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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Bosko has a grand time on the farm, dancing with a cow, playing a horse’s tail like a violin and getting drunk with three pigs. Bosko dances and sings on the farm with pigs who get hold of a bottle of booze. The Booze Hangs High, released in December 1930, is the fourth title in the Looney Tunes series. The short features Bosko, Warner Bros.’ first cartoon character. The Booze Hangs High released in 1930, is the fourth title in the Looney Tunes series and features Bosko, Warner Bros.’ first cartoon character. When this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon, the part where the father pig regurgitates a corncob, flicks off the one kernel that remains on it, and puts it back into his stomach through a trapdoor was cut. This cartoon references Plane Crazy (a Mickey Mouse cartoon) and Song of the Flame (a musical operetta film). The latter features a song titled The Goose Hangs High from which this short gets its name.

Animated by Friz Freleng and Paul Smith

Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon series and was the star of thirty-nine Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros. He was voiced by Carman Maxwell, Johnny Murray, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas.

In 1927, Harman and Ising worked for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1928 to capitalize on the recent success of talkies in the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1928 before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office on January 3, 1928. The character was registered as a “Negro boy” under the name of Bosko.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. In April 1929 they left Universal to market their new cartoon character.

Schlesinger saw the Harman-Ising test film and signed the animators to produce cartoons at their studio for him to sell to Warner Bros. Bosko became the star vehicle for the studio’s new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Bosko wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno. He was also sometimes accompanied by Honey’s cat-like son named Wilbur and an often antagonistic goat, particularly in early cartoons.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Hold Anything is the third short in the Looney Tunes series from Warner Bros., released to theaters in October 1930. Featuring Bosko, it is loosely based on the lost film Hold Everything, one of whose songs, “Don’t Hold Everything,” features prominently in the cartoon. It was directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, and animated by Isadore “Friz” Freleng and Norman Blackburn.

Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon series and was the star of thirty-nine Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros. He was voiced by Carman Maxwell, Johnny Murray, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas.

In 1927, Harman and Ising worked for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1928 to capitalize on the recent success of talkies in the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1928 before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office on January 3, 1928. The character was registered as a “Negro boy” under the name of Bosko.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. In April 1929 they left Universal to market their new cartoon character.

Schlesinger saw the Harman-Ising test film and signed the animators to produce cartoons at their studio for him to sell to Warner Bros. Bosko became the star vehicle for the studio’s new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Bosko wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno. He was also sometimes accompanied by Honey’s cat-like son named Wilbur and an often antagonistic goat, particularly in early cartoons.

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Hugh Harman (1931)

Bosko the Doughboy is a one-reel 1931 short subject animated cartoon and is part of the Bosko series. It was directed by Hugh Harman, and first released on October 17, 1931 as part of the Looney Tunes series from Harman-Ising Productions and distributed by Warner Bros.

Film score composed by Frank Marsales

Drawn by Rollin Hamilton & Max Maxwell

Bosko the Doughboy is notable for its departure from the standard cartoon formula of its era. Bosko is usually infallibly happy and chipper; Doughboy forces him to drop this demeanor and fight back. Other Bosko shorts concentrate primarily on Bosko cavorting with other characters in a musical wonderland; in Doughboy, Bosko can’t dance more than a few seconds before coming under enemy fire. Bosko’s cartoons generally have little to no conflict; Doughboy is nothing but fighting. In short, Bosko the Doughboy is almost a total departure from other shorts in the series (and from those of other studios of the time). It is usually regarded as a high point of the character’s cartoon career.

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Rudolf Ising (1931)

Piggy takes his girlfriend, Fluffy, to a jazz concert.

You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’! is a 1931 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Rudolf Ising. The short was released on October 21, 1931, and stars Piggy, one of the series’ early recurring characters. First released on October 21, 1931, the film is perhaps one of the most amusing and effective of the cartoons from the studio’s earliest years.

