20. Bosko's Soda Fountain (1931)

Warner cartoon no. 19.
Release date: November 14, 1931.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Directed by: Hugh Harman.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Starring: Johnny Murray (Bosko, Hippo, Wilbur, Mouse).
Animation: Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Rollin Hamilton.
Musical Score: Frank Marsales.

I believe that this cartoon is the first appearance of Honey's cat, Wilbur - I think so, correct me if I'm mistaken.

The short starts off with Bosko who appears to be in a bar making sodas and milkshakes, or smoothies. He's mixing them for his ice-cream recipe and also whistling on the job, too. He is adding scoops of different flavored ice creams one different ends of the bar table. He runs up, through the plank of wood on the floor like a xylophone, scoops an ice-cream; and then he slides back down to scoop another ice cream flavor.

Bosko finishes making the ice-cream soda and then he slides it down at the end of the bar table, and even the soda ice-cream bumps onto unused soda glasses, and they make chiming sounds as the glasses get smaller, one-by-one. The soda is served to a mouse customer who is too small to reach the straw on the ice cream. He spins the stool upwards to reach the straw and tastes it. The mouse enjoys it very much, and then slurps so much that he gains weight.

 In the meantime, there is a hippo customer who enters (ToonZone confirms that the fat hippo was used in Foxy cartoons such as Smile, Darn Ya, Smile and One More Time), and now she's with Bosko? Well, she enters the saloon and Bosko looks back and recognizes her, and comments, "Well, if it ain't my old school teacher", and she greets with "Hello Bosko." Wait a minute, she was nearly fined by Foxy in One More Time, and now she is a teacher??? Since she has a huge bum, it takes up three stools, and she crushes them. She orders her fancy and then Bosko starts to make it. She also turns on the fan and feels the breeze.

 

Bosko is now making his old teacher a smoothie, and then he seems to be doing the job well, until his mixer suddenly breaks. The mouse customer at the far end laughs at the broken mixer. Instead of Bosko being insulted by the mouse, he has an idea to USE the mouse as a mixer. Aww, Gee Bosko - that's not a way to treat a customer. He then finishes making the sundae.

The hippo still has the fan on, and then Bosko serves her the sundae, but the fan blows the ice cream onto her face, and it was largely her fault because she had the fan on in the first place, and she complains and walks out of the door, Bosko laughs in an attitude like "What a fool", and laughing when someone complains to him appears to be one of his characteristics.

He continues to be making music through glasses, stepping onto the wood like a xylophone, etc. Suddenly, a sausage dog (dachshund) enters the saloon who seems to be going in there for no particular reason, rather nosy. He sees a plate full of sandwiches stacked up, and he eats them all up, and the inside of his bodies show the sandwiches sticking out. Bosko sees the dog, then he plays with the dog's stomach (with the sandwiches still sticking out) and plays it like a chordian.

Meanwhile, Bosko's girlfriend Honey is at home with her cat Wilbur teaching him a piano lesson. Every time that Wilbur plays the wrong notes in the piano, she makes a fuss about it. Wilbur is very bored of the piano lesson and cries, "I want an ice cream cone!" Honey promises an ice cream cone unless his behaves well, and to get on with the piano lesson. Wilbur is still bored of the lessons and demands an ice cream cone. Gee, that Wilbur sounds like a brat, who wants things (sort of childlike), and yet I found his voice very annoying and pathetic by Murray.

Bosko and the dog are still dancing, but Wilbur still wants an ice cream cone, and Honey promises one unless he'll be "a good little boy" and Wilbur gives in and replies, "Yeah". Honey reaches to the phone to contact Bosko at his soda bar. The phone rings, so Bosko picks up the phone and answers it. Bosko realizes that it's Honey and she orders an ice-cream cone for Wilbur "on the way", and Bosko accepts the order. He goes out and makes an ice-cream cone for Wilbur and steps out.

Bosko slides out of his window and then he goes onto his bicycle to ride to Honey's house to deliver Wilbur's ice cream cone. Whilst on the way, Bosko keeps on bumping onto lumps of wood through the planks in which the ice cream scoop flies up into the air and Bosko has to place his cone in a direction on which the ice cream will land.

Wilbur is still demanding for his ice cream, and his temper shows that he has very little patience. In time, Bosko knocks on the door; and Honey answers the door "Come in", and then he delivers the ice-cream to Honey not realizing it was for Wilbur, and Wilbur storms in and shouts "Hey that's mine!", he takes a lick of the ice-cream and he bursts with a tantrum by shrieking at Bosko, "I don't like vanilla!", and blows ice-cream on Bosko. Wilbur runs off as Bosko starts to chase after him.

There is a bit of action going on in this finale, where Bosko chases Wilbur up the stairs; and then Wilbur swings onto a pendulum and kicks Bosko in the face, that almost knocks him out. Wilbur slides down the handrail and removes it, while Bosko slides down and he hits a lot of the posts in the crotch. He then slides onto a "cart", and then he ends up flying out the window, and a safe landing by landing onto a pile of long underwear, hanging by the washing line. Oh no, Wilbur comes in and pulls the washing line forwards, and removes the rear hatch from the underwear in which Bosko falls onto a tub with soapy water, Bosko looks at the camera confused with undies stuck on his head - and that's all folks!

That's the end of the review, my views on this cartoon: well, I didn't really think much of it. It has a story, and I guess that it is a good thing, there isn't too many reused gags (probably except the gag in Hold Anything where Bosko plays the goat as bagpipes), but the dog used as a chordian was better developed. I also really don't like the character Wilbur because he's such a brat and short tempered, I guess that children were like that back in the early 1930's, but I'm not that old to know that.