28. Big-Hearted Bosko (1932)

Hey, sorry if it's been too long since I posted, but I board during the week, and there isn't a chance to post, even if I had time, but at least it's the weekend, and here is Big-Hearted Bosko.

Warner cartoon no. 27.
Release date: 5 March 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 Rollin Hamilton.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

Sorry, if the framegrabs are going to be rather dodgy, but what can I do about it - I don't have a restoration team of my own, and that's the only copy I could find suitable, with this quality, and it will have to do.

 The short starts off with Bosko and his dog, Bruno ice-skating on a snowy day on a frozen lake. It appears to be that Bosko and his dog are dancing, while ice-skating at the same time. The ice appears to look safe, and solid. It appears that Bosko swings from a small tree, that turns him back to where he skated, in which the dog (that has no skates) slides backwards to follow back Bosko, at least there is some weight in the animation. Bosko jumps on a log, in which he skids the snow off the log with his skates, and as soon as the dog runs out of the log, he is covered in snow like a snowman.

After that, there is exactly two minutes with just dancing and skating in this short, which tires me off; but at least the plot eventually gets moving. It shows all the tricks that Bosko does while skating (well, not really tricks) but he jumps from ice patches through ice water with xylophone music. He also skates in which he removes the icicles, which makes a sound like playing the xylophone all the way down.

After about a minute and a half of nothing really going on, something finally happens when Bruno tries to skid away from a small pond of icy water, in which he nearly drowns, and cries for help. Well, that's nothing to look forward to, really. Bosko comes by the icy pond and cries "Bruno! Bruno!" Bosko runs around in a panic attack screaming, "What'll I do, what'll I do?" Bosko breaks down crying - I must say that the acting of Bosko crying isn't very realistic at all because Bosko's just a happy-chappy who likes singing and dancing, and can't make a good performance of sobbing. Yes, yes; I know that this was in 1932, before a time when animation had "realism" but I still don't like it much, even if it was good for it's time.

Bruno climbs out of a log, standing on ice, and shouts "Yoo-hoo" at Bosko, since it was obviously all a trick to Bosko. Bosko doesn't like the way Bruno tricked him, so he breaks a stick from a branch and tries to throw it at Bruno but misses, which causes Bruno to run after the stick, like a normal pet running after a ball, stick, etc.

The stick lies down on a side of the riverbank, by a tree and also a basket. Bruno runs for the stick, (by going through piles of snow in the middle of the ice), and he notices a baby crying inside the basket. Bruno gets a better look at the basket to take a sniff; whilst he sniffs, the baby starts crying in which Bruno reacts to the movement and he runs off barking to Bosko for help. It appears to be that Bosko is skating to Bruno off-screen while Bruno follows on - Bruno knocks himself into a tree in which piles of snow fall on him, and he gets back on his track; in which Bosko and Bruno find the basket.

Bosko and Bruno make a plot to open the basket, but they are unsure about opening it. As the basket is opened, it turns out to be obviously a baby crying there after all. Bosko and Bruno try to look after the baby, but the baby plays with Bruno by squeezing his nose like a horn, in which Bosko laughs. The baby continues to cry, so Bosko and Bruno decide to take him home and become foster parents. Bosko and Bruno skate back with the baby continuously crying, and Bosko sings Rock-a-Bye Baby and the poses of Bosko there are quite unusual in terms of animation.

Back at home, the baby is all tucked up in a cradle by the fireplace, with Bruno rocking the cradle gently and Bosko playing the violin. The baby appears to be continuously crying every time Bosko stops playing the violin, the baby crying there is a great example for frustration towards Bruno and Bosko trying their best to look after the baby. 

As Bruno suddenly gives up looking after the baby because of continuous crying, he decides to sit down in a stove, because he doesn't realize that he's sitting down on a very hot one. Suddenly, his rear end is burning with flames, and Bruno yells for help. Bruno grabs a bucket of water, in which the flames extinguish just like putting the fire out of a stove or fireplace, now that gag is one I quite like.

