Yodelling Yokels (June 1931)

Summary
The cartoon starts off with Bosko yodelling in the mountains, playing the accordian. After a walk he yodells at Honey, who yodells back andcomes out to play. Bosko is high on a cliff and slides down a very tall tree. When he lands, he and Honey end up on some improvised skis and Honey f herself in trouble floating down the ice on a river. Bosko and his dog manage to save her before she goes off the waterfall. There is alsoa mouse in Honey's house putting into a wedge of Swiss cheese with a piece of spaghetti.

Notable gags

• There are 3 bears(I think bears, thet have Mickey Mouse ears
• Bosko shoots an owl that laughs at him and laughs hysterically
• Bosko's trip down the tree is filled w8th painful encounters with branches
• Honey turns into a huge rolling snowball
• The dog's teeth stretch out to save Honey

Commentary

This is not a great cartoon, but it does have a couple of things going for it. The first is avoiding the "everything is an instrument" standard that the Looney Tunes were getting away from. It may not actually be a plot, but this cartoon does have something happen. The spot gags here are more slap-stick than the early Looney Tunes. I have to admit that Bosko's long ride down the tree made me giggle, even if it was broad. The clever bit here was the timing of the branches. The last set was just a little bit longer than expected.

The other plus for this cartoon is the absolutely random and unexplained mouse playing golf. I can't say that it works completely, but it's a start. Overall this is a missable and forgettable cartoon.

--Jack

Dumb Patrol (April 1931)

Summary:
The first war cartoon from Warner Bros. Bosko and his pet plane are attacked by a very surprisingly non-stereotypical German. After his plane is destroyed he finds himself with a French Honey and a fully functional piano. His singing and dancing with Honey is interrupted and he builds a plane out a Dachshund and a broom. Bosko then defeats the bad guy and laughs.

Notable Gags:

• Bosko's plane flaps its wings and "swims" to fly
• As soon as Bosko lands his clothes come back
• French Honey apparently has a hard time understanding French
• The old U pipe to return bullets gag
• The bad guys plane is blown into hundreds of tiny planes that Bosko disposes of with bug spray

Commentary:
This cartoon was again a little disappointing It's comforting to know that the Warners people will eventually make better use out of wartime material. Even Bosko the Doughboy is more entertaining. There really just weren't enough gags. I think the most creative one here is the U-Pipe gag so famous in my mind due to Spaceballs. Also I do have to admit that Honey not understanding French put me in mind of Holy Grail. Even so, I can see the changes happening in how the Termite Terrace (That might be anachronistic) people are approaching cartoons. It is getting better. I know I complain a lot about the general lack of quality in these early cartoons, and I stand by that, but I do have to admit it's getting better.

--Jack

Ups 'N Downs (1931)

Summary
A day at the races. Bosko is selling hot dogs, which dance on the griddle. Spectators arrive in various silly ways and then Bosko sneakily leaves his stand to go to a locked shed. We see the horses and jockeys training and it becomes clear that Bosko intends to race. We soon find out that his horse is rather impressively not alive - it's mechanical. The mechanical horse proves to be troublesome, but every time it breaks, Bosko is able to put it back together. Bosko eventually wins the race by extending the horse's neck in a "Go Go Gadget!" sort of way.

Notable Gags

• People riding a cow as a trolley, squeezing its head for a horn
• A dog buying a hot dog, The hot dog comes alive and pleads "Mammy!", the dog replies "Sonny-boy!" and the dance off together
• Mice sneak in to the race with the unwitting help of an ostrich
  
• A racehorse trains like a boxer
• One too big jockey on a too small horse, then a too small jockey on a too big horse.

Commentary
Well, we're back on track for plots, sort of. While there is still a lot of music here, most of the gags are just gags with music playing, not song and dance routines. And of course later we get Bosko's attempt at racing. What's really missing from this cartoon, and many others as well, is genuine humor. Very little in this cartoon can be truly considered funny. There is silliness, and there is what must have been novelty for the time, but little humor. The moist clever bit may have been the hot dog pleading for its life, but the "Mammy" element makes it fall a little flat to a modern audience. And lets not forget the fact that Bosko blatantly cheats and gets away with it. A mechanical horse with an extending neck is hardly on the up and up.

