Chew Chew Baby

I saw this cartoon back in the 60's and it scared me. I had nightmares. I just finished watching it after 40 years. Despite the demented nature of the cartoon, I actually found myself laughing in parts. The cannibal eating the people on the bus to get a seat was strangely humorous. The cartoon can be found on YouTube so its time to face your fear. It's really not that bad.

While I wasn't born in the 50's, I did watch a lot of cartoons that were made during that era as a kid in the 60's. Some of them were sort of weird and violent and it surprises me that people found them funny. I guess they worked better when shown in theaters with large audiences.

This cartoon comedy, about a pint-sized cannibal capable of consuming people with one huge snap of his mighty jaws, is the stuff childhood nightmares are made of. I saw it on TV as a child back in the 1960s, and never forgot it - I seriously doubt they'd show it today. (When I saw it again for the first time in something like 35 years, I felt a chill creeping up my spine - I don't know whether it was because the cartoon was affecting me in the present, or if I was unearthing some repressed memories.) Some may argue the finale steals from Tex Avery's "Crazy Mixed Up Pup," but it does provide something resembling justice - as well as a jaw-dropper of an ending. Once you see "Chew Chew Baby," you're not likely to forget it - no matter how hard you try.

Just saw on the Something Old, Something New blog this Famous Studios Noveltoon, Chew Chew Baby (not to be confused with the same-named Woody Woodpecker cartoon). In this one, a hunter from Cincinatti encounters a little pygmy in a jungle, takes his picture, and tells him to look him up if he ever goes to his hometown. He does and, oh, what a surprise he pulls on him...The author of the blog I just mentioned says this traumatized him as a kid and he's had no desire to see this again. Having now watched this as linked from YouTube, I must say I was mostly amused by the bizarre chomping of this small cannibal especially when he upchucked that mannequin! Then there's a twist at the end that you'll probably guess right away just as it's about to happen that was a perfect end of this short. This probably wouldn't be suitable for anyone under-12 but anyone older than that who's seen The Silence of the Lambs and was entertained by that will probably enjoy this as well. P.S. Jackson "Bluto" Beck was the voice of the hunter and Jack "Popeye" Mercer was the dentist who was the first of the pygmy's victims.