12. The Tree's Knees (1931)

Release date: July 25th, 1931

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising

Starring: Johnny Murray (Bosko)

The Tree’s Knees would be the last Bosko cartoon that wouldn’t feature his name in the title. Also, it would be the last cartoon directed by BOTH Harman and Ising! After this, Rudolf Ising would go on to direct every Merrie Melodies cartoon, and Hugh Harman would direct every Looney Tunes cartoon until their departure from Warner Bros. and onto Metro Goldwyn-Meyer in 1933.

Bosko (like in virtually every other cartoon thus far) is whistling merrily as he strides through the forest, lugging an axe behind him. We get some neat reflection shots as he passes by various puddles.

Finally, he approaches his destination: a nice big tree. Just as he prepares himself to strike his axe into the tree, the tree comes to life and cowers, mortified.

A squirrel pops out of the tree and pleads “Oh, won’t you spare that tree!” four miniature trees (its children) cower around the giant tree as Bosko frowns, thinking. Instead of striking an axe into the tree and murdering it in front of its family (which I love the concept of, very funny and morbid), he reaches into his pants and pulls out a harmonica, puffing out a rousing rendition of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” 

The trees dance around it’s parental figure, using it like a maypole, clearly ecstatic that a murder has been avoided. Bosko gives his familiar “Ain’t that cute?” catchphrase. One of the tree children blows a raspberry at Bosko, prompting Bosko to chase after it (the scene being entirely reused from Ain’t Nature Grand!, though the tree replaces a butterfly that Bosko had been chasing).

Catching the tree, Bosko tears off its bark, leaving the tree shivering, naked, and distraught (what a description!). The tree gives Bosko a swift kick to the knee, shuffling back into its skin and marching away in a huff. Bosko exclaims “Well, shut my mouth!” (also reused from Ain’t Nature Grand!) and strides away with his axe, reusing the same animation from the beginning of the short.

Focus is now on a mother bird singing “Rock-a-Bye Baby” to her children, with an anthropomorphic tree rocking the nest of birds. At one point, the tree rocks the nest, but the birds stay suspended in midair and try to clamor for safety. Once again, Bosko remarks “Ain’t that cute!” 

Evidently it ain’t all that cute, because one of the birds shits on his hat and we get this GREAT expression of him gawking in disgust.

We find out that it isn’t bird shit after all (very clever!), but a bird spitting at Bosko. Bosko scowls up at the bird, but as soon as we think he’s going to take action, a butterfly flits into scene and Bosko gets distracted, chasing it and reusing footage from, once again, Ain’t Nature Grand! This could actually be a really funny gag if executed properly, but unfortunately it isn’t. If Bosko were about to strike at the bird, maybe pull up his sleeve and prepare to punch it with a nice suspenseful string track in the background, the bird cowering in fear... When all of the sudden the butterfly comes in and he chases it—now THAT would be good, and I’m not sure if that’s what they were potentially aiming for? But the butterfly is mainly used as a segue and an excuse to reuse some more animation.

Bosko chases after the butterfly, who flies in between a line of birch trees, which Bosko sees as a wonderful opportunity to use as a harp. We move into our musical portion of the cartoon with some visual puns, such as a literal weeping willow tree and cattails meowing in time to the music by a pond.

The gag of the matryoshka birds from Congo Jazz (and Big Man from the North too, technically, though THAT was reused from Congo Jazz) once more makes an appearance. The concept of mice playing and bouncing around on a saw is also used again, borrowed from Hold Anything. As you can probably tell by now, this cartoon in particular rehashes a lot of gags and footage from previous cartoons, thus draining it of any form of individuality or distinguishability.

(Deliberately poor photo use... It’s water!) One of the mice jumps into the pond and starts to drown, prompting the other mouse to save it. The first mouse is swelled up like a balloon full of water, and after unsuccessfully poking it sitting upright, causing the mouse to spew a ton of water on the other mouse’s face (confused yet?). Mouse 1 falls on its back and mouse 2 slides its tail up, smoothing out the balloon and getting rid of the water.

To celebrate another death prevented after the first near death experience in the same cartoon, the mice saw off a slice of a nearby log and together form the shape of a phonograph, segueing us into one final musical dance sequence as the cartoon comes to a close.

Unfortunately, this cartoon was even more barren than the other Bosko cartoons. Bosko doesn’t have much personality to begin with—Honey fares slightly better, so the two of them make a good pair in cartoons, but Honey is absent in this cartoon, and consequently, so is any charisma. I have no problem with reusing animation, you gotta do what you gotta do, but the butterfly sequence from Ain’t Nature Grand! was used twice in this short (and one time with the same butterfly). Like the rest of the Bosko cartoons that are subpar, it feels as if they had too much time to deal with and not enough material. Overall it wasn’t a memorable short. The highlight was probably tricking the audience into thinking a bird shit on Bosko (that was very clever!) and the mice forming the phonograph also makes for a funny drawing. The music was catchy and enjoyable as always, but that’s about it. Unfortunately, there isn’t much going for this short. Not terrible, but boring.