Katnip Kollege

Would see anything animated and also anything where music is heavily prominent. Being a huge lifelong fan of animation and growing up in a musical family where music was a big influence in my life, both getting me (past and especially present at the moment) through difficult times. There was a touch of apprehension too as there are so many music themed cartoons out there, so fatigue was a worry, and whether 'Katnip Kollege' would be too saccharine.

'Katnip Kollege' may not be my definition of a great cartoon, but it succeeded at being well made and entertaining and, while having learnt some time ago to not take ratings here to heart for maturity sake, it does deserve a higher rating here and to be better known. There are much better music-heavy relatively plotless cartoons out there (this is more like a music revue), but didn't watch 'Katnip College' to make any comparisons to anything similar and dismiss it as that is not being fair to it. On its own terms it achieves its aims and that's what one can ask for.

Sure, 'Katnip Kollege' is predictable and doesn't break new ground, though the energy it has stopped it from getting fatigued. Story-wise, not unexpectedly, it is very weak being paper thin to the point of being plotless.

Occasionally it is a little too cute, particularly at the end, but really other than the story there is not an awful lot that is wrong with 'Katnip College'.

The animation is great, it is simple, especially in the character designs which just about avoid being too simplistic, but very colourful with a lot of nice meticulous detail in the backgrounds. Although the story is pretty much non-existent, what is not non-existent is 'Katnip Kollege's' energy, it is never a dull cartoon, mostly avoids sappiness and never really gets too corny.

If there is anything also that 'Katnip Kollege' also excels at brilliantly is how good it makes you feel, if you watched it after a hard day it's guaranteed you'll have a smile on your face after. It certainly did with me, and boy was it needed. While there are never any hilarious moments, there are humorous ones and ones that are well timed and raise a smile at least. The characters are engaging at least, Johnny and his situation are very relatable to anyone who's been there and Miss Kitty Bright has allure and charm. Their chemistry is very sweet.

Voice acting and the singing are also very strong. Especially from Johnnie Davis, it's refreshing to not have Mel Blanc doing the voices as a one-man show (coming from somebody who just adores Blanc, but it's nice to have something different from this time once in a while). The best component though is the music which is outstanding in every sense, anything who likes swing music will have a ball. Seeing as that was pretty much the most crucial element to work, that it did and so well is enough to award the cartoon at least 3 or so points regardless of how the other components fared.

A good thing that most of the other components also fare just as well, the only really weak element is the story, which makes 'Katnip Kollege' a more than worthwhile cartoon providing you like the swing style of music and this type of cartoon. 8/10

Katnip Kollege (1938)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fast-paced and very fun animated film takes place at Katnip Kollege, a swinging college to teach cats how to swing. The class is "Swingology" and one student gets made fun of because he doesn't know how to swing it but he plans on changing that before the big dance that night. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking here but there's no question that this is one of the more entertaining shorts from this era. The animation itself is certainly nothing too flashy as the cat designs are quite simple but this actually helps the film in a strange way. Another thing that really helps are the two music numbers because they're quite catchy and fun to listen to. It also doesn't hurt that the sex kitten appears to have been fashioned after Clara Bow, which was pretty interesting and especially since Bow hadn't made a movie in several years by this point in time. Fans of animation are certainly going to want to check this one out as well as those who just enjoy that swing/jazz music.

Katnip Kollege is a small school for anthropomorphic animals. One class is "Swingology". The teacher selects various students to perform. He calls upon Johnny Cat, but the Cat can't do it. He puts the Cat in the Dunce cap. During that night, the students are performing out in the moonlight.

This Merrie Melodies cartoon is more or less the music video of its time. WB digs up these under-used songs to highlight. The characters are relatively disposable. The teacher is probably referencing somebody from the era. The music is fun if dated. It is not my taste, but I can tolerate it. As far as these go, this is a good one.

Watching the classic Looney Tunes cartoons, one can see that they had a thing for jazz. In "Katnip Kollege", the focus is on swing music, as a feline in school can't keep time and gets made the dunce...until he figures out the beat. Even though I love the classic Looney Tunes cartoons, it always seemed to me like their musical cartoons from the '30s tried a little too hard to be cute. Of course, any emphasis on swing music is something to be acknowledged. Still, I prefer their other music-centric shorts (such as "I Love to Singa", "Three Little Bops" and "What's Opera, Doc?").

Anyway, this one's worth seeing as a historical reference, if nothing else.

This is a cute, rather charming musical short patterned after things like Along Flirtation Walk and Varsity Show. The lead character, Johnny, might as well have "Dick Powell" stenciled on his forehead and the professor reminds me of Kay Kyser. The music is infectious and entertaining, even if the plot is as thin as a piece of gauze. Come to think of it, the plots of those old musicals this is patterned after are pretty much just as thin and this is much shorter than those were!

Warner Brothers made a fair number of these musical cartoons, because the animation department had access to the entire musical catalog for the studio and the studio big-wigs saw the shorts as a way to remind people of Warner Brothers features and music (sheet music was popular and the sheet music for songs made a pretty for all involved in the loop-composers, film studio, etc.) by keeping songs fresh in the public's memory.

This is on Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 2 and is well worth seeing. Recommended.