Fresh Fish

Throughout the 1920s, the Fleischer Brothers made a series of very entertaining Koko cartoons. In these shorts, Koko the Clown interacts with the real world...and most often with the animator, Max Fleischer. Apparently, the makers of the Bobby Bumps series liked this format and copied it in "Fresh Fish"....and it's very much unlike other Bobby Bumps cartoons I have seen as they do not have Bobby interacting with the outside world.

Instead of Max, this cartoon features a live action boy who is trying to make a film using Bobby and his dog. Bobby goes fishing...but the live action boy's cat steals the fish! And so, Bobby's cartoon dog leaves the picture and searches for the live cat. After this, again and again, the pair interact with the outside world...such as when they fall into a bucket and experience a flood. It's all very enjoyable but certainly NOT original...nor are the laughs as hard as you'd get in most Koko stories. Enjoyable, but familiar.

Cartoon Bobby and Fido go fishing in the animated world. They are being filmed in the real world by a live-action Bobby. I don't like the initial interaction between the two worlds. Real Bobby is stationary and repetitively cranking the camera. It's a very static position and that's not how animation is made anyways. The real world improves later as Bobby moves around. I really love the washtub full of water. The animation being thrown into the water is a brilliant effect. It's imaginative and it's almost perfect. It makes this from a fine animated short to a great animated short. The washtub is both fun and good tech.

Bobby Bumps (real boy) is shooting a cartoon about Bobby Bumps (cartoon boy) going fishing. Filming does not go well. The real black cat steals the fish from the cartoon and feeds it to her kitten. There are disputes between boy and cartoon about the poor scenery, and matters do not go well.

Apparently Earl Hurd not only had a share in the patents that Bray accumulated, he owned Bobby Bumps, and took the character with him to his own production company to release through Educational Films. This one is a very funny effort; clearly Bray's work was influenced by what the Fleischers were doing with Koko the Clown and put his own spin on the mixed live-action/cartoon technique.