The small incident that happened to Bruno amuses the baby, but as nothing happens, the baby starts to cry again.So, Bosko starts to get his flute out and play traditional American music like The Girl I Left Behind Me with Bruno playing the drums with him. The baby continues to cry, so Bosko asks him "What's the matter?" in which the baby screams "I'm crying for the carolines", in which the baby is in reference to the popular song at the time Cryin' for the Carolines.

Bruno steps out of the door, all reluctant to look after the baby - and he slams the door so he won't hear another baby scream. Bosko starts to think of another idea to tone down the baby's volume by playing the piano. Bosko uses his hands as tricks in which a shadow shows that looks like a duck and into a duckling, which are shadow puppets. He also does shadow puppets for goats, pigs and donkeys.

Bruno steps out to listen to the music, and he grabs a lamp shade like a hula dress, and starts to dance. The baby is entertained by Bruno, and so is Bosko. Bosko slides on a rug that slides him to a stove, in which Bosko opens the stove in which a goose is in there that quacks. Bosko closes the stove and continues to dance back by sliding back to the living room. Bosko continues to dance with Bruno and the baby, until a goldfish bowl falls on his head because he's standing near it. The goldfish bowl lands on his head, with Bruno and the baby laughing - and that's all folks.

This short was pretty much a hit-and-miss cartoon in many ways, it had some story, but it was all mostly singing-and-dancing. The ice-skating sequence wasn't all particularly exciting, but it did keep the cartoon going. What I mostly liked about the cartoon is sort of the baby cries, as it's just realistic. The acting in that animation wasn't brilliant, even though the animators were probably trying their best. It's one of those many Bosko cartoons that I don't particularly bother with, but at least there's some goodness that comes to it.

VITAL Note to Followers

Tomorrow (September 5th) I return back to school, and I board there. Due to the fact that Blogger websites is blocked on school computers on student users, it means that I can't post until Friday, and I can really only post until Friday to Sunday. I will try and publish a post or review during the week, but I can only post it once and no more until weekends (Friday and Sundays). In the meantime, the other reviews I've done will have to do for now. But I'm at my FINAL year at school, and my leaver's day is on July 4th 2012, and I'll be finished with school, and plan to go to college hopefully.

27. Freddy the Freshman (1932)

Warner cartoon no. 26.
Release date: February 20, 1932.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Directed by: Rudolf Ising.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Cast unknown.
Animation: Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Paul Smith.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

This one is a popular Harman-Ising cartoon, but it's one that I'm not very keen on - much like the other cartoons.

The short starts off with Freddy's car driving down (the title cards from the car), and a lot of high school folks are on different sides of the road, they all seem to worship Freddy, who is a freshman at high school. Freddy is driving down the road to his school, and according to a YouTube video here, it mentions the lyrics that Freddy is singing, "Rah! Rah! Ra-cha-cha! That's our college yell / Baggy pants, crazy dance. It's Freddy, can't you tell?" Freddy also honks his horn at the back of the car, and he bangs on the engine at the front. His engine almost explodes, that ends up extended before the car goes back to it's normal shape.

Meanwhile, at high school; Freddy's sweetheart who is unnamed is having a dance at the school halls, with all the other high-school animals joining in. There appears to be a little bird conducting music with these dogs as the orchestra. The bird is also conducting their vocal chords by lowering the volume and raising their voices. We also appear to see these two cow couples dancing that look like Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar, who are part of the Disney regime, I wonder if Harman-Ising bought the rights to use them, or if Disney even sued them because they reused a lot of Disney.

Freddy the Freshman continues to drive along the road until there is a stone, that knocks him out into the sky, with his car broken into pieces and they all go back into pieces with Freddy landing back in his car. Freddy enters inside the hall to greet his supporters "Hi-ho everybody, hi-ho!", and he's welcomed by so many of his friends and admirers. I have to admit; I find it very strange that he's a freshman and yet he's one of the most popular students in school, unless he's a very popular outcast - I don't know.

