Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid
About Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid
Rudolf Ising sits at a drawing board and sketches Bosko, drawn in blackface. The figure climbs off the page, talks, sings, dances, and plays the piano. Ising drops him back into the inkwell.
Cast & crew
More about Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising made the reel in May 1929, after they left Charles Mintz, as a sample of synchronized speech and dancing. It was not released to theaters. Friz Freleng and Rollin Hamilton animated. The sound is Western Electric Vitaphone, sound-on-disc.
Themes
Music
Carman Maxwell speaks and sings for Bosko. Irene Hamilton is credited with the music, recorded on Vitaphone discs.
Preservation
A print survives. Silent Era lists the film as public domain in the United States. It was issued unrestored on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 DVD in 2003 and on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray in 2012.
Notes
- Carman Maxwell speaks Bosko. Ising appears as the cartoonist.
- Irene Hamilton is credited with the music.
- Harman and Ising had copyrighted the character in 1927–28, while they were still at Disney.
- Paramount and Universal turned the reel down. Leon Schlesinger, of Pacific Title and Art Studio, used his Warner Bros. contacts to start the series they named Looney Tunes, a play on Silly Symphonies.
- Wide audiences first saw it in 2000, on Cartoon Network's ToonHeads: The Lost Cartoons.
Scenes
- Ising draws Bosko, and the ink figure stands up on the page and talks.
- Bosko is pushed back into the inkