Bosko the Doughboy is a one-reel 1931 short subject

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 animated cartoon

Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

, part of the Bosko

Bosko

Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko is the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger's cartoon series, and is the star of over three dozen Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros...

series. It was directed by Hugh Harman

Harman and Ising

Hugh Harman and Rudolf "Rudy" Ising were an American animation team best known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios...

, and first released on October 17, 1931 as part of the Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

series from the Leon Schlesinger

Leon Schlesinger

Leon Schlesinger was an American film producer, most noted for founding Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, during the golden age of Hollywood animation.-Early life and career:...

 animation studio and distributed by Warner Brothers. The cartoon is usually considered one of the better Hugh Harman Bosko cartoons.

Plot

The cartoon opens with images of explosions, gunfire, and heavy artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

; one character even fires into the camera. It is World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, and the ever-cheerful Bosko is a doughboy

Doughboy

Doughboy is an informal term for an American soldier, especially members of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. The term dates back to the Mexican–American War of 1846–48....

 eating down in a trench. Enemy fire destroys his meal, and later a picture of his girlfriend, Honey. Bosko shows a rare moment of anger, but is quickly cheered up by a fellow soldier. The two begin to dance, only to be interrupted by more gunfire. Bosko finally decides to fight back and downs an enemy bomber (actually a pelican

Pelican

A pelican, derived from the Greek word πελεκυς pelekys is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae....

) by using a fellow soldier as a cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

. A friendly hippopotamus

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

 is shot down by heavy artillery, which Bosko destroys with a pair of longjohns-turned-catapult

Catapult

A catapult is a device used to throw or hurl a projectile a great distance without the aid of explosive devices—particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. Although the catapult has been used since ancient times, it has proven to be one of the most effective mechanisms during...

. He then saves the wounded soldier by unzipping his navel and retrieving the shell inside. The projectile explodes anyway, turning the already black-faced Bosko even blacker and prompting him to exclaim "Mammy!" à la Al Jolson

Al Jolson

Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

.

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.

Availability

Bosko the Doughboy is available on disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6

Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6 is a four-disc DVD box set collection of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. Following the pattern of one release each year of the previous volumes, it was released on October 21, 2008....

and on Uncensored Bosko:Vol 1.