ReFrederator Blog

Today’s Merrie Melody,”Sport Chumpions”, looks for all the world, to be a spot gag film — no plot, no funny animals, no big pretenses — just a string of goofy jokes, all having something to do with athletics. But in its day, I would guess “Chumpians” was supposed to be a pointed satire of the inane ‘general interest’ short subjects audiences sat through while waiting for the main attraction.

Director Friz Freleng uses unusually realistic animation to set up his gags, and his frame of reference is pretty specific in a couple of sequences. The character in the archery skit, for instance, is a parody of a real personality — Howard Hill. The real life Hill starred in an endless series (A WHOLE SERIES!) of color shorts, all of which consisted, pretty exclusively, of “The World’s Greatest Archer” shooting arrows into different kinds of stuff! Needless to say, a lot of these one reel novelties were so damn silly in their original form, they were almost spoof-proof!

Good Sport Week is right on target here at ReFrederator!

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Dave Kirwan