Bosko, el chico parlante de tinta

My first exposure to Bosko and his girlfriend, Honey, was through the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Fields of Honey". I didn't watch any of the Bosko cartoons growing up and I wouldn't until years later, after I got the sixth volume DVD box set of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection. I also wasn't aware that Bosko and Honey had previously different character designs from their appearance on Tiny Toons (although I'm aware of why this was done, some members of the crew at WB Animation wanted something done with them again, but didn't know how to go about it in their original forms without being offensive to a certain minority group and not being unable to bypass that). I would check out this short on Youtube.

I wouldn't have thought that there are several people who have beef with Bosko and his filmography, finding them boring or non-entertaining. He may not have been the best or even the most perfect Looney Tunes character, but he's still better, if somewhat slightly, than his bland, white-washed counterpart, Buddy. This and Bosko's other cartoons may have been a slow start, but they serve as something of a, for lack of a better word I can think of to use, preview of what was to come later. Before Bugs, Daffy, Porky, and others, there was Bosko, as none of the others I mentioned were even thoughts yet.

Similar to the openings of the Fleischer brothers' Koko The Clown cartoons, Rudolf Ising, as the cartoonist, is seen striving to think up a new cartoon character when suddenly the idea comes to him and he comes up with Bosko. It's somewhat confusing and inconsistent when it comes to describing what Bosko is: As it's mentioned in the title, he's a talk-ink kid, but other instances mention that he's supposed to be a caricature of a black person. I'll just presume he's both then. When I first heard him speak in this, I, too, found it surprising in how different his voice sounded from the one heard in his other 'toons. His original voice is grating and hard on the ears, and I can see why it was dropped, and replaced. His singing voice is no better, as he doesn't sing as well as he plays the piano. He's a better dancer as well as a pianist though. He demonstrates all of these as he's brought to life for the viewers (even if the demo short was never intended to be released for public viewing). After no longer being able to take his off-key singing, Ising sucks Bosko into his pen and places him in the inkwell. After Ising leaves, Bosko emerges from the inkwell and vows to the audience that he'll return and bids them "so long, folks", which was used as a bidding at the end of many Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts before being replaced with the similar "that's all, folks", which would be used at the end of the the majority of shorts prior to the DePatie-Freleng era. This was created basically as a possibility for a new animated short series to be pitched and sold to Warner Bros.

After a few years of Bosko cartoons at WB, Ising and partner, Hugh Harman, would take the rights to the character with them to MGM, following a dispute with producer Leon Schlesinger. Bosko and Honey cartoons would continue being made, this time as part of the Happy Harmonies series at MGM. But eventually, Bosko would be redesigned into a somewhat, more realistically-looking black boy who appeared in a few shorts (although it's denied that they're one and the same, and despite sharing the name, they're considered two completely different characters).

This may had been considered slightly great for it's time, due to the novelty factor. But there isn't much else to it. The only great things about it are the interactions Bosko has with Ising, Bosko breaking the fourth wall, and pioneering a then-new series. It's only good for watching for historical purposes, really. Check it out for that reason to watch it, at least once. There are later WB cartoon featurettes I'm more into than this one. This may be average, but it's still an alright effort. But the staff at Termite Terrace/WB Cartoons would eventually find their niche and once they did, things truly took off from there. It's only recommended if anyone can pay no attention to the ethnic stereotype (as I can think of a short that's even more racist than Bosko).