Hold Anything

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.

After an interesting if just slightly above average and not much more pilot cartoon 'The Talk-Ink Kid' and the decent 'Sinkin' in the Bathtub' and 'Congo Jazz', 'Hold Anything' is not great and the execution is variable but most of it works well. While a hit and miss cartoon, it hits more than it misses, or at least to me it does.

'Hold Anything's' weakest element is the story, very much like 'Congo Jazz' the story here is more a paper-thin excuse to string along music and gags with a few draggy stretches and an ending that doesn't feel that well rounded off, pretty anti-climactic actually.

Most of the gags work well, but faring less well is the repetitive business with the goat's tail, that was good the first time or two but grew tired quickly especially when the more it happened the less inspired the methods got. Honey is also rather bland.

On the other hand, the animation is not bad at all. Not exactly refined but fluid and crisp enough with some nice detail, it is especially good in the meticulous backgrounds and some remarkably flexible yet natural movements for Bosko. The music is 'Hold Anything's' highlight component, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy.

While none of the gags are hilarious, most of them are amusing, like the udder gag and the goat being floated up as helium. Parts are cute and there is much less of a static feel than there was in 'The Talk-Ink Kid' in sound quality. Bosko is never going to be one of my favourite cartoon characters, or among the all-time greats, but he has more personality this time round and it's more endearing than before.

In summary, variable but mostly works. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Although Walt Disney was producing exceptional cartoons circa 1930, Warner Brothers (through Leon Schlessinger Studios) was way behind on the curve. The quality of their Bosko series was clearly light-years behind Mickey Mouse--mostly because the cartoons weren't especially funny or charming. Instead, they were rather corny. Because of this, you practically never (thank goodness) see these cartoons today.

Here in HOLD ANYTHING, Bosko is working around a construction site. He sees his girlfriend and they begins making eyes at each other. It's all a bit mushy and they dance around a bit until eventually (and mercifully) it all ends. The only interesting part is when Bosko cuts the head off a mouse that looks amazingly like Mickey!

Before Warner Bros.'s animation department gave us Bugs, Daffy, Porky, etc., their most famous star was a small, strange character named Bosko; I think that he looks like a black-face performer. In "Hold Anything", Bosko is participating in construction, when he suddenly gets infatuated with Honey.

Mostly, I take little interest in WB's early 1930s cartoons. But I noticed that the credits said "Drawn by Isadore Freleng". Hardcore fans probably know that Isadore was Friz Freleng, later one of the animation department's top directors. Obviously, he had to start somewhere, and this wasn't a bad place. Worth seeing, and available on YouTube.

Hold Anything (1930)

** (out of 4)

Early animated film from Warner before they gave us their more memorable (and better known) characters. Bosko is doing construction where he tries to do everything as if it were a note of music. I know Bosko was probably Warner's biggest character at the time but I don't think he holds up too well (and who knows if he did in 1930). The biggest problem I had with this short was that the music numbers weren't all that memorable and even though this ran under ten-minutes you can't help but feel like it's longer. There are some mice in the film, all looking like Mickey Mouse, which I guess should be expected since the director's originally worked at Disney.

Every studio seemed to have their principle character. Warner had Bosko, and unlike some of the more memorable ones, he has faded into obscurity. They did use him in a lot of features, however. Here he uses objects at a construction site as musical instruments. He doesn't seem to get much work done, and when his girlfriend shows up, even less. There are some decent sight gags with inflatable goats and Bosko turning into six Boskos, but not a whole lot of plot.