Oh wait, he doesn't sound like an outcast to me, because he's walking around the hall with his "people" standing on sides to let him walk past, he also seems very boastful and cocky by shouting "Who gets all the girlies chasing him around"?, his crowd chant "Freddy the Freshman!" - wow, since he's a freshman he's all cocky and hard?? Does this make him cool, that he wears raccoons as coats? We learn about the immodest Freddy that he plays the ukulele and saxophone. Goodness, I really don't like that Freddy much only because he sounds very cocky.

Freddie's sweetheart even comments, that all the "pretty babies won't leave him alone" - I know she's referring them as girls, but "babies" makes he think that Freddy "touched" little children. There appears to be a jock standing by Freddie's girl who tries to get her interested by saying that he played for so many American football teams like Harvard or Yale, a little mouse comes out of a spittoon and sings "Freddie the Freshman, the precious kid in town!" Freddie stand up to himself in front of a jock who is his opponent, and challenges a rugby game with him, and thinks he will defeat him. The jock takes his remark as "raspberries".

There is a heading on the screen titled "The Game", in which Freddy and his small team try and defeat the tough, jocks. There are bands playing for the opening, and also cats sitting on a fence, chewing sweets. There appears to be some cheerleaders dancing in a long-shot, why not have a close up of it, or otherwise I'll have to get Daffy Duck from Duck Amuck to shout "A close up you jerk! A CLOSE-UP!" There is a dog referee who pulls the trigger for the game to start, but it's a novelty gun with a mouse blowing a whistle.

The game starts off with the ball being kicked right at the camera, and that shows the game starting. The ball is still in the air, with a pig player trying to catch the ball, but the ball lands inside his stomach, and bounces at different directions in his stomach - the gag is similar and even same sound effects from Battling Bosko - a better cartoon. Freddy manages to kick the ball out of his stomach, by kicking him in the bottom.

Freddy receives help from his defender, who is a dachshund who helps block the players from the other team from trying to get the ball off Freddy, the dachshund forms a "V" shape, until he gets his whole body twisted around a tree. Of course, as I'm British - I know almost nothing about American football except it's sort of similar to a game popular here called Rugby, but with different rules. We call "football" in what Americans call them "soccer", that's our football. If I get the position names wrong, like the defender, correct me. It appears to be that Freddy being the captain, he's trying to get the ostrich with the ball to move, I don't know - I don't know how American football works.

While the football game and antics continue, there are three crows that are also sitting on a fence, and there appears to be a rooster who seems to be stereotyped as a homosexual. With the way the rooster moves his body, and voice attitude, by shouting "Goody, goody, goody! Hold the line!" I'm not surprised to see this, as this was before the Production Code of 1934, but I still think it wasn't suitable. I wonder if Harman-Ising were homophobic.

 As Freddie has got the ball, with all his rivalry team chasing after him, Freddie builds a type of hamster-cage made out of a front yard fence, and he uses it to knock out his rivals trying to grab the ball off him. Hey, wouldn't that be cheating? He also lands onto a pile of clean laundry from the washing line, and he slides up to the very end of the washing line until he places his ball at the goal, so Freddie wins the game - and that's all folks!

 This cartoon is one that I didn't particularly enjoy at all, mostly because of the character Freddie himself, and he wasn't very well developed in terms of character peronality. He's a freshman, and he seems to be one of the most popular boys at school, considering he's a freshman. I find it hard to believe that he scores most of the girls when actually from the designs he looks very "geeky", and not very tough, like the other jocks. He's a cocky character with worshipers who admire him.

26. Battling Bosko (1932)

Warner cartoon no. 25.
Release date: February 6, 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 Paul Smith.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

A new cartoon here, and this is one that I do like out of the Bosko and Harman-Ising cartoons I've seen recently.

