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Lost Bosko title card?
December 7, 2009 6:00 pm
I’d never seen this before. Oh I’d seen the cartoon, but not this title card. Mike Kazaleh found a recent upload of a rare 2-color MGM Bosko cartoon on You Tube. It apparently comes from a newly restored print and contains a few flash frames of a previously unseen Bosko title card (above) at the end. This frame isn’t on the TV print that was in circulation in the 1960s. In fact, the old TV print has these frames curiously blacked out. The cartoon, Bosko’s Parlor Pranks from 1934, is one of the first of Hugh Harman and Rudloph Ising’s Happy Harmonies series. It’s also a “cheater” using ample stock shots and animation (now in color) from previous black & white Bosko Looney Tunes cartoons. Enjoy it now before it’s removed: |
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Crazy!
75 years and the original copyrights still hold. Oh my.
That song Bosko sings while his dog howls is actually kinda disturbing.
Sure, the stories aren’t the height of sophistication, but I find it hard to hate Bosko cartoons. They’re just so fun to watch and the happy-go-luckiness is infectious.
Wow! What a find! I don’t think I had ever seen an MGM Bosko where his design was the (leftover) WB one (and not the more “human” little boy version). Amazing!! Thank YOO! EVERY one should take time out of their busy day for a 1934 toon!
And why would it be “removed!?”
WOW! Great stuff. That kid was a BRAT! Thanks for posting!
That frame looks suspiciously like Bosko’s “That’s all/So long Folks” end tag, complete with a dog ready to bark. I wonder if Harman and Ising had attempted to take the famous farewell with them to MGM.
I agree with Greg, it looks like the tail end of Bosko saying “That’s all Folks!” with Bruno barking in Leo’s scroll. Hugh and Rudy retained the rights to the Bosko character, but apparently couldn’t hold the rights to the “That’s All, Folks!” end logo or saying. They probably had a battle with Leon Schlesinger on that issue.
The dog on the card at top looks like Pluto on acid.
I want to smack that kid.
It looks like Walt Disney’s early associates (Ub Iwerks and Harman and Ising) uh… “borrowed” every idea they could take with them when they jumped ship. The dog is a clone of Pluto, Bosko’s girlfriend exposes her panties exactly the way Minnie Mouse does, and even the title card shows the characters posing at the left and the right of the title like Mickey and Minnie!
It’s much to Mr. Disney’s credit that he went forward, developing his own cartoons, rather than wasting a lot of time and money taking all these pirates to court. He probably would have won…
Oh, *nice!*
Is this the version WHV recently released as an extra on the FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD Vol 3 DVD? If so, they may have just found themselves a customer.
Speaking of flash frames, also take a look at 5:25- the cat grows two sets of ears and precedes the creation of ‘Astro Boy’ by 30 years.
[IMG]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg63/likmfurry/Bosko.jpg[/IMG]
Thanks, Jerry. I asked Jon Cooke and Matt Hunter about this on their site about a week ago and nobody seemed to have an answer. Greg and Mark seem to have the logical solution.
I do think that Bosko & his dog Bruno are highly derivative of Mickey & Pluto, and at times this short seems a lot like a Mickey cartoon. However, it’s got it’s charms. Even if recycled animation, it’s still good. I do like that it’s just a bit more brash than Disney.
Love Harman-Ising cartoons. Tragic that the team fell off the face of the earth a few years later after putting the entire MGM cartoon studio on firm artistic footage. Thanks for the toon.
David – Yes, I can confirm this restored print of Bosko’s Parlor Pranks comes from Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3.
I love it! An MGM cartoon reusing LT animation.
I’m also reminded of a funny line (and there weren’t all that many) from “Tiny Toons” when they’re trying to make a forgotten star of Bosko’s girlfriend, and someone — Plucky Duck? — asks, “Just what -is- Honey, anyway? Some sort of insect?” Clever by itself, and indicative of a whole can of worms nobody really wanted to open.
Thanks for sharing this.
It is also funny that WB now owns the right to this cartoon.
I wonder how hard it was for them to re-color that footage? They should have sent it to Korea!
“It looks like Walt Disney’s early associates (Ub Iwerks and Harman and Ising) uh… “borrowed” every idea they could take with them when they jumped ship. The dog is a clone of Pluto, Bosko’s girlfriend exposes her panties exactly the way Minnie Mouse does, and even the title card shows the characters posing at the left and the right of the title like Mickey and Minnie!”
Actually, these stereotypes were in use in animation before Disney.
The above 1934’s Bosko’s Parlor Pranks and all the Happy Harmonies was originally in 2 (then 3) strip technicolor.
There needs to be at least a Warner Archive DVD of these Happy Harmonies.
I hadn’t seen this cartoon before, but I enjoy it in spite of its reuse of earlier Schlesinger-era footage.
I’m actually amazed that those few frames of the cut ending survive. I wonder if the original nitrate neg (that no longer exists) had it in its entirety.
If you guys think Bosko toons are borrowing from Disney and Mickey you need to take a look at “Foxy”, an early Warner character.
Terrific find Jerry! Definetly makes me curious if the other early MGM Bosko cartoons contain this title card.
Just out of curiosity, I know that many of the negatives to the 1940’s cartoons were destroyed in that dreadful fire. Are the negatives to the 1930’s cartoons still in existence or are they now lost as well?
I’ve never seen a Foxy cartoon, but I’ve seen a still picture of the character. He’s basically Mickey, only with pointy ears instead of round ones, and that’s the only difference. But then, Mickey himself was just a slightly remodeled Oswald the Rabbit, “recovered” by Disney after Charles Mintz had raided his studio, grabbing not only its most popular character but most of the animators.
Then there’s the mouse who appears in the first Flip the Frog cartoon, another faux-Mickey. The atmosphere in those early days of animation seems to have been one of unabashed piracy or Ayn Rand-style capitalism (that is, freebooter capitalism with no reasonable and civilized restraints placed on it whatsoever).
What with all the squabbling and staff-raiding and litigation, it’s a wonder that any of these people had any time left over for making cartoons!
Kip – the particular episode of “Tiny Toons” you’re referring to was “Fields of Honey”.