02. Congo Jazz (1930)

Release date: September 13th, 1930 

Series: Looney Tunes 

Director: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising 

Starring: Bernard Brown (Bosko) 

Congo Jazz stars Bosko as a hunter in the jungle, who gets himself out of various tricky situations with predators by enticing them with music. It’s the first cartoon where he speaks with a high, squeaky, Mickey Mouse-esque voice, which would serve as the basis for the voices of other upcoming "stars" (I use that term loosely) such as Buddy and Beans. Composer Bernard Brown is to thank--with Bosko's minstrel dialect now absent, Brown was chosen to supplement his voice instead.

Like any good cartoon, the short starts out with Bosko screaming off-screen. We fade into him tiptoeing through the jungle (quite reminiscent of Elmer Fudd) and randomly screaming every few steps in time with the music (NOT quite reminiscent of Elmer Fudd).

We see that Bosko is being followed by a hungry tiger, much to his oblivion. Soon enough, Bosko takes notice, because the tiger licks him. Terrified, Bosko attempts to shoot the tiger, but to no avail. A chase sequence ensues with some creative, rubber hose, stretchy gags, including this great frame:

Desperate to save his skin, Bosko brings out a clarinet (Well. An ambiguous pipe instrument) from his pocket and begins playing it to calm the tiger down. It works, and what started as a chase sequence now ends in a game of patty cake.

Bosko and the tiger depart, and Bosko notices two monkeys playing leap frog. Lured in by their cuteness, Bosko picks one of the monkeys up and begins to pet it.

The monkey isn’t too pleased with this development, and takes it out on Bosko by spitting in his face.

The logical thing to do, of course, is pull down the monkey’s fur and spank him... Until the monkey’s mother approaches.

(I know this is before the Hays Office, but I can’t help but giggle like a 5 year old at this. An unabashed display of ass.) 

The gorilla is clearly pissed at Bosko, so Bosko feebly offers the gorilla some gum, and once again they bond over the power of music.

The rest of the cartoon is basically the same: all of the critters join in to make a communal band, filled with musical and visual gags like these:

 I know I use this as a descriptor often, but Congo Jazz is a very fun cartoon! It’s your stereotypical “animals and plants come to life and play music” scenario, but the cartoon is very cheery. There’s not much that stands out exceptionally for me, like Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid and Sinkin’ in the Bathtub it’s decent. Not bad, but not Oscar worthy either. This is a very cheerful and happy cartoon, though, which you can never go wrong with that.