 The cartoon starts off with a silhouette of Bosko boxing on a punching bag, and we see Bosko actually practicing his boxing at home. Bosko is preparing for a fight with another strong boxer, he also practices for his John L. Sullivan poses. Very good introduction showing a silhouette of Bosko (unseen) boxing, and then we reveal as the camera shows us Bosko boxing.

Meanwhile, Honey is at home, she's reading a newspaper with Bosko on the front cover with the headline, "Bosko to Fight Champion", she remarks "What a man," to Bosko. She turns on the radio to hear about the boxing. An announcer who is hosting the boxing bets that Bosko is going to get defeated by the champion he's fighting who is favourite to win. She turns off the channel, to kiss a picture frame she has of her boyfriend, Bosko - still hoping he would win. Bosko's fighting rival, apparently named "Gas House Harry" is practicing fighting, and he has more fans than Bosko.

Bosko continues to practice his fighting, until the punching bag punches Bosko out of his stool, and moments later the phone rings - he picks it up and it's Honey speaking. Honey mentions that she bet on Bosko to win, and hopes that he won't get hurt while boxing. So, in the meantime Bosko starts to sing a song about his boxing, with Honey playing on the piano.

Today is finally the big day for Bosko, that is the boxing match that starts. There is a newspaper boy who barks about the fight today, even even throwing papers around so that the public can read about the big fight and place their bets. A lot of animals from different places are traveling from trolleys just to see the big fight. As the trolley stops, a bunch of animals rush out of the trolley, that the trolley falls flat like a burst football.

 

Honey is at home playing the piano, and she is also listening to the radio about the boxing. "Gas House Harry" walks down the arena, and he is appreciated by a lot of his fans, as he is a heavyweight champion. Bosko then walks down the arena with a song to his fans, "I'm a hot-shot guy called Bosko, come and watch me do my stuff!" ToonZone confirms that's what Bosko said. Bosko climbs onto the canvas and prepares to fight!

 We then see Harry and Bosko on the canvas, just before the fight begins, the referee makes an announcement before the fight begins, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have here Gas House Harry--" there is shot showing Honey and her dog's point of view through the radio, and they "boo" towards Gas House. The referee continues on with "---and our new member, Battling Bosko!" and the crowd cheer. I like how this was staged, with a long-shot showing the referee making an announcement, it fits well to the cartoon.

The fight officially begins, with Bosko about to prepare to fight, but Gas House Harry just stands there, and knocks Bosko with one punch, which makes Bosko bounces on each side of the canvas. Bosko hits the bell with his head, so he becomes knocked out for a new seconds, when his coach helps wake him up, and get him prepared for the second round. The coach helps him spray water in his face to stop the sweat, and also sprays his private parts in which Bosko giggles - I bet that was censored.

Bosko gets ready for the second round, with Bosko all energetic and punches Gas Harry right in the chest, and his tattoo with a ship sinks, now that's a great gag. There appears to be a hippo in the audience in shots shouting "Go Bosko" and supporting him. As Bosko and Gas Harry continue to try fighting, the ostrich referee grabs their hands, and they skip along the canvas, and they finish the friendly skip by punching the referee out of the arena, and onto the floor. 

The radio commentary announces that Bosko has been defeated by Gas House Harry, who constantly keeps boxing Harry, and also punches him like a punching bag, until he's finally boxed, he tumble-turns and he stops by lying back knocked-out. The referee starts the count to get Bosko up. Honey hears this, and she's willing to get Bosko to win. She does this by stepping out of the house and rushing through to the arena and help wake Bosko up. She finally sees Bosko and tries to wake up, but it ends with Bosko in a sleepy mood, and he uses the canvas floor as a duvet to sleep - and that's all folks! It seems that Bosko has the fighting ability of Rembrandt - he's always on the canvas ;-).

