[3] He usually played a white-faced goof in derby hat and overalls who would enter any given setting (a bakery, a restaurant, a construction site, a prison camp, etc.)

This became a dangerous policy because Semon became notorious for being expensive and extravagant: his two-reel comedies could easily cost more than an average five-reel feature film.

He loved chase sequences involving airplanes (sometimes using three in a film), exploding barns, falling water towers, auto wrecks and/or explosions, and liberal use of substances in which to douse people.

A typical Semon comedy might involve barrels of flour, sacks of soot, gallons of ink, pools of motor oil, or pits filled with mud.

Instead, Semon took his troupe on location -- itself an expensive undertaking -- and insisted on building permanent log cabins, complete with modern conveniences for the entire cast and crew.

He produced and starred in a few features in the mid-1920s, including the financial disaster The Wizard of Oz in 1925;[8] by 1927, however, he was back in short subjects released through Educational Pictures.

[8] In its obituary for Semon, the trade paper Variety speculated that ongoing stress related to his dire financial circumstances was a contributing factor in his demise, alluding to the 1925 production of The Wizard of Oz as the major cause of his money woes:This screen disaster caused Mr. Semon no end of worry and repeated efforts to recoup only added to his discomfiture.

[8][11] French audiences knew him as Zigoto, Italian ones as Ridolini, and Spanish ones as Jaimito ("Jimmy") in pre-war releases and Tomasín ("Tommy") in the 1940 rereleases by Manuel Rotellar.