Lentorama 2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

Day 33: Toon debut

When Disney started its Silly Symphony series of animated shorts, the folks at Warner Brothers decided that imitation would be the sincerest form of profit-making. This led to the development of their own series of musically-inspired animated shorts, Looney Tunes. The first short released in the series, Sinkin' in the Bathtub, debuted on Saturday, April 19, 1930.

The star of the short was Bosko, who would go on to feature in 39 shorts during the decade. The early description of Bosko notes that he's Black, but his race would be made more ambiguous as the series went on (helped by getting rid of the "blackface" dialect that was only used for this particular short). Bosko had a girlfriend (Honey) and a dog (Bruno); any resemblence to Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto is probably intentional.

In this short, we get to see Bosko prepare for a date with Honey, and the comedic impediments they run into while taking a drive in the country. At the end, Bosko does cap things off with a "That's all, folks!," a line most people would now associate with Porky Pig.

The creators of Bosko moved from Warners to MGM in 1933, where they redesigned the character to the point where his name was about the only thing he shared with his Warners incarnation. MGM pulled the plug on Bosko after only 8 shorts, none of which were particularly popular.

Bosko short occasionally still show up on TV with the more well-known Looney Tunes shorts featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and that generation of characters. He does not fare well by comparison. Bosko has made a couple of appearances more recently, in Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and the original Space Jam. This did not spark a Bosko renaissance.