests.

Cartoon Dollar Days

Despite unionised jobs in the cartoon business, there were animators in the Golden Age took on side work. Some were hired for uncredited animation for other studios (UPA’s pre-UPA cartoons, the Jerky Journeys and Bob Clampett’s short for Republic come to mind). Others drew artwork or wrote stories for comic books.

Then there’s the case of Ken Champin, who worked for several years on newspaper panel ads for a Hollywood business association.

It’s regretful that little is known about Champin, whose name you will probably recognise from the Friz Freleng unit at Warner Bros. I have never found an interview with him. You’ll have to pardon the brevity of this snapshot; I suspect Devon Baxter has looked into him and has found additional information.

Kenneth Ferdinand Champin was born on August 11, 1911 in Clifton, New Jersey, at the time a small town about four miles from Passaic, to Ferdinand (Fred) and Eleanor Champin. The family moved to San Diego in 1918, where his father co-owned and opened the Liberty grocery stores and died at the end of the year at the age of 29. He and his mother moved in with an aunt in Pasadena. His mother later re-married.

The only mention of him in the local press is in a story in 1928 that he had signed to play tenor saxophone with the Box Scout band in the La Canada valley. Champin attended Glendale Union High School and was the staff cartoonist for the Stylus. The 1930 Census reveals he was an 18-year-old grocery clerk. He married in 1932.

The 1936 Glendale directory gives his occupation as “attdt Forest Lawn.” It would appear he started in animation in 1937 as in 1987, he was honoured for 50 years in the business at the Motion Picture Cartoonists Golden Awards banquet. The very first edition of the Leon Schlesinger Studio’s internal newspaper, The Exposure Sheet (Jan. 1939), announced the birthday of Champin’s son Jim on February 28, 1938. The younger Champin ended up in the animation business as well.

Unfortunately, the newsletter (published in 1939-40) has little to say about him. He was part of a studio table tennis team that included Bob Matz, Dick Thomas and Bob Holdeman. He appeared in one of the studio’s Sketch Pad comedies before Christmas 1939.

Champin’s first screen credit for animation was in Daffy–The Commando, released Nov. 28, 1943. The final short with his name is Pests For Guests, released January 29, 1955. This was apparently animated before the cartoon studio shut down for the last six months of 1953.

Sources on-line indicate Champin drew some Disney comic books and (in conjunction with ex-Warners artist/writer Dave Hoffman) a Tom and Jerry colouring book. Much of his time in the late ‘50s and 1960s was spent in commercial animation. Television magazine of Sept. 5, 1960 reported on the creation of Filmfair “by several executives formerly with Ray Patin Productions.” One was Champin, who was named their animation director and was later a vice-president.

He passed away on Feb. 25, 1989 in Palm Springs.

(No, I didn’t “forget” other credits. This is not a filmography. You can find lists elsewhere on-line).

In 1920, the Merchantors’ Division of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce came up with a semi-annual Dollar Day. Not only did businesses take out full-page ads in the Hollywood Citizen-News, it commissioned a one-panel cartoon to comically promote it. Champin was the artist. Here are some of the examples.

January 26, 1937

January 29, 1937

July 27, 1937

July 26, 1938

July 27, 1938

July 28, 1938

July 29, 1938

Here is a week’s worth from May 1939. Champin shows a good sense of composition. I really like his struggling horses pulling a streetcar.

May 15, 1939

May 16, 1939

May 17, 1939

May 18, 1939

May 19, 1939

There are actually quite a number of others ending, it seems, on May 16, 1941 with a couple of Africans. I don’t want to make this post too long, so we’ll end with these. Toward the end, Champin focuses on World War Two (Pearl Harbor hasn’t happened yet).

July 31, 1939

August 1, 1939

August 2, 1939

August 4, 1939

October 12, 1939

October 14, 1939

February 3, 1940

January 27, 1941

May 13, 1941

May 14, 1941

May 15, 1941

Friz Freleng lived long enough where he was honoured and interviewed many times over later in life. So was Virgil Ross, who spent a large portion of his career in the Freleng unit. Champin doesn't seem to have been as fortunate, but perhaps this fills in a few blanks.