So far of the Bosko cartoons and Harman-Ising cartoons I've seen, I actually really liked that one. Yes, it had a good tight-story, that showed Bosko's rival who is favourite to win, and it is proven that Bosko loses. The gags in there were very well put, and that's what I do like. It's also great to see that the cartoon is hardly reused at all - I don't think there is any reuses in there. Overall, this cartoon really works and that's one of the 1932 cartoons I really enjoyed watching.

25. Pagan Moon (1932)

Warner cartoon no. 24.
Release date: January 23, 1932.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Director: Rudolf Ising.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Cast unknown.
Animation: Rollin Hamilton and Norm Blackburn.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

The short starts off in an island (probably Hawaii), there is a tropical boy playing his ukulele and singing the title song. He also has a girlfriend who appears to be topless and hula-dancing. There is a moon in the background that rises, that shows rippling water from the shining moon. There are two other tropical men who are playing the guitar in the background, as backup. Soon, the island boy starts to play music with his mouth like a kazoo.

There are animals who live in the island, that join in the music beat, looks like an early animated short of "The Jungle Book" ;-) Oh wait, that would be Congo Jazz. There is a monkey who is sitting on top of a palm tree, using bones as drumsticks and bashing coconuts like the drums. Soon, the monkey bashes in what he thought looked like a coconut, but it's revealed to be a gorilla's head. The gorilla appears to be a parent who shouts at the monkey, the monkey moans "Aw nuts!" he bashes the gorilla on the head, and collapses.

Meanwhile there is a reuse from Congo Jazz where there is a palm tree that is dancing creepily, the animation is the same, but the backgrounds is different (according to ToonZone). There is a group of family birds, who are also dancing to the music on their tree. A little bird runs away inside a can to take a dump inside the cans, but an acorn falls off a branch above, and hits the top part of the can. This scares the little bird, and the little bird instead runs off and hides in the birds nest. This was particularly reused from The Booze Hangs High, with the ducks dancing, and the little duck steps off to go to the toilet.

The island boy skips along with his ukulele, and then he jumps into what appears to be a rock, but instead it's an aligator that opens his jaws. The boy jumps out back onto land, with his ukulele that lands onto the crocodile's mouth, and the aligator swallows it, while the boy tries to get it out. On the first couple of tries, the boy waves his hand to the aligator's mouth, while the crocodile uses his mouth as a threat. He pulls out a stick from the ground, and uses it to wave at the croc's mouth, so the stick is propped inside the crocodile's mouth, the boy runs in and grabs his ukulele back.

The boy continues to skip along, he also leaps on rocks through rivers, and on the last rock he steps on a turtle. The turtle runs along, and the boy is standing on the shell. The turtle halts and bucks the boy into the water, and the turtle walks away by taking his shell off, and rowing.

The boy laughs, so he continues to step through the rocks, and it leads him to a rowing boat in which his girlfriend is in. The hula half-naked girl is singing, while the boy is playing his ukulele, he bounces the ukulele with his bottom, until the ukulele lands into the water, and falls under the sea. The boy swims underwater, to find his ukulele, underwater he sees a lot of fishes swimming. While the boy is swimming underwater, there is a huge fish that swims past, and the boy hides in a cave. The fish looks inside to see if there is anything under there, but instead he blows bubbles at the audience. Aw, c'mon - they reused this from Bosko at the Zoo, and considering that this was this short was released AFTER Bosko at the Zoo.

 There are two fishes playing leap-frog on the piano (reused also from Bosko at the Zoo but with piano animation), the boy swims under, he thinks he sees a rock that he could use to sit down and play the piano. But the "rock" turns out to be a "six-legged octopus" which means a type of octopus used in Harman-Ising cartoons. The octopus is quite aggressive towards the boy, but instead he plays the piano in a jazzy form, and also spitting tobacco at the highest keynote. The octopus starts to join into the music as well, by dancing.

