09. Dumb Patrol (1931)

Release date: May 30th, 1931

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising

Starring: Bernard Brown (Bosko, Villain, Honey)

Wow, a cartoon where the year is actually important in its name! There would also be a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon by Gerry Chiriquí called Dumb Patrol made in 1964. This one, the 1931 cartoon, is about Bosko fighting during the Great War. Still pictures don’t convey it, but the title card is animated, quite impressively! With bombs bursting and explosions and everything. I’m sure that was quite a feat in 1931, or at least something you didn’t see often! The previous cartoon, Ups ‘n Downs, also had an animated title card of a horse running along a racetrack.

It’s the Great War, and merrily is Bosko oiling up his dinky little airplane. There are bombs exploding around them and filling the ground with holes, so it’s pretty amusing watching Bosko continue to fill up his plane, whistling and dancing, completely unscathed by the detonation around him.

We meet the villain of the cartoon, a dastardly man in a big, clunky airplane, spraying everything he sees with bullets. He notices the audience and shoots at them too. I really think that’s a good touch, erasing any predictability or monotony from a scene and going straight for the audience! Its impact would definitely be heightened watching in a movie theater instead of on an iPhone, but you get the point.

The villain bombs the area where Bosko is, prompting the plane to crawl into Bosko’s arms for safety (which I love, I’m glad to see they were having fun with this cartoon).

Bosko curses at the bomber and climbs into his plane, preparing to engage in a dogfight. We get this beautiful scene of the plane creeping forward (much like Porky and his plane in Porky in Wackyland). The animation is stellar for its time, very imaginative, loose, and stretchy. Once the plane enters the air it uses its wings to swim freestyle towards the villain.

To get him off his trail, the villain sends bombs and cannonballs hurtling towards Bosko, working the plane down to skin and bones (or wood and nails) and sending Bosko spiraling towards the ground. There’s a bombed building just below him, its walls crumbling and exposed, but there’s a piano perfectly intact and some unscathed pajamas sitting on a clothesline waiting to catch Bosko in safety.

Out of nowhere, honey enters the scene, unaffected by the destruction around her. It seems she got a slight redesign here, now donning some lipstick, making her seem particularly Minnie Mouse-esque. Honey is ecstatic to see Bosko, until he kisses her, which prompts her to scold him with her voice sped up and indistinguishable. This entire scene with Honey and Bosko is odd, because it feels like it pops up out of nowhere, but that’s what makes it so funny, too. Absurdity is a very faithful companion to humor.

In an attempt to charm her, Bosko plays a happy melody on the piano, and the two reconcile by dancing. A nice little cheery interlude to keep the spirits up during the depression, the music is as catchy and happy as ever.

Back to the villain, he laughs and sends some more bombs Bosko’s way.

The piano Bosko was playing is now turned into a makeshift harp. This scene is timed pretty well! A problem with some of the jokes in the Bosko cartoons is that they seem to drag on for way longer than they needed to be, but here the bomb is dropped quickly and the switch between piano music and harp music is imminent. A good snappy pace that we’ll see pick up and be used more often as the years go by.

Bosko finds a dog outside and fashions it into an airplane to go after the enemy, utilizing a picket fence as artillery. Another creative and fun gag visually and conceptually! Bosko pellets the enemy with wood, and the enemy’s plane explodes, turning into multiple mini planes like bees.

Bosko puffs out some smoke to keep the “bees” at bay, and iris out as he laughs.

I think this is my favorite Bosko yet! The pace is quicker than previous cartoons, and the jokes hit harder because of that. There’s some great creative animation (like the plane inching along on the ground, the giant enemy plane turning into an army of angry bees), and a nice, happy musical interlude in the middle. It’s evident that Harman and Ising had a lot of fun with this one. Overall, a good short! Definitely above average!