Bosko and Looney Tunes
thumb|287x287px|Model sheet of Bosko drawn by Hugh Harman in 1928|left
Schlesinger saw the Harman-Ising test film and signed the animators to produce cartoons at their studio for him to sell to Warner Bros. Bosko became the star vehicle for the studio's new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Bosko wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno. He was also sometimes accompanied by Honey's humanized cat ward named Wilber and an often antagonistic goat, particularly in early cartoons.
The role of Bosko was to serve as a cartoony version of Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927). According to Ising, he was initially supposed to be an "inkspot sort of thing". He was not conceived as either a human or an animal, though behaving like a little boy. According to Leonard Maltin, Bosko was a cartoonized version of a young black boy who spoke a Southern dialect of African American Vernacular English. He cites as an example a phrase from Bosko's Holiday, said with an intermittent drawl: "I sho'done likes picnics." In the later Looney Tunes shorts in which Bosko appeared, his accent was gone, instead using a falsetto voice. Consequently, his race became more ambiguous.
According to Terry Lindvall and Ben Fraser, Bosko and Honey "were the most balanced portrayals of blacks in cartoons to that point", comparing their portrayal to that of human versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. During the same period, Disney was spending around $10,000 per cartoon. The smaller budgets forced Harman and Ising to recycle footage much more often than Disney did. However, Harman and Ising had the distinct advantage of free access to Warner Bros. large musical library, lavish orchestras (like Abe Lyman's), and sound recording equipment, allowing the films to capitalize on popular music of the time. The career of the character ended for good when MGM fired Harman and Ising due to cost overruns in the films they produced. They were replaced by Fred Quimby, who later hired Harman and Ising back, though Bosko did not make any appearances in subsequent MGM subjects they produced.
Bosko on television
Bosko cartoons were packaged with other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, to be broadcast in various television markets in the 1950s. For instance, "Skipper Frank" (Frank Herman), showed Bosko, along with Buddy, on "Cartoon Carousel" his hour-long afterschool cartoon program on KTLA-TV (Channel 5) in Los Angeles. Bosko cartoons were also later aired on Nickelodeon as part of the network's Looney Tunes program beginning in 1988 and ending in 1992, when the network pulled all black-and-white shorts out of rotation to make room for more recent color cartoons featuring more popular Looney Tunes characters. Bosko cartoons have not been shown on television since then due to their "ethnic offensiveness".
Bosko appeared in a 1990 episode of the television series Tiny Toon Adventures titled "Fields of Honey". In a parody of the then-current film Field of Dreams, a mysterious voice leads Babs Bunny to build a theater that shows nothing but cartoons of Bosko's girlfriend Honey, after being told about Honey (voiced by B. J. Ward) by the Acme Looniversity's mysterious vaultkeeper (voiced by Don Messick). Babs does so, and the resulting audience laughter rejuvenates the aged and ailing Honey. The laughter also rejuvenates the vaultkeeper, who is revealed to be none other than Bosko himself as well as the source of the voice. The cartoon depicts Bosko and Honey as dog-like talking animals similar to the lead characters of the later television series Animaniacs, presumably so as not to offend viewers with the original black-face characterizations.
The character is also seen in a portrait in the 1996 film Space Jam, this time in his original form. He also appears in his original form in the Animaniacs cartoon "The Girl with the Googily Goop", in which he is seen parking his car. Five episodes of Futurama featured scenes from three Looney Tunes (pre-1934) Bosko cartoons in the opening sequence: Bosko Shipwrecked!, Box Car Blues, and Congo Jazz. The opening to the Futurama episode "Bendless Love" featured a scene from the Happy Harmonies cartoon Little Ol' Bosko in Bagdad in black-and-white.
