Vegetable relatives/Catchy Tunes

[Rob Klein]

So!!! I had forgotten that we are all descendents of green algae. And thus, we 
are distant cousins of Kohlrabi, parsnips and rutabagas!  I wonder if I'm 
closer to a Kohlrabi on my mother's or father's side of my family???

For Olivier: When Walt Kelly worked as an in-betweener at the Disney studios, 
Carl Barks had already transferred to the Story Department.  They would have 
had little, contact. But, I worked at Hanna Barbera, Turner Feature Animation 
and Warner brothers Feature Animation, and saw that although most people had 
friends for the most part in their departments, there were exceptions. They 
certainly had access to most of the people in the Studio. So, it is POSSIBLE 
that Barks heard Walt Kelly make up that name.  But, somehow, I doubt it.  I 
think it is much more likely that Barks came up with that idea, as a parody of 
that very common use of name and character rhyming that was omnipresent in the 
1920s,1930s and 1940s (like "Slewfoot Sue from Kalamazoo"-I made that one up 
now. It was probably said by someone, exactly as is, in that area -thought of 
independently. Kelly could well have come up with the same idea independently, 
just as two Rappers might come up with the same rhyme, as some words are more 
suited to rhyming with others.  As far as I remember, Barks came up with almost 
all of his references on his own. I asked him (in th 1960s) if any of his songs 
and book titles, character names came from real sources, and he told me that as 
far as he remembered, he made them up. He said that he was making fun of those 
things that were popular at the time (although I think that once in a while his 
parodies better fit things that were popular years before-or a few, even from 
times during his youth). He was a bit old fashioned, even though his humour 
also kept up with the times (funny in any era).

Rob
Klein

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