Eventually, the boy is joined in by trumpet-playing fishes who are by a shipwreck, and even two pairs of tapping feet dance to the rhythm at a sunken ship. There is a trombone player, who appears to be playing and steering the steering wheel, with a fish walking on the wheel while it's being steered, until he lands inside the trombone.

After the boy has finished his musical tune, he starts to play the piano himself solo. He plays the piano in a more dramatic tune, with "Da-Da-Daas", but I don't know the name of the tune itself. All the other fishes enjoy his musical performance.

There's one thing that I've noticed in this cartoon: the Boy is a human, and he's underwater. It seems that he's been underwater for several minutes, and yet he's not even drowning at all, that IS a mistake made by Harman-Ising.

All the fishes swim away in fear, but the boy doesn't know yet why they swam. The boy turns around and it appears to be some huge piranha, the boy runs away and it involves a chase sequence. The boy runs into a pipe that's underwater, he blows into it to form a bubble and he runs inside the pipe to go inside the bubble so that he can get back on air, and that the piranha won't get him. Maybe he blew the bubble to get back on air either to avoid the piranha, or to get back oxygen if he's finally lost it. 

The boy is floating in the air inside the bubble, and there appears to be a bird flying by, and pops the bubble. As he pops the bubble, the burst appears to be very powerful that all of the bird's feathers fall out. No, Mr. Bird, you can't put it on as a jacket because you're on AIR! The boy is falling on air, and the girl is on her rowing boat. She pots the boy and paddles along, to find a pelican flying by, and she jumps onto the pelican to safe the boy with his beak. The boy lands safely in the pelican's beak; the boy and the girl are both happy to reunite - and that's all folks!

When I saw that cartoon the first time about a month ago, I didn't to be paying too much attention to it, and it seemed alright, but watching it twice again, made me realize that this cartoon was a "cheater" by Harman-Ising because of many reuses they put in this cartoon, and reuses always put me off, when they are bad, or don't even suit. I'm obviously aware of the Great Depression, but I don't think there should be too many reuses. Also, what I just noticed while watching it was that the boy appears to survive on water for a very long time, and I don't think that's very, very possible at all - unless he's got very, very strong lungs.

Harman-Ising would later create a cartoon that was so much reuses that Warner Bros. had to ask them to remake it again with less reuses, that cartoon would be Bosko and Honey which was unreleased.

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.

23. Red-Headed Baby (1931)

The cartoon short of the Looney Tunes series to be released in 1931, yet I still have so much reviews to go through. It's probably the first official Merrie Melodies cartoon that's has "one-shot" characters, while we've seen three Foxy appearances, and two Piggy appearances.

Warner cartoon no. 22.
Release date: December 26, 1931.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Directed by: Rudolf Ising.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Animation: Rollin Hamilton and Carmen "Max" Maxwell.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

The short starts off with a human who looks like Santa Claus in his shack in the North Pole finishing off a red-headed doll, by adjusting the legs inside the body. The clock strikes (the clock looks like it's 1am to me), Santa yawns, so he decides to go to bed. He brings out his candle holder, as soon as he gets to his bedroom door; he blows out the candle from his shack and it's very dark, so he goes to bed. Huh, interestingly enough, but isn't this the first time that we've seen a human character in all the Warner cartoons produced so far?

As soon as the lights are you, and Santa is off to sleep; the toys will play ;-). So, the red-headed dolly comes to life from the table, she approaches to a radio, and she turns the speakers up. The noise from the radio is all blurry, so the dolly adjusts it and the sound is better. The entire workshop with toys come to life, and start to dance to the music being played on the radio. She starts to sing the title tune, somehow I don't like her design on the dolly, her facial expressions are unappealing.

