Release date: August 12th, 1933
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Hugh Harman
Starring: Johnny Murray (Bosko), The King's Men (Chorus)
The final Bosko cartoon nears closer and closer! Bosko and Honey fantasize what it would have been like to be a musketeer.
Quite an impressive shot of all those flowers! It’s even more dizzying in motion. Bosko is leaping through a field tossing flower petals (as Bosko does), singing “She loves me, she loves me not”. Very jazzy and cute! It’s hard to feel down while listening to a happy, triumphant song accompanied by Bosko and Bruno dancing around.
Honey is also in the dancing mood, sweeping her valuables with glee—even a fish that she plucks out of its fishbowl! I guess you gotta commend her for keeping things clean. Merrily does she dust a portrait of Bosko, putting the duster on her head and puffing our her chest. She quips “You can be had”, a famous line of Mae West’s.
Bosko bursts into her house, just as she’s dusting a picture of the three musketeers. I know it’s to get the plot moving SOMEHOW, but the thought of having a giant portrait in your house of the three musketeers and appropriately labeled as such as hilarious. She croons to Bosko “Ain’t they grand, Bosko?”
As always, Bosko tries to upstage any competition, scoffing “Shucks, that’s nothing!” he snags an umbrella out of the umbrella rack and pretends to sword fight with an invisible foe.
Honey sings “You would be a soldier”, which serves as a transition into an imagination sequence with Bosko sword fighting--the animation is very good. Lots of things happening at once, swords flying everywhere. Bosko runs to a keg and turns the nozzle, spraying beer in the face of his enemies.
Content with his feat, Bosko swaggers into a bar, and as we close in on his mouth a card pops up advertising “The three musketeers”.
Sure enough, the three musketeers are gathered in front of a fireplace, singing. Bosko introduces them as “Athos, Amos, and Andy”, Amos and and referring to the minstrel radio show of the same name. I love that they kept “Athos” though, who was actually one of the three musketeers.
Bosko declares “All for one, and one for all”, prompting the three musketeers to launch into another chorus. Elsewhere, Bosko uses his sword as a bottle opener and uncorks a bottle of alcohol labeled “New Deal, 3.2%”, an obvious reference to prohibition being outlawed in Roosevelt’s new deal. Bosko pours the beer into the first musketeer’s mouth, the second one swallowing, the third one doing some sort of silent burp. Funny gag, but reused so many times it doesn’t take me by surprise.
The bar crowd cheer on the musketeers’ singing, including a guy honking his roast chicken like a horn.
Of course, there’s always that one guy. A grizzly brute scoffs and swallows his turkey in one bite, so you know he means business. He also uses a bystander’s teeth to open a bottle of beer, taking a few hearty swings.
Remember Honey ? She receives a grand fanfare as the door opens to reveal her standing there. She seems awfully full of herself, crooning “Here I am, you lucky people!”
She does a very endearing, fun to watch and upbeat tap dance routine. Bosko’s getting a kick out of it too, asking an old man next to him “Boy! Ain’t she keen?” he then proceeds to slap him on the back, knocking out the guy’s dentures.
The turkey swallower enjoys it, too. He rubs his hands together and jeers before picking honey up and planning to kidnap her. Shocker, I tell you! Honey cries and begs Bosko to come to her aid.
A simple “HEY!” from Bosko allows Honey to run off scot free as Bosko confronts the kidnapper. He calls him a viper, and together a sword fight is prompted. I love the above gag of the swords shaking hands before the duel!
Cue an extended sword fight scene. Bosko snaps the kidnapper’s sword in half, and he summons a caddy to get him a new one, using his beard to sharpen it up. Genius! Bosko, on the other hand, resorts to a pencil sharpener.
With the fight back on, the kidnapper uses a bow to fire his sword, which snags a woman’s skirt. It’s no hoop skirt at all but literal chicken wire beneath her—little chicks running around her with a chicken at guard. I wasn’t expecting that, good gag.
As they near a lit fireplace, Bosko slams his foot down on the handle of a shovel, sending hot coals flying directly into the villain’s pants. He runs for the hills and honey claps for her savior, the background dissolving back into honey’s house. Even after Bosko is so triumphantly posing with his umbrella, Honey laughs “Oh, Bosko, I don’t believe that!” smugly, Bosko answers “Vas you dere, Charlie?”, a reference to vaudeville performer Jack Pearl and his character Baron Munchausen. Iris out.
For the second to last Bosko cartoon at WB, I’m a little disappointed! This felt like an entry from early 1932. It was just a bit boring and easily forgettable. The gags that were good were good, music delightful like always, animation impressive, but it just felt a bit stale and transparent. The kidnapper barely even has Honey in his clutches when Bosko swoops in, and she just goes missing for the next 2 minutes as they fight. Nevertheless, it has its ups and downs. I’ll provide a link as always, but don’t feel obligated to watch it this time around.
Link!
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