Bosko

Hey, guys. Sorry that I haven't been making new posts. Vacation is the reason for delay. And, in return, I'll share a secret with you: my favorite cartoon character is Bosko.

Bosko was the first Looney Tunes star. Although he is unknown to most audiences, he is, in all fairness, an important character in the history of cartoons.

He was created in 1927 by two men who were veterans at Disney, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Originally, they intended to show Walt Disney their new creation, but failed to do so when film producer Charles Mintz hired away the Disney animators away for himself, Harman and Ising included. The two men still had their character, and left Mintz to distribute their character.

Harman and Ising took the animators of Mintz to work for Leon Schlesinger, who was aiming to sell cartoons to Warner Bros. They created a short subject known as Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid (1929) to show Schlesinger the new character. The response was a signing to make cartoons with Bosko.




Bosko's design was based off of black-faced performers, specifically entertainer Al Jolson. The label as a black boy was denied by Rudolf Ising in later years, saying that the character was "an inkspot kind of thing."


Bosko

Bosko appeared in 39 musical films, with little plots, a wealth of music (provided by Frank Marsales), and unique characters, like his girlfriend, the Minnie Mouse-like Honey, and his dog, a Pluto doppelganger named Bruno. He was voiced by Carman "Max" Maxwell and Johnny Murray.

The final Looney Tunes short to feature the charcacter was Bosko's Picture Show (1933) where Bosko presents movies to an audience, the final one featuring honey being captured by a villain. Notably, he says "That dirty thug!" to the villain, athough most people believes he says the well-known slang word (I wouldn't dare type it).

That same year, budget disputes with Leon Schlesinger sent Harman and Ising to the Van Beuren Studio, and later the MGM studio where Bosko would occasionally appear in the Happy Harmonies series. It was at this time that the career of the character ended.

The transition to color could've pertained to the fact that Harman and Ising had given him a new look in 1935. For the final three years of his career, he and Honey were realistic, racial African-American stereotypes. They had lost their personality and love for music, and their shorts recieved negative reception. Both characters were retired in 1938.





The characters' "new look"

60 years after the first Looney Tunes short, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, made its debut, Bosko and Honey made a comeback. They appeared in a 1990 episode of Tiny Toon Adventures named Fields of Honey. I'd describe the plot if I could, but you need to see it for yourself! Notably, Bosko and Honey were retconned as dogs for this episode.



Tiny Toons Adventures - Fields of Honey - S1Ep30 by waji28

Bosko also made cameos in Animaniacs and Space Jam.

That's all, folks!

Buddy's Day Out (cartoon)

Buddy's Day Out (1933) by iadb

Cubby Bear

So how did film producer Amadee J. Van Beuren of New York make a living in the 1930s? By signing animators to his studio to create now-forgotten characters, that's how.

The Van Beuren Studio was a New York animation studio that existed in the 20s and 30s. Many famous animators, like Bill Littlejohn, got their start there. It was founded in 1928 by Amadee J. Van Beuren, the namesake of the studio. The name was initially the Aesop's Fables Studio, because their first animated series was Aesop's Film Fables.

 In 1933, the studio was producing a cartoon series for RKO Radio Pictures, named Tom and Jerry (no relation to the famous cat-and-mouse duo). These shorts were not a success, and a longtime employee of Van Beuren, Mannie Davis, was hired to create a new character to replace the Tom and Jerry series' main characters. Davis's response was a Mickey Mouse-like bear named Cubby Bear.

Cubby's first appearance was in Opening Night (1933). The short was not a success, and despite the attempts Davis made, Cubby had very little popularity. The following shorts fared even worse, and this resulted in Davis being fired and replaced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising from Warner Bros., and Davis joined Terrytoons (which was established by Paul Terry, who is also notable for helping to build the Van Beuren Studio).

Harman and ising worked on a couple Cubby shorts. One of Cubby's movements in World Flight (1933) was a slide-step, similar to the slide-step of the Harman-Ising character named Bosko, who was the first star of Looney Tunes. When Harman and Ising departed for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studio, Vernon Stallings took their place.

After the signings of Tom Palmer and Burt Gillett from Warner Bros. and Disney, respectively, Cubby was retired to make way for a new character named Molly Moo-Cow. Cubby's career ended in 1938 when Van Beuren was sold by RKO to home video companies.

That's all, folks!

