Sinkin in the Bathtub (1930) from Warner Brothers
The first Looney Tunes theatrical animation.
Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising started their careers in animation working with Walt Disney in Kansas City, Missouri. When Walt's studio went bankrupt and he moved to California, they stayed behind and started their own studio. I'm not sure what happened, but the story goes that they gave up on their studio and followed Disney to California. Harman and Ising worked on the Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (a character that I adore, by the way). The production work for Oswald was taken over by Universal Pictures and the boys were out of work again.
In 1928, Hugh Harman registered a new character with the copyright office. This character was described as a "Negro boy" named Bosko. They self-financed a short featuring Bosko interacting with a live action Rudy Ising called Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid. This short caught the attention of Warner Brothers.
Bosko suddenly became the original star of a brand new series called the Looney Tunes. I had no idea that Looney Tunes ever had a blackfaced character. In his pilot animation, Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, he has a very stereotypical dialect. In the premier episode of Looney Tunes "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," Bosko does not speak much. I'm not sure if Warner Brothers wanted to be more politically correct, or if this episode was just more focused on music instead of dialogue. In the 1990's Bosko was retconned into being a dog instead of an African American. Good call, Warner Brothers.
Discovering the origin of Looney Tunes was fascinating. I love that jolt of learning a fact that does not fit with previous understanding. Bosko is not the kind of character that I associate with Warner Brothers Animation at all. I had never seen him before I started doing my research and I'm really glad that I learned about him and those early years of Looney Tunes.
In this short, I do love the incorporation of music, the now-familiar gags, and the cute visual style. It sets the tone for how fun the rest of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies will be. The basic structure has been in place since 1930, but obviously, some things have changed.
The weirdest part, in my opinion, involved Honey, who is Bosko's girlfriend. There's a part where she hops up to dance on her balcony and her clothes drop while she's dancing. That seemed unnecessary and really caught me off guard. Pretty weird.
I'm glad that Looney Tunes exist. They made me really happy as a kid and seeing their odd origins as an adult was very intriguing. Harman and Ising did not have an easy road at all, but they were still able to make a big mark on the future of the Disney style of animation. They picked themselves again and again and followed their passion. I love that :)