The musical soundtrack was done by the then-nationally famous Abe Lyman Orchestra, which adds a happy energy throughout the cartoon. The eccentric virtuoso trombone playing of Orlando “Slim” Martin is prominently featured. Martin played not only music but also some rather bizarre effects on his horn. His trombone solo representing the drunken automobile is especially memorable. The Schlesinger Studio had their sound effects department construct mechanical devices to roughly reproduce some of Martin’s sounds, which became standard cartoon sound effects.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1931)

Bosko and his girlfriend Honey go on a picnic.

Bosko’s Holiday is a one-reel 1931 short subject animated cartoon, part of the Bosko series. It was directed by Hugh Harman, and first released on July 18, 1931 as part of the Looney Tunes series from the Leon Schlesinger animation studio and distributed by Warner Brothers. The film score was composed by Frank Marsales.

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Hugh Harman, William Hannah & Paul Fennell (1936)

A Happy Harmonies cartoon.

To Spring is a 1936 animated musical short produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for the MGM cartoon studio’s Happy Harmonies series. Although the production credit goes to Harman and Ising, this short was actually the first cartoon to be directed by the future cartoon giant William Hanna, along with animator Paul Fennell.

The title is a play on words used to represent the season of spring and action the gnomes must take to wake up and get to work. This cartoon uses the bold and vibrant colors synonymous with springtime, and is an excellent example of the Technicolor process that was very popular at the time.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Congo Jazz is a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Warner Bros.’ first cartoon star, Bosko. The cartoon was released in September 1930. It was distributed by Warner Bros. and The Vitaphone Corporation. Congo Jazz was the first cartoon to feature Bosko’s falsetto voice that he would use for the bulk of the series’ run. It has the earliest instance of a “trombone gobble” in animation.

In 1927, Harman and Ising were still working for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1927 to capitalize on the new “talkie” craze that was sweeping the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1927, before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the copyright office on 3 January 1928.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. April 1929 found them moving on again, leaving Universal to market their new cartoon character. In May 1929, they produced a short pilot cartoon, similar to Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell cartoons, Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid that showcased their ability to animate soundtrack-synchronized speech and dancing. The short, plotless cartoon opens with live action footage of Ising at a drafting table. After he draws Bosko on the page, the character springs to life, talks, sings, and dances. Ising returns Bosko to the inkwell, and the short ends. This short is a landmark in animation history as being the first cartoon to predominantly feature synchronized speech, though Fleischer Studios’ Song Car-Tune My Old Kentucky Home was the first cartoon to contain animated dialogue a few years earlier. This cartoon set Harman and Ising “apart from early Disney sound cartoons because it emphasized not music but dialogue.” The short was marketed to various people by Harman and Ising until Leon Schlesinger offered them a contract to produce a series of cartoons for the Warner Bros. It would not be seen by a wide audience until 71 years later, in 2000, as part of Cartoon Network’s special Toonheads: The Lost Cartoons, a compilation special of rare material from the WB/Turner archives.

In his book, Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin states that this early version of Bosko:

“was in fact a cartoonized version of a young black boy… he spoke in a Southern Negro dialect… in subsequent films this characterization was eschewed, or perhaps forgotten. This could be called sloppiness on the part of Harman and Ising, but it also indicates the uncertain nature of the character itself.”

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Rudolf Carl Ising & Hugh Harman (1930)

Bosko and a pig are hobos in a runaway boxcar.

A train rolls along the tracks in a rhythmic pattern. The train engine blows its whistle three times. The wheel turns into a hand and chokes the whistle to make a honk noise. The two-car train has a stowaway outhouse tied to the back. Inside one of the cars, Bosko and a pig with a banjo are hobos on a train, having fun. Bosko and the pig start playing “Cryin’ for the Carolines” with Bosko scat-singing and the pig on the banjo. He then begins to scat-sing a sorrowful part of the song even causing the pig to tear up.

