Hobo Bobo

Hobo Bobo is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short released by Warner Bros. on May 17, 1947, written by Warren Foster and directed by Robert McKimson, with narration by Robert C. Bruce, and Bobo's only line delivered by Mel Blanc.

Plot

Bobo, a baby elephant, sees a dark future for himself if he should remain in India to haul logs with his trunk for the rest of his life. After receiving a letter from his uncle in America, he decides to emigrate there to play on a circus baseball team. After Bobo's attempts to stow away aboard a ship bound for the United States fail repeatedly, he is advised by the mynah bird (better known from the Inki series) to paint himself pink. As seeing pink elephants is the traditional hallucination of the drunkard, neither the captain, the crew nor the passengers will acknowledge seeing Bobo, and thus he has the virtual run of the ship for the entire voyage. When Bobo finally disembarks in New York City, he is likewise unacknowleged, until a street-cleaning vehicle washes his pink paint off, and the populace panics at the sight of a normal gray baby elephant on the street. Hauled into court by the police, the judge sentences him to life -- at the circus, where he is promptly engaged by the baseball team as the official batboy, and he angrily utters his only line in the film, "Batboy, shmatboy! I'm still carrying logs!"

The sequel to this cartoon, Gone Batty, was originally released in 1954, and re-released as a Merrie Melodies Blue Ribbon classic in 1963.

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