Capitaine chez les Pygmées

After Fred Quimby had lured Freleng away from Schlesinger's shop, he stuck him in a slot making 'Captain and the Kids' black and white cartoons, an assignment and attitude that he hated so much that when his contract was up, he scurried back to Schlesinger, made YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES as a way of saying he was wrong to have ever left and spent the rest of his career in the same place -- Depatie-Freleng was, after all a way of making sure the Termite Terrace crew still had day jobs. And, oh yes, they based Yosemite Sam on him.

But despite the opprobrium heaped on Quimby -- whose evil plot was to hire the best people and leave them alone -- there is a vivacity and humor about this cartoons that was lacking before in Freleng's work. Perhaps as the old hand at Schlesinger's studio, he felt he could not adopt the over the top pacing and gags that Avery and Clampett were working on, until he had gone elsewhere. Perhaps he found Scott Brady an easier orchestrator to work with -- certainly Brady's work never sounded better. Whatever the reason, this cartoon, despite it not being a great one, shows a lot of touches that Frelengs work lacked before, but which he continued to use for the rest of his career.