Bosko the Doughboy is a 1931 Looney Tunes short directed by Hugh Harman.
Plot[]
Explosions kill several animals fighting in the trenches during World War I. Bosko is eating when enemy fire destroys his meal. He grabs a piece of cheese from a mousetrap and continues eating. He sighs as more explosions rain down rubble on him. He pulls a picture of Honey out of his shorts and kisses it, then a bullet tears right through her face. He vows revenge, but when he tries to climb out of the trench, he is pushed back by a barrage of gunfire.
A horse who is a fellow soldier plays his harmonica, and the two begin to dance. A third soldier, a dog, is trying to sleep, but a flea bites him. He scratches and scratches but just can't reach the flea. Bosko grabs the dog's helmet and holds it up in the air while enemy bullets punch jagged holes in it. Then he hands it back to the thankful dog, who uses it to scratch his back. Bosko sees a mouse piloting a pelican dropping bombs on them, so he uses the dog as a slingshot to shoot the pelican down.
While trying to capture a machine gun nest, in an actual birds' nest, a friendly hippopotamus swallows a bomb. Bosko ties a white union suit to a pole as a truce flag so he can help the hippo, but another bomb flies inside of it. The union suit then walks over, opens its trap door, and dumps the bomb next to the cannon, blowing it up. Bosko saves the hippo by unzipping his navel and taking out the bomb. It explodes in Bosko's face and he exclaims "Mammy!" like Al Jolson.
Availability[]
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6, Disc Two (restored)
Censorship[]
- The version aired as part of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon cut the bit at the very end with Bosko in blackface exclaiming "Mammy!" after a bomb explodes at him.
Notes[]
- This short is notable for its different tone. Most Bosko cartoons show Bosko infallibly happy and chipper or concentrate primarily on Bosko cavorting with other characters in a musical wonderland and have little to no conflict. This cartoon, however, is almost a total departure from other shorts in the series (and, by proxy, from those of other studios of the time), in that it plays off of dark humor (juxtaposing the horrors of war with the rubber hose humor and physical comedy that was common in the Bosko shorts).
- Many of the themes and concepts of the horrors of war would be revisited by Hugh Harman in the 1939 MGM anti-war short Peace on Earth, which has similar cues but is much more serious in tone.
- This short updates the "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" title theme for the Looney Tunes series, now set at a different key. This variant would be used until "Bosko's Fox Hunt".
- This cartoon entered the public domain in 1960 as Sunset Productions did not renew its copyright in time.
Gallery[]
References[]