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Everyone knows who Mickey Mouse is, right? Yeah, I know the weird-looking mouse has been in various cartoons and other media, too, but Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created him for a reason. It wasn't for nothing, you know- it was to replace the original star of Walt Disney's cartoons.

You, the reader, might be wondering who that star was? It was Oswald- a mischievous anthropomorphic rabbit with a unique, whimsical personality that would move on to the Walt Disney Studio's next star, Mickey Mouse, of course.

Oswald was created in 1927 by Iwerks and Disney, having finished off the unsuccessful live-action/animation series known as the Alice Comedies. Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Productions, hired a film producer named Charles Mintz to produce cartoons with a new character. Mintz found Walt Disney in Los Angeles and asked him to create a new star, hoping the character would rival Felix the Cat. He suggested a rabbit, thus leading to the creation of a new rabbit character named Oswald.

Mintz saw the first Oswald cartoon, entitled Poor Papa. This 1928 animation featured Oswald as a father taking care of a massive amount of rabbit children. The short was poorly received by Laemmle, who pinpointed the bland animation and the maturity of the character's design. As a result, Oswald was redesigned into a younger, sleeker rabbit with a more mischievous side. The cartoons fared well, and the character eventually made his way to stardom.

Tragedy struck when Disney found out that Mintz secretly took the rights of the character, as well as the Disney animators. On the train ride home, Disney conceived the idea of a mouse character, and, therefore, Mickey Mouse was born. This eclipsed Oswald in the process, leaving Walter Lantz to redesign him into a realistic-looking rabbit. Eventually, Oswald would be retired in favor of the next Lantz star, Andy Panda.

Many years later, in 2006, Disney CEO Bob Iger traded Al Michaels from ABC to NBC to return the rights of the character back to the company. Since then, Oswald has been rapidly gaining popularity, not with the public, but with the Disney fans all over the world.

That's all, folks- and don't forget to stay tuned to see the next post!

Beans the Cat

Welcome! I, the writer present to you a blog that tells about the history of old cartoon characters.

I LOVE old cartoons. Like, from the 30s. Those are the cartoons that help me "chill out." For this article, I'm talking about Beans the Cat, who is, wrongfully, in obscurity- while his sidekick, the shy Porky Pig, made his way to stardom. Beans was an old cartoon character, and the creation of Bob Clampett and Jack King.

It began with Bosko- who was notable for being the first Looney Tunes star. He was created in 1929 by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, hoping their creation would rival Mickey Mouse, the most popular cartoon character at the time. Their humanoid "inkspot" creation did fail to rival Disney's mouse, who was always surging ahead of Bosko in popularity.

After a four-year run with Leon Schlesinger, the producer of Looney Tunes and its sister series, Merrie Melodies, budget disputes with Schlesinger, Harman, and Ising sent the animators- Harman and Ising included- to the Van Beuren Studio, where the former employees worked on a couple of Cubby Bear cartoons before leaving for M.G.M.- with Bosko.

Schlesinger attempted to touch up the studio, hoping his contract with Warner Bros., who released the early cartoons to the public, would still remain with him. He lured in many animators from other studios, among them Tom Palmer from Disney, who created the second star of the Looney Tunes shorts, Buddy. The character himself caused the popularity of the cartoons to sink, thus forcing Schlesinger to fire Palmer, and replace him with Isadore "Friz" Freleng, who had worked on the original Looney Tunes shorts.

When Buddy's career ended for good because of low popularity, Schlesinger asked newly signed employees Jack King, Bob Clampett, and Tex Avery to create new characters. And this was the beginning of Beans the Cat, the third Looney Tunes star who made an impact on the cartoons we know and love today.

Beans made his debut in 1935's I Haven't Got a Hat, part of the Merrie Melodies series. Also the debut of Porky Pig, this short was an enormous success. Beans and Porky were named after the term "Porky and Beans." Buddy faded away from the screen almost immediately, and Beans took his predecessor's place as star. The character only appeared in 9 shorts, the first one being A Cartoonist's Nightmare. Unfortunately for Beans, Porky got most of the attention, and Beans disappeared.

 Beans resembled Bosko somewhat, although he was more mischievous than his predecessors. He was also known for making cameos when his days were done. To watch the first Porky/Beans cartoons, copy the link. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2guxlm_lt099-i-haven-t-got-a-hat_fun

That's all folks!