Catnip's Gold Mine (Catnip Cat)

Catnip's Gold Mine is a Aldo Boomer animated short film that was released in 1942.

Synopsis
Catnip attempts to dig for gold with difficult equipment and an uncooperative donkey. Catnip's Burro dumps him on the conveyor belt along the way.

Plot
Catnip Cat is a gold miner. While digging ore in his gold mine, Catnip sings "Oh My Darling, Clementine". His donkey mocks his terrible singing and Catnip kicks his minecart into it, in retaliation, provoking a series of tit-for-tat attacks between them.

Afterwards, Catnip accidentally gets his pickaxe stuck up the back of his shirt. In the course of trying to separate himself from the pickaxe (which, at one stage, involves Catnip getting the pickaxe head stuck on his own head), Catnip fortuitously uncovers a rich vein of gold. In his excitement, he tosses the nuggets up into the air and they spook the donkey as they clatter to the ground. The donkey takes off, dragging the minecart, and Catnip along with it, off to the entry chute of the nearby ore processor.

Catnip screams for help as he and the rocks all tumble down the chute face first onto a conveyor belt. First Catnip is put through a gear crusher that smashes all the rocks into fine gravel. Seeing the danger for his life, Catnip immediately begins to try and run away up the conveyor belt but runs into a large rock. The large rock hurls Catnip backwards and right onto the gear crushers, but luckily the top gear is missing a tooth where Catnip lands and he goes through unharmed.

Next, Catnip slides into a section where two large scrub brushes brutally scrub him and the ore. Seeing the danger Catnip tries to run ahead to avoid this but a mechanism pushes Catnip and the ore directly into the scrub brushes. Catnip goes through scrubbing inside the brushes and eventually wiggles his head out of the brushes looking disorientated. The brushes sense the disruption and a metal pole smashes his head right back into the giant scrub brushes for more scrubbing. Eventually Catnip's bottom and legs wiggle out of the scrub brushes and sensing the disruption stops and the metal pole again smashes Catnip back down into the scrub brushes to continue to be scrubbed. Catnip's top half emerges with brush bristles in his mouth that he spits out. Sensing the disruption once again stops and dispatches a set of robotic arms to pick up Catnip by his sleeves and finally get him clean by a much more brutal method.

Holding Catnip high in the air, the robotic arms take Catnip to a giant wash board and a giant barrel filled with water. The arms smack Catnip into the water and then the wash board up and down ferociously until it holds him under water for a short break. Meanwhile, Catnip finally breathes causing bubbles to come up from the water before starting round two of washing. Catnip is taken faster up and down but this time into the water as well seemingly causing a lot of pain by his looks. The arms then hold him under water for another short break of him breathing more bubbles before tossing him out of the water to the ground.

Looking disorientated again and wet now a giant claw then goes behind Catnip and pushes him forward to a circular column that spin dries Catnip very fast leaving him even more disorientated and dizzy. The mechanism pushes Catnip forward back to a conveyor belt for his next station filled with four giant crushers.

Catnip is still dizzy and disorientated not really realizing what is going on. Luck is on his side and his narrowly evades all the crushes before regaining his senses and running ahead to avoid being crushed. He runs to the side where a pipe is located that sprays water out forcing Catnip down a chute and to a new station.

Catnip lands into a giant gold sifter which shakes him back and forth in a Latin dance like fashion further disorientating him before losing all control and flying towards the next station.

He flies into a large section of rollers made for more cleaning going up and down and being doused with water by a shower head over and over again before being seeing forward to the final station.

Eventually, he is tipped into a gold bar making machine. The donkey, nervous about his owner's fate, stands vigil at the output conveyor belt of the machine. A gold bar emerges with Catnip's hat on top. The donkey shakes his head and sheds a tear for Catnip, who has apparently died in the machine. However, Catnip soon emerges from the machine, alive and well, albeit immobilized by gold that has been encrusted around him by the machine with a 24K stamp on his feet. The donkey laughs in delight as Catnip twiddles his thumbs annoyed while the gold that is immobilizing him gradually crumbles away.

Availability

 * (2023) Streaming - FilmxshowsMAX Plus (Restored)

Sound Effects Used

 * Sound Ideas, TRAIN, CARTOON - CRASHY TRAIN STOP, 01
 * Sound Ideas, WHISTLE, STEAM - STEAM TRAIN WHISTLE: MEDIUM
 * Hollywoodedge, Low Pitched Squeak CRT049301
 * Hollywoodedge, Wet Splats Various CRT052303

Characters

 * Catnip Cat
 * Donkey

Voice Characterizations

 * Mel Blanc - Catnip Cat
 * Clarence Nash - Donkey

Credits

 * Director: William T. Hurtz (uncredited)
 * Story: George Get (uncredited), Noel Tucker (uncredited)
 * Animation: Ted Parmelee (uncredited), James Zinnen (uncredited), Emery Hawkins (uncredited), Rudy Larriva (uncredited), Frank Smith (uncredited), Tom McDonald (uncredited), Leighton Black (uncredited)
 * Music: Eric Maddox (uncredited)