24. Bosko at the Zoo (1932)

This is the first cartoon to be released in 1932, and I think it had some very good cartoons released in there:

Warner cartoon no. 23.
Release date: January 9, 1932.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Directed by: Hugh Harman
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Starring: Johnny Murray (Bosko).
Animation: Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Larry Martin.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

The short starts off with Bosko and Honey, Bosko is riding on his bicycle, with Honey sitting on the steers, and they are riding at the zoo. Bosko seems to be careless while riding on his bike, as he rides through bumpy stones, and even cycles onto a stone that sends Honey flying up in the air, so Bosko has the effort to put Honey back in place. Honey complains, "Be careful, Bosko" to him. He does the same thing twice. I believe they must be singing Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay at least according to the Internet Movie Database.

 Bosko and Honey cycle, as soon as they spot the zoo, they step off their bike and skip along to the zoo. Honey, who is delighted beams, "Won't this be fun Bosko?". Bosko and Honey hear a lion roar off-screen that scares Honey. Bosko encourages her to step inside, "Come on Honey, that lion won't hurt you." They skip along inside the zoo, then a lion inside his cage jumps to the bars and growls at Bosko and Honey, trying to break out of the bars unsuccessfully, and so Bosko and Honey run away from the lion.

Honey and Bosko find a fish tank in an aquarium, Honey looks at the fishes, and comments to Bosko, "Bosko, ain't that cute?" trying to get his opinion, in which he does. They look inside the fish tank, and there appears to be two fishes in there playing leapfrog, the whole "leapfrog" game is animation cycle used. There is a huge fish that swims inside the tank, scowls at Bosko and Honey, then blows bubbles towards the audience, and swims off.

Bosko and Honey notice an octopus with six other little fishes, the octopus uses his legs for the fishes to go around as a "Merry-Go-Round" type ride. Huh, I remember this being reused in Ain't Nature Grand and I think The Tree's Knees, but I'm having trouble remembering. An error made here is that the octopus has six legs in this cartoon, while in real life an octopus has eight legs, "octo" is Latin for the number eight.

 Bosko and Honey continue to look at the octopus, while without noticing, an ostrich in her cage, sneakily steals Bosko's hat, he feels that his hat has been taken, and he chases after the ostrich. We don't see Honey in the rest of the cartoon. The ostrich runs off with Bosko's hat, and Bosko chases after the ostrich (even though he won't get him, because ostriches are very fast runners). Bosko pauses and spots a rope on the ground, he grabs the ostrich with his rope right in the neck. Bosko ties the rope onto a tree, so he thinks the ostrich will stop. Nope, the ostrich is still so powerful and strong at running, that Bosko whirls around a tree and ends up in another part landing on a porcupine. The porcupine is angry and complains to Bosko, with his fur and spikes all out. He puts on his fur back on like a coat.

 Bosko finally grabs hold onto the back of the ostriches' feathers, but the ostrich swallows his hat, and it lands right in his stomach. Bosko drags the ostrich's neck into her nest, to lay an ostrich egg, Bosko is very tempered and shouts at the ostrich, "GET IN THERE!", the ostrich hesitates and pauses, while she stands on the nest, Bosko loses his patience by demanding, "Go on!" The egg is hatches, so Bosko cracks it in half and gets his hat back.

As soon as Bosko gets his hat back, he walks away to get out of the cage, but the ostrich follows him behind and tries to take his hat again, while Bosko asks him to "beat it". The ostrich becomes emotional, and breaks down into tears. Bosko tries to comfort the ostrich, "There, there" says Bosko. Bosko brings out a flute out of his pants, and he starts to play music, and the ostrich starts to dance to the music. With the ostrich dancing and shaking; Bosko makes annoying sounds that I can't tell if it's singing or trying to make music with his mouth. Other kangaroos start to dance to Bosko's annoying music, with two joeys jumping out of the kangaroo pouch, and back into the pouch. Also, there are beavers in the backgrounds patting a piece of wood with their tails.

 Meanwhile, there are two monkeys who are hanging on a limb, who appear to be scratching themselves with fleas inside them. They start scratching on each others backs, with a monkey asking the other monkey to pull a flea out of his back. The two monkeys grab a plate, and one monkey grabs cutlery, and they try to eat it. One monkey is selfish, only wanting to eat the flea himself, the other monkey tries to eat the flea with his hand, while the one on his right jabs his fork on his hand.

Both monkeys start quarreling, and Bosko barges inside the monkey cage without any of his business, the innocent monkey leaves the cage through the gaps. Bosko gives the other monkey a telling off, "Naughty, naughty". The monkey pulls Bosko's nose, it stretches and then he lets his nose go that smacks him back in the face. Bosko starts to spank the baby in the bottom.

 While Bosko is punishing the baby monkey, a huge ape appears who gives the attitude to Bosko like, "Oi, that's my children you're spanking!" The gorilla growls at Bosko, he looks behind and finds a huge gorilla about to murder him any second. The animation of the gorilla approaching was actually reused in Congo Jazz, with the growling scenes new animation. There is a whole sequence with chasing going on between Bosko and the gorilla, and it looks like that they're not going through different cages, but a corridor of cages. Bosko gets hit by a tree while running, the gorilla stops chasing him, while the monkey looks at Bosko, and kicks him in the shin, then the chasing continues.

It seems to be that the way the cages were laid out is so strange because, there is no walls that show other cages for other animals, it's just a corridor, and as Bosko jumps off the cage, there is no wall to protect it, it feels strange.

Bosko jumps off the building, to what appears to be ropes hanging from a tree, but instead it's a snake, and Bosko ends up dropping, by letting go of the snake. Bosko lands onto a lion in his cage (I wonder if it's the same lion), so the lion starts to chase after Bosko and even with animation reuse from Bosko's Shipwrecked.

The ostrich notices Bosko being chased by a lion, so the ostrich runs away, and lands onto what appears to be a rock in a pond, but it's a seal, so the seal runs away in panic as well. The ostrich and the seal continue to run away until they reach a wall, which leaves them cornered, but Bosko climbs on top of them, up to the top of the wall, where he is safe. The lion runs right at the wall, and SLAMS right onto the ostrich and the seal, and they are stuck together in a rounded body - and that's all folks!

This cartoon had a number of it's footage reused from earlier cartoons, but not MOST of it. This cartoon sort of had a good story with it, showing Bosko having to steal with a number of animals, and there is story climaxes here. There will be some Bosko cartoons coming through which I consider to be "very good", but chances are there won't be too many.