Toy soldier Napoleon and his soldiers march along, Napoleon spots the red-headed doll, and it comes love at first sight. They start to the sing the title song in duet, and Napoleon sings the verse, "Oh red-headed baby, be mine". Suddenly, a jack-in-the-box pops out and sings a verse, Napoleon brings out his novelty gun; in which he shoots the cork out that hits the jack-in-the-box and he falls back into his box. Everyone cheers at the singing duets, with confetti flying around, but those "see/hear/speak-no-evil" monkeys on the shelve don't appreciate their music. 

 Meanwhile, there is a HUGE tarantula who lives on top of the ceiling, who sings the song "Red-headed baby, you're going to be mine," and ends with a smug laugh. The spider lowers himself down the ceiling by twisting one of his legs to get down. While the dolly and Napoleon are dancing along greatly, Napoleon spots a silhouette-looking spider, he defends the doll by sticking his sword out in front of the tarantula threatening to blade him, if he dared to steal her.

The spider and Napoleon go into a dueling-match called "sword-fighting", the spider is fighting with Napoleon with a bigger sword than his, that's not fair on Napoleon. Napoleon sneaks under the spider's legs, and stabs him in the bottom, and it causes the spider to shriek (it was reused in Big Man from the North but I still assume it was censored). There is even camera point of view in two shots, one shot featuring Napoleon looking at the spider while fighting, and then the next shot showing from the spider's point of view of Napoleon fighting him.

Napoleon and the spider continue to fight with sword, but Napoleon discovers a jack-in-the-box right in front of him, he uses his sword to open it, Jack zooms out and bashes the spider in the face! Napoleon is then hit by a building block, that crushes him. The red headed dolly comes up to Napoleon panicking, and worrying about him. She cries, "Napoleon, Oh Napoleon! Speak to me, speak to me!" She EVEN breaks the fourth wall, by shouting "Is there a doctor in the audience?" Which is common in a lot of cartoons, so it's obviously not unusual to appear in this cartoon.

The dolly continues to try and wake up Napoleon, since he's knocked out. Meanwhile, the spider crawls up on the doll secretly without her noticing, the spider laughs possessively and he kidnaps her! The dolly's screams wake up Napoleon, he's now conscious and he runs after the spider to get the doll back to him. He comments on the spider, "Why that dirty scoundrel!" Napoleon is all flat like a balloon, and he crawls up to a steamer to fill his body up with air to get him back on feet - it worked.

The spider is still grabbing onto the red-headed doll, he boards a toy train set, and the spider is on the roofs of the set, with the doll screaming. Napoleon hops on board on a type of car, and drives after them. He falls out of his car, and he notices a cannon with a rope attached to it, he starts to whirl his rope, and grabs the spider in the neck, but the rope is attached to the cannon, which turns into a ride with Napoleon who is riding it.

The spider gets knocked out of the tunnel from the train set, and he ends up hanging onto a balloon. A candle bit touches the spider in the buttocks. Napoleon loads a cannon with a cork that flies out, bursts the balloon, and the spider falls down as if he's going to crash. MAY DAY!

 All the toys start to cheer and celebrate, Napoleon pulls the binds open and we see the doll, and two backup singers who look like Bosko and Honey. There is a whole musical finale at the end, with all the toys dancing, Napoleon singing, and even Santa in his bed is shaking to the music. Those backup singers with the dolly, just put me off because of just how similar they look compared to Bosko and Honey. The only difference are the costumes and the curls sticking out.

 

 The cartoon ends with Santa stepping out of his bedroom door, shouts "Yipee!" - and that's all folks.

This wasn't a too bad cartoon to watch, and also not a great cartoon to watch. The Bosko cartoons in 1932 (in my opinion become better), but after watching them in 1933, I got bored and desperately wanted to move to Buddy. It seems that Harman-Ising had a lot of cartoons where villains steal the hero's loved ones. I've noticed that in a lot of their shorts, and even some Buddy ones. That's the 1931 cartoons finished, and I'm now onto the 1932 cartoons to watch.