Bosko's Parlor Pranks

Looney Tunes' first character was Bosko and he was their #1 star for several years. However, the production team of Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising decided to leave Looney Tunes and headed to MGM. And, unlike Walt Disney and his Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the pair retained ownership of the character...so they began making Bosko shorts with MGM. Now you'd think this would have been a great loss for Looney Tunes...and it was on the short term. However, Bosko was a godawful character and his shorts were simply jam-packed with cuteness...to the point of inducing nausea! Singing, dancing and cuteness...and not much in the way of character....and his loss meant Looney Tunes needed to develop a new leading man. After a few years of misses, Looney Tunes hit upon some great characters...full of laughs and sarcasm...something lacking in the Bosko cartoons. And, with characters like Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny, Looney Tunes was definitely better off without the Harmon-Ising approach to cartoons.

So is this very first Bosko cartoon with MGM any good? Well, surprisingly, yes. Some of this is obvious...as instead of making the cartoons in black & white, MGM used Two Color Technicolor...which actually looks great in the restored version posted on YouTube. Also, surprisingly, Bosko is NOT so cute here and the usual singing and dancing were thankfully absent...though the Harmon-Ising tenure at MGM was generally filled with ultra-cutesy characters and singing and dancing....just not here.

This episode finds Honey's VERY obnoxious and grumpy cat demanding ice cream (something which was also done in "Bosko's Soda Fountain" a couple years earlier. This cat was a jerk...and this created tension...which the cartoons desperately needed! As for Bosko, he spends the cartoon telling the bratty cat stories...trying to entertain him but to no avail.

Overall, a HUGE improvement for Bosko...but a short lived one as well. The series was not popular and soon ended....as Harmon-Ising seemed to think the public wanted saccharine instead of laughs...which might explain how eventually MGM phased out these directors in favor of the team of Hanna-Barbera (responsible for the Tom & Jerry cartoons) and Tex Avery (responsible for the zaniest and best MGM cartoons of the 40s and 50s). Their style was just very dated and the public was looking for laughs.

The Bosko cartoons may not be animation masterpieces, but they are fascinating as examples of Looney Tunes in their early days before the creation of more compelling characters and funnier and more creative cartoons. There are some good cartoons, as well as some average or less ones.

'Bosko's Parlour Pranks' is not terrible, nor is it a particularly memorable cartoon. None of the weakest efforts are and all of them have enough to make it mediocre at worst, but 'Bosko's Parlour Pranks' didn't do much for me.

the meticulous backgrounds and some remarkably flexible yet natural movements for Bosko. The music doesn't disappoint either, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy.

Sound quality has clarity and the synchronisation isn't sloppy and has imagination. The way Bosko is animated is well done and remarkably natural. A few of the gags are amusing if not much more than that.

Regarding Bosko himself, he is not the most interesting of characters and is not particularly fun or likable. Too many of the gags are pretty limp and are lacking in wit, memorability and sharper timing, which is enough to bring. Wilber is very irritating and the story is thin and dull at times.

In conclusion, average and forgettable. 5/10 Bethany Cox