Studio: Harman-Ising Productions / MGM
Distributor: Loew's, Inc.
Produced by: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising
Short Synopsis
Bosko walks to his girlfriend Honey's house with his dog Bruno, who gets told off for sniffing the porch. Inside, Honey is trying to teach her little brother Wilber to play the piano, and Wilber only wants an ice cream cone. Bosko slides up to the door, rings the bell, and he and Honey perform a song together. Honey goes out to buy Wilber his ice cream, leaving Bosko to babysit. To impress the boy, Bosko boasts that he was a Knight of the Round Table and a champion boxer who beat the world heavyweight. Wilber doesn't believe a word. Bosko blows up a balloon, sticks it on his nose and plays the piano as Jimmy Durante. He sings about the time he rescued Honey as a cowboy, while Wilber keeps whining about his cone. As Honey skips home with the ice cream, Bosko launches into his adventures as a musketeer, swings his sword and knocks the cone right out of her hand, and it lands on him, to Honey's great amusement.
Why It Matters
- The film is essentially Bosko's greatest hits: each boast sends him into a flashback built largely from animation of his Warner Bros. cartoons, so it doubles as a colour sampler of Harman and Ising's earlier work. The Durante impression, with a balloon nose, is the original highlight.
- It is the first Bosko cartoon in colour and the first made at MGM, after Harman and Ising broke with Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. and took their character with them. After the next film, Hey-Hey Fever, MGM redesigned Bosko as a more realistic caricature of a Black boy, a change that makes this one of the last appearances of the original design.
Notes and Trivia
- It is the 39th Bosko cartoon and the fourth entry in the Happy Harmonies series.
- The colour is two-strip Technicolor; Disney's exclusive rights to three-strip were still in force.
- See also: Sinkin' in the Bathtub (1930), Toyland Broadcast (1934).