The boxcar turns to an angle sliding the pig and Bosko toward the wall of the boxcar. The pig is knocked out and unresponsive while the train is climbing up a steep hill. It reaches the top and goes into a dark cave and begins another climb up a steeper hill. It rides like a caterpillar up the hill, inching along until it reaches a section where there is no track. It grabs a sheet of land but pulls down the mountain’s “pants”. The mountain pulls up his pants and the train journey continues. The boxcar carrying Bosko and the pig breaks off, plunging downhill at such speed.

Bosko ventures on top of the oxcar and repeatedly screams for help. The boxcar goes through a series of bumps while Bosko hangs onto a lever. The boxcar goes through three tunnels, at the third one, Bosko screams “Mammy!” The boxcar splits in two but regroups after a few seconds. A low tunnel launches Bosko off and onto a cow on the tracks. A second tunnel launches Bosko back onto the boxcar. A rock launches Bosko into the air. Fearing he might fall off, Bosko holds onto the lever until it collapses onto the train track and again like “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” getting an array of trees. The cow bellows on the track in fright before Bosko gets a telephone pole to the crotch repeatedly.

Getting back on the car due to a rock, Bosko retreats inside the car. The tracks lead to a tree and the cow is caught in the middle. The boxcar smashes the cow into the tree who walks away outstretched and frustrated while Bosko and the pig land on a small board with wheels, distraught. The two dodge the debris from the boxcar falling from the sky as the pig grabs an umbrella to shield them. When it appears safe, the pig closes the umbrella but then his banjo clocks him in the head provoking the pig to screech in pain and start to whimper. Then Bosko pushes the small cart and plays the banjo before entering a dark tunnel.

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Friz Freleng & Rudolf Ising (1931)

Foxy dreams he is the Toonerville Trolley engineer urging his passengers to smile while taking his girlfriend Roxy for a ride. Fortunately, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melody characters evolved and no longer look like a bunch of Disney Mickey’s.

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short and also the title of the song performed in the cartoon. This is one of only three Merrie Melodies cartoons to star Foxy; the other two are Lady, Play Your Mandolin! and One More Time. This short is a remake of Trolley Troubles, a Disney short featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in whose creation Hugh Harman had once been involved.

A colorized version was produced in Korea. It was made by re-drawing the cels and backgrounds. The animation in this version is inferior, since many drawings were left out, causing jerky movement.

Produced by Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Leon Schlesinger. Animated and by drawn by Friz Freleng, Carman Maxwell, and Larry Martin.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1929)


Schlesinger hired Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising to produce their first series of cartoons. Bosko was the first major Looney Tunes lead character, debuting in the short Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid in 1929. The first Looney Tunes short was Sinkin’ in the Bathtub, which was released in 1930.

In 1928, when Walt Disney lost control of his Oswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoon series, producer George Winkler hired away several of Disney’s animators to continue producing the Oswald cartoons for Universal Studios. These animators included Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Isadore “Friz” Freleng, Carman “Max” Maxwell, Norm Blackburn, Paul Smith, and Rollin “Ham” Hamilton. Universal later chose to produce the Oswald series using its own in-house animators headed by Walter Lantz, which left Winkler’s animators out of work. The unemployed animators decided to produce their own cartoons and made Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid as a demonstration to show to distributors. Rudolf Ising appeared on-screen as himself in the short and Carman Maxwell performed the voice of Bosko. Harman and Ising shopped for a distributor, but were turned down by both Paramount Pictures and Universal. Leon Schlesinger, head of Pacific Title & Art Studio took an interest in Bosko and used his connections with Warner Bros. to get a distribution deal for a cartoon series that Harman and Ising later named Looney Tunes, a play on the name of Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony series.

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Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising & Friz Freleng (1929)

Sinkin’ in the Bathtub is the first Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon short as well as the very first of the Looney Tunes series. The title is a pun on the 1929 song Singin’ in the Bathtub.


The short was produced, directed, supervised and co-animated by Harman and Ising, with animation by a very young Friz Freleng and his friends. Leon Schlesinger was credited as an associate producer, and the title card also gave credit to the Western Electric apparatus used to create the film.