Ain't Nature Grand? (March 1931)

Summary
This cartoon is about a fishing trip Bosko takes. He is followed by a dog that he sends away. He then can't bring himself to kill the worm he brought, so he lets it go and improvises. The worm gets chased by a crow but is able to handle the threat. Bosko then catches a fish who does not appreciate Bosko's attitude about it. The singing and dancing then begins with bees, spiders, frogs and bugs getting into the act. Some apparently gigantic bugs drop what I thought was an olive, but turned out to be a boulder on Bosko's head. They then shrink and attack Bosko with a beehive machine gun, chasing him into a fountain.
Notable gags

• Using the letters NO from the " No Fishing" sign as worms.
• When the worm is being chased by the crow, it rolls into a circle to get away
• After the crow gets the worm, the worm stretches through a few holes and then pulls the bird through. Classic trope of someone getting dragged through a tangled situation.
• The crow puts his feathers back on like a coat
• After catching a fish and being nice to it, Bosko gets spat on for his trouble
• The bugs use a flower as a propeller, on a bug that can already fly
• The flying bugs turn a beehive into a machine gun
  

Commentary

This cartoon is interesting to me for a few reasons. First, there was relatively little singing and dancing. we are continuing or journey away from the strictly musical nature of Looney Tunes. Although I have to say I regret the lack of plot. Second, I think this is the first time, at least for WB, that we see the "Threading" trope. (Not and official trope, but it's when a character is tied to a string that is threaded through a lot of obstacles, then pulled through). Lastly, we see some truly wanton and unprovoked violence. The multi-sized bug attack on Bosko has no rational cause. I won't say this is the beginning of Heckling, but it is certainly in the same vain. Overall, this is no where near my favorite Bosko cartoon, but I have to admit the relative lack of musical silliness was encouraging.

--Jack

Big Man From The North (Feb 1931)

A Plot! A Plot! Finally A Plot! Well, sort of. The cartoon starts off at a Mounted Police station in the middle of a blizzard. Bosko enters causing the storm to blow hard into the building. In the process of re-shutting the door, the Captain loses his pants. He tells Bosko to go "get your man", a mean looking figure with no name, but he's wanted dead or alive whoever he is. Bosko goes out to his dog sled, with a team of dogs in no way prepared for life in the snow. And one not prepared to pull a sled, since he is about a fifth the size of the other dogs. Bosko goes on a sled ride involving a couple of gags and ends up slamming into a bar in the middle of nowhere. Inside, Honey is singing and Bosko sings with her. This is the only vestige of the random music making of the earlier cartoons. Eventually, the Bad Guy comes in and Bosko plucks up the courage to fight him. They have a gun battle in the dark and Bosko stabs the guy in the rear with an ENTIRE SWORD, no really, up to the hilt! Oddly, that does not dispatch the villain, it doesn't even really phase him. Eventually Bosko shoots off his fur, leaving him a skinny weakling and he runs off embarrassed.

Notable Gags:
Bosko pulls off the pants of his boss while being blown by the wind.
Bosko has a tiny dog on his sled team that doesn't reach the ground as they run.
The dogs legs adjust to the up and down landscape, classic gag.
When the dogsled slams into the bar, the dogs meld together and walk off.
Bosko's Gun is apparently a cork-gun
Bosko uses a machine gun on Mr. Baddie
Bosko Sticks an entire sword into Mr. Baddie's rear-end
Bosko shoots off Mr. Baddie's fur, leaving a skinny weakling

I have to say I like this one a little. It's about time we got to an attempt at a plot. I know that even in the Golden Age toons plots were mostly thinly veiled excuses for gags, and that's ok. But even a weak plot is better than random, unconnected gags. The fight at the end isn't as clever as say, Bugs v. Sam, but I can see how blowing the fur off of the villain would have been at least entertaining in the early days.

--Jack

Great News!

Just read on Cartoon Brew that Looney Tunes will be returning to Cartoon Network this month. Can't tell you how excited I am!

--Jack

Box Car Blues (Jan 1931)

This cartoon is much more gag oriented than it is focused on random music making. We start with a musical train and in the last car are our "heroes" Bosko and an unnamed pig (possibly a rough version of the pig from The Booze Hangs High) the two sing for a while, until their car is separated from the rest of the train. This leads to a series of gags that almost exclusivly feature Bosko. The car goes off and on the tracks at random and finally crashes into a tree at the end of the tracks.

Notable gags:

The train becomes anthropomorphic several times. Including when the wheels become hands that choke music out of the whistle, and when it pulls itself up a very steep mountain.

Speaking of the mountain, the train manages to pants the mountain and the mountain pulls his pants back on.

Bosko is repeatey subjected to groin injuries. Primarily from trees and telephone poles.

At one point the tracks get too wide for the car and it splits in half. Bosko fixes the problem by using his neck as a crank to pull the car and tracks back together.

There is also a random cow that is suddenly being chased by the car. It ultimately is smashed by the car, but is ok in spite of that.

Overall this is an interesting cartoon because it departs from the "use any thing as an instrument" gimic. Sinkin' In The Bathtub had a similar runaway vehicle gag, but only after the silly music making. This cartoon also focuses on a certain kind of humor, namely pain. It is Bosko's trouble and pain that make us laugh. For whatever reason, it doesn't work here as much as it will in later Warner shorts. There is something missing here, maybe it isnthe fact that Bosko is not somehow inflicting the pain on himself. The Coyote could stop chasing the Roadrunner if he wanted to. I'm not sure I will continue to muse on this as we move on through the cartoons. Maybe something will occur to me.

-- Jack