Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid

The first Looney Tunes short ever features a blank ink spot that talks in an uneducated way and this is very fortunately NOT a barometer of how that rest of the animated shorts would be. This is painful to watch at times and lacks the humor or wit of later cartoon shorts by the studio, but this is where it all started and I guess one has to give it props for that if nothing else. I don't really recommend this on anything but prosperity's sake. This animated short can be found as an extra in the "From the Vaults" section on disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1.

My Grade: D

As long as we remember that this cartoon is racist (because Bosko is a black man) and that when the makers made it they would not have realized that it would be as insulting as it is, we can enjoy this cartoon as much as we can. I personally found this a bit boring, but then of course I remembered that the jokes and the portrayal of cartoon and human man were amazing in 1929. I preferred Bosko in his next appearance, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub", because it is more funny and has a storyline to it. As he is, I find Bosko a sweet character and I cannot help disliking him slightly when I remember he is actually a black man. I thought the way they combined animation and the human hand back then amazing - this was when my grandparents were babies or not yet born! I watched this cartoon because it was the first thing that lead up to Looney Tunes - so we must be grateful for it.

In this cartoon, we first see a man (who is Rudolph Ising) drawing something. We watch his pen movements and find he has created a character called Bosko. Bosko comes to life on the pad and goes up to all sorts of antics...

I recommend this cartoon to people who are interested in Looney Tunes history and to people who do not mind rasiscm in cartoons too much. Enjoy "Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid"! :-)

7 and a half out of ten.

"Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid" is a rarely seen demo reel that pitched a new character, Bosko and ended up being the basis for Looney Tunes. Considering how wonderful the Looney Tunes films were in the 1940s and 50s with the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Pepe le Pew, it's amazing how rotten their original star, Bosko, was.

The film begins with an unidentified man (Rudolf Ising) sitting at an easel. He draws Bosko and then interacts with him--a style used often before, such as with the Fleischer Brothers Ko-Ko the Clown cartoons. However, when Bosko talked, I was shocked. Instead of the cute voice you'd later hear in the rather saccharine cartoons, he has a VERY stereotypical black voice--and it's NOT a particularly nice one. Today such a voice would probably offend most people and it's obvious that THE joke was that he was a black person. Not a whole lot to base your character on for a series of cartoons! Pretty lame and unfunny to boot.

This rarely seen (and for good reasons)short was originally a test reel for the Warner Brothers upper brass to see Warner's new animation department. Pity 'ol Leon S. didn't have anything better for them. This pathetic exercise in on screen racism lacks any thing resembling humour (at least for these times). It's obvious that Bosko made an impact with the big wheels at Warners (although Bosko would be re-vamped from a shuffling big eyed stereotype to a monkey/boy (take that,creationists). This unfunny short clocks in at a mere 3 minutes,but still seems like 3 hours (or more). Thankfully,Warner Bros. would get a lot better than this as the years went by.

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).