Bosko's Picture Show

Bosko's Picture Show, released in 1933, was the last Looney Tunes Bosko cartoon produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. The duo moved on to produce cartoons for MGM, the first of which were released in 1934.

Plot

Relatively void of plot, the short depicts Bosko hosting a movie show, playing a "Furtilizer" organ (a play on the name Wurlitzer), leading the audience in the song "We're in the Money". He goes on to introduce a mock newsreel which features caricatures of the Marx Brothers chasing a dog in a dog race, as well as a sequence depicting Adolf Hitler pursuing Jimmy Durante with a meat cleaver in hand, possibly the first time Hitler was depicted in an animated cartoon. It is followed by a short subject parodying Laurel and Hardy who are called "Haurel and Lardy" starring in "Spite of Everything". The climax of the movie is a burlesque melodrama in which a stereotypical villain chases Bosko's girlfriend, Honey who was initially serenaded in the melodrama by the Marx Brothers.

DVD availability

This cartoon is available as part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD set, uncut, uncensored, and digitally remastered.

Censorship

• In the original version of the cartoon, an angry Bosko refers to the villain by distinctly saying, according to the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD set subtitles, "The dirty fox!" It is widely believed that Bosko actually said, "The dirty fuck!" Fans have theorized that this could be a parting shot by Harman and Ising at Warner Bros. animation head Leon Schlesinger, with whom they disputed over various matters, though this seems unlikely as both Schlesinger and Warners would have reviewed the cartoon prior to release and edited out the offending line (unless both Schlesinger and Warners misheard the line as "The dirty fox!"). Regardless, the phrase was changed to "The dirty cur!" when this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon on the second airing.
• Nickelodeon also cut the scene in the newsreel showing Hitler (caricatured for the first time in a Looney Tunes cartoon) chasing Jimmy Durante with a meat cleaver.

External links

• Bosko's Picture Show at the Internet Movie Database
• Bosko's Picture Show at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Toon Zone article