The majority of the Bosko cartoons are available on VHS and DVD in the Uncensored Bosko series from Bosko Video. In 2003, Warner Home Video officially released the initial pilot film Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid, as an extra on the fourth disc of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 DVD box set. The second disc of Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 (released in 2005) includes the first Looney Tunes short, Sinkin' in the Bathtub (which originally introduced Bosko and Honey to audiences in 1930) as an extra. Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 (released in 2008) includes six Bosko cartoons: Congo Jazz (on disc 3), The Booze Hangs High (on disc 3), Bosko the Doughboy (on disc 2), Ride Him, Bosko! (on disc 3), Bosko in Person (on disc 3), and Bosko's Picture Show (on disc 3). The third disc of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray set (released in 2012) includes the aforementioned Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid and Sinkin' in the Bathtub as extras.
All Bosko cartoons subject to copyright remain owned by Warner Bros., but the majority of the Bosko cartoons have fallen into the public domain. Warner Bros. also owns the Happy Harmonies cartoons starring Bosko through Turner Entertainment Co., as Ted Turner bought the pre-May 1986 MGM library.
Filmography
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Title !! Notes
!Film (if in the public domain)
|-
| 1929 || Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid || The first Bosko film.
|frameless
|-
| rowspan="5" | 1930 || Sinkin' in the Bathtub || The first Bosko film released.
|frameless
|-
| Congo Jazz ||
|frameless
|-
| Hold Anything ||
|frameless
|-
| The Booze Hangs High ||
|frameless
|-
| Box Car Blues ||
|frameless
|-
| rowspan=11 | 1931 || Big Man from the North ||
|frameless
|-
| Ain't Nature Grand! ||
|frameless
|-
| Ups 'n Downs ||
|frameless
|-
| Dumb Patrol ||
|frameless
|-
| Yodeling Yokels ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Holiday ||
|frameless
|-
| The Tree's Knees ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko Shipwrecked! ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko the Doughboy ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Soda Fountain ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Fox Hunt ||
|frameless
|-
| rowspan="13" | 1932 || Bosko at the Zoo ||
|frameless
|-
| Battling Bosko ||
|frameless
|-
| Big-Hearted Bosko ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Party ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko and Bruno ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Dog Race ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko at the Beach ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Store ||
|frameless
|-
| Bosko the Lumberjack ||
|frameless
|-
| Ride Him, Bosko! ||
|
|-
| Bosko the Drawback ||
|
|-
| Bosko's Dizzy Date || Alternately titled Bosko and Honey.
|frameless
|-
| Bosko's Woodland Daze ||
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1933 || Bosko in Dutch ||
|
|-
| Bosko in Person ||
|
|-
| Bosko the Speed King ||
|
|-
| Bosko's Knight-Mare ||
|
|-
| Bosko the Sheep-Herder ||
|
|-
| Beau Bosko ||
|
|-
| Bosko's Mechanical Man ||
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|-
| Bosko the Musketeer ||
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|-
| Bosko's Picture Show || Final appearance of Bosko in a WB cartoon.
|
|-
| 1934 || Bosko's Parlor Pranks|| First appearance of Bosko in an MGM cartoon.
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1935 || Hey-Hey Fever || Final cartoon featuring original Bosko.
|
|-
| Run, Sheep, Run || First cartoon featuring Bosko in later design.
|
|-
| 1936 || The Old House ||
|
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1937 || Circus Daze ||
|
|-
| Bosko's Easter Eggs ||
|
|-
| Little Ol' Bosko and the Pirates ||
|
|-
| Little Ol' Bosko and the Cannibals ||
|
|-
| 1938 || Little Ol' Bosko in Bagdad || The last Bosko film.
|
|-
| 1990 || Fields of Honey || Episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.
|
|-
| 1992 || Two-Tone Town || Episode of Tiny Toon Adventures; cameo appearance in a picture.
|
|-
| 1993 || The Warners‘ 65th Anniversary || Episode of Animaniacs
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1996 || The Girl with the Googily Goop || Episode of Animaniacs; cameo appearance.
|
|-
| Space Jam || Cameo appearance in a picture.
|
|}
References
Sources
Further reading
- Barrier, Michael (1999): Hollywood Cartoons. Oxford University Press.
- Maltin, Leonard (1987): Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. Penguin Books.
- Schneider, Steve (1999): That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation. Barnes and Noble Books.
- Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company.
External links
- Bosko at Toonzone.net
- Bosko at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on February 22, 2018.