49. Bosko in Dutch (1933)

Release date: January 14th, 1933

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Hugh Harman and Friz Freleng

Starring: Johnny Murray (Bosko, Goopy), 

Some milestones here! First off, this is my 50th review (counting Bosko, the Talk-ink Kid)! Already hard to believe. And yet we’re only 5% of the way through! I hope you’ve enjoyed these as much as I have! Also worth noting, this is Friz Freleng’s first credit as director! Granted, he’s co-directing with Hugh Harman—his first directorial short alone would be Buddy the Gob, released nearly a year exactly after this one on January 13th, 1934. Here, we observe Bosko and Honey in Holland.

Open to a wintry scene in Holland, where everyone is ice skating, including Bosko and Bruno. A little detail I love in this short is that almost all of the characters are donning clogs. Bosko is ice skating, with skates attached to his clogs. Even Bruno has clogs.

There’s an extended scene of Bosko skating and finessing his way on the ice with little tricks, Bruno carrying a cart full of milk containers, and even Goopy Geer doing his dance from Goopy Geer on the ice. The entire scene runs a bit too long for my taste, almost taking up exactly half of the cartoon, but there are some good gags.

Gags include Goopy twisting himself up while skating and untwisting himself, a wiener dog with a single skate under its torso, a family of ducks sitting in clogs while the mother skates on—one of the ducks pauses to go use the out-house and come back, ready to continue. Gotta love that bathroom humor! And here I was thinking about how Looney Tunes typically strayed away from that stuff—Bruno spilling a can of milk, prompting a bunch of literal catfish to jump out of a hole and lap it up, and a family of fleas escaping Bruno’s back, all wearing clogs with great sound synchronization.

Bosko approaches a building and rings the doorbell. Said building turns out to be a windmill! Even more amusingly perplexing, Honey lives in the windmill. She greets Bosko from an open window above, and Bosko grabs a hold of the windmill’s propellers (if you will), riding up to greet her.

Bosko asks “Ain’t we got fun?”, and before you know it, the lovebirds are singing and clogging their way through a fun rendition of “It’s Tulip Time in Holland”. I love all the clogs in this cartoon. Even every single little flea on Bruno had clogs—I would’ve loved to see them pitching that as an idea.

While they sing, two cats (identical to Wilbur) are ice skating to the beat of the music. They narrowly avoid crashing into an open gap in the ice, but after a jump cut of Bosko and Honey dancing and a repeat of the same footage of the two cats, the second time they actually DO fall in.

Festivities are interrupted when Bosko and Honey hear their cries for help. If they couldn’t hear them, a helpful text of “HELP” slides in from the window, even pointing outside. Gotta love it! Honey begs for Bosko to save them.

Heroic Bosko jumps out the window and lands in a pair of pajamas on a clothesline. He pulls himself over to where the drowning cats are and plucks them out of the water, signaling for honey to pull him back in. I love the music during this scene! So jazzy and alert! 

Just as Bosko’s about to return the cats to safety, the pajamas buckle under the weight and break, sending all three of them tumbling to the ground. The two cats crack the ice while Bosko lands on the cement, and the cats are stranded on a piece of ice as they head down some rapids (parallel to Honey's situation in Yodeling Yokels).

Bosko chases after them hurriedly, but he’s too late. The two cats get sucked into a drain under a bridge. Bosko runs to the nearest water pump and pumps his heart out until the two cats pop out, safe and sound. Bosko and honey pick each of the cats up, who shake hands together. Iris out.

This cartoon reminded me of the earlier Bosko cartoons, particularly from early 1931. Possibly because of the similar setup to Yodeling Yokels? It wasn’t the best Bosko cartoon, especially with what we’ve been seeing, but also isn’t the worst either. I loved the detail of everyone wearing clogs, and Friz Freleng’s love of musical timing is evident. The gag with the catfish was great too! Unfortunately, the whole skating scene dragged on too long for my tastes, but not enough for me to not enjoy it. Decent cartoon, nothing groundbreaking, but nothing horrible. It wouldn’t hurt you or amaze you to check it out, if anything, watch for its historical significance and see how much cartoons have evolved since then!

Link!