"Katnip Kollege" is a delightful Warner Bros. musical cartoon. The plot involves a swingology class at Katnip Kollege, where all the "young cats" go to study one of my favorite subjects: how to swing! Every student in the class does a fine job of singing, clapping, dancing, and playing instruments to a tireless swinging jazz groove! That is, every student except one bespectacled cat named Johnny, who is so terrible at swinging that his classmates ridicule him, and his professor declares him to be a dunce. At the end of the school day, as all the other cats swing their way into the night, Johnny stays after school and listens to the ticking of a clock, which ultimately kicks off a tempo for him, and he finally understands how to swing! Showing off his newly-acquired skill, Johnny becomes the star of the evening as he wins the respect of his classmates and the affections of a spunky gal named Ms. Kitty Bright.
My favorite moments from "Katnip Kollege" include the following. During the opening shot of the classroom before the professor arrives, Johnny quite humorously stands out from the rest of his classmates as he cannot even clap his hands in time to the beat. The professor has a Bing Crosby-type voice as he swings his rhymed speech while calling on different students to give their swinging recitations. And how could I not mention the wonderful jazz music that fills this entire cartoon?
In closing, here is one final interesting observation that relates to "Katnip Kollege." Dave Brubeck, one of my favorite jazz pianists/composers, wrote a tune in 1955 titled "The Duke" as a homage to one of the greatest composers/bandleaders/pianists of the 20th Century: Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. Decades later, when an interviewer asked Brubeck how he actually went about writing the tune, Brubeck replied, "Just think of windshield wipers." As Brubeck was driving his car on a rainy day, the motion of the wipers ultimately kicked off a tempo for him!
My favorite moments from "Katnip Kollege" include the following. During the opening shot of the classroom before the professor arrives, Johnny quite humorously stands out from the rest of his classmates as he cannot even clap his hands in time to the beat. The professor has a Bing Crosby-type voice as he swings his rhymed speech while calling on different students to give their swinging recitations. And how could I not mention the wonderful jazz music that fills this entire cartoon?
In closing, here is one final interesting observation that relates to "Katnip Kollege." Dave Brubeck, one of my favorite jazz pianists/composers, wrote a tune in 1955 titled "The Duke" as a homage to one of the greatest composers/bandleaders/pianists of the 20th Century: Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. Decades later, when an interviewer asked Brubeck how he actually went about writing the tune, Brubeck replied, "Just think of windshield wipers." As Brubeck was driving his car on a rainy day, the motion of the wipers ultimately kicked off a tempo for him!