Release date: July 18th, 1931
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising
Starring: Bernard Brown (Bosko, Phone), Carol Trevis (Honey)
The first cartoon to use “Bosko” in its title! Save for The Tree’s Knees, all of the remaining Bosko cartoons would feature his name in the title, typically at the beginning (in similar fashion to the Buddy cartoon titles and the '30s Porky cartoon titles).
The short opens with a telephone ringing. Bosko is asleep, and the anthropomorphic telephone, urgently attempting to rouse him, turns to an alarm clock (who is also sleeping) and tries to wake IT up. Eventually, the phone smacks the clock on the head, waking it up, and urging it to wake up Bosko. The alarm clock has difficulty, waving its bell around trying to get him up. Finally, it resorts to jabbing Bosko in the butt with one of its hands, prompting Bosko to scream and jump out of bed. I like this little scene! The absurdity of a phone trying to wake up an alarm clock so the alarm clock can get Bosko to use the phone is definitely a funny concept.
Bosko sleepily answers the phone, and is greeted by Honey, who proposes that they go on a picnic (and even saying “Make it snappy, Bosko!”). Bosko is clearly enthused, agreeing and calling her baby. I had talked about how I thought Mel Blanc saying that pre-1937 (when he came to Looney Tunes) voice acting was bad was a bit harsh, and how I had taken back that opinion once I started watching these Bosko cartoons. Well, bluntly, this is a prime example of some pretty bad voice acting. Not necessarily their voices, but they take FOREVER to deliver lines. It seems like there’s a pause between each word! It’s hard to convey in a transcription without a video (which is at the bottom of this post), but basically the conversation sounds like “Hello. Bosko! This. Is. Honey!” “Oh! Hell-o!........Honey!” it’s just very awkward and distractingly stretched out.
Bosko marches to his garage and whistles for his car to come to him (much like Sinkin’ in the Bathtub). As he putters along, three miniature train/hybrid cars follow behind, yipping and barking like dogs. Bosko orders them to go home, and I believe the audio is reused directly from ain’t nature grand! I suppose he has a change of heart, because he goes from a scowl to a smile at the camera as he says “Ain’t that cute?”, a catchphrase that he seems to have developed.
In a musical interlude, Bosko brings out his banjo and picks a catchy tune. A mouse is posing as a hood ornament, which comes in handy. One of the strings breaks on the banjo, and Bosko plucks the mouse’s tail and uses that as a replacement. The mouse gets fed up after awhile and leaves Bosko, blowing a raspberry. Once again, Bosko says “Ain’t that cute?” and blows one right back.
Bosko reaches Honey’s house, and uses his car to reach up and grab her as they go on their merry way. A common gag, but amusing and fun nonetheless.
No cartoon is complete without some sort of trouble. Bosko gets stuck trying to go uphill, and opts to push the car up. A little dog appears and starts barking at Bosko, biting his leg and causing him to trip.
Hijinks ensues as the dog bites the tire and inhales the air, swelling up like a balloon. It’s very visually appealing to watch Bosko smooth the dog back out again before discarding it. I suppose this goes for every gag, they become trite since you’ve seen them used so much (or at least stereotyped), but it’s still very amusing to watch.
Tying together the hole in his tire, everything is hunky dory again as Bosko points offscreen and suggests “Let’s picnic there!”
This is where the cartoon takes a turn. Not quite drastically, but so far it has been a cute cartoon (like all of them, I suppose), albeit uniform to the other cartoons and not very significant. We have cheery musical interludes and laugh as we watch Bosko fuss with various animals getting in his way. So it’s certainly jarring when Bosko begins to flirt with Honey.
By flirting, I mean whispering something into her ear, causing her to get angry and stick up her nose while Bosko uncomfortably looks around, attempting to dispel the awkwardness. Delightfully crude! But it’s only uphill from here.
To get her affections back, Bosko reaches into the picnic basket and makes a spectacle of enjoying a sandwich made by Honey, declaring “That sho' is fine!” (though in a stereotypical dialect). It’s an awkward scene—Bosko is chewing loudly with his mouth open, but it’s supposed to be awkward and extravagant. The way he keeps darting his eyes towards Honey for validation is hilarious.
His plan works, and the lovebirds coyly rock back and forth bashfully. Bosko moves just enough so that our focus is on a hole in the middle of a log, and out pops a dog’s head...
...who licks Honey’s ass. The dog pops out of sight, and Honey turns on Bosko, smacking him angrily and leaving him in a daze as she marches away. Bosko laments “Aw, nuts!” as we iris out.
Overall, there isn’t much riveting to say about this cartoon. It felt rather barebones, there really was little to no plot but rather a string of gags (and that’s okay in some cases, but in this case the cartoon felt a bit paper thin). There were some fun moments, like the telephone trying to wake up the alarm clock or Bosko making a fool of himself scarfing down the sandwich. And I love how crude the short gets at the end, with the dog licking Honey’s ass and Honey smacking Bosko! What a change in mood! It certainly left me surprised, which is GOOD. I’m glad that it could elicit that sort of reaction in me! All in all, an average Bosko cartoon, maybe a bit below average since there isn’t much to work with, but not bad by any means (and the music score, as always, makes it enjoyable). I don’t know if I’ll watch it again anytime soon, but it’s worth the watch if you’re curious.
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