8mm Forum: Who Was Bosko?

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on May 25, 2012, 12:23 AM:

Described as "almost an animated inkblot topped off with a bowler hat" (derby) this piccaninny started as Bosko the Talk-ink Kid in Warner Brothers' first ever sound cartoon "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" (1930). The black & white animation had a distinct flavour of its own, populated with visual puns and other exaggerations set to popular tunes of the times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPhP3ZNw6A

Bosko was created by ex-Walt Disney animators, Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising, and starred in 28 cartoons before they left for MGM taking Bosko with them.

Now, Technicolor was available for them and Bosko was smoothed into a suitably cuter character for "Bosko's Parlor Pranks" (1934) and the 8 films which followed, but after the first two films Bosko was completely redesigned as a caricatured Negro boy.
Bosko's last cartoon was "Bosko in Baghdad" made in 1938.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huFUm130IqY

What an unbelievable differance in only eight years.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 25, 2012, 01:16 PM:

Yep, Bosko started out at Warners and ended up at MGM, with a much better standard of quality ...

... however, it just shows that technical proficiency (at MGM) does not necessarily make for great films, and it showed that Bosko actually fared better at Warners, where they had, in my opinion, much better writers and gag men. That would change, however, when MGM started to change in the early 40's with the arrival of Tex Avery ...

... who was a Warners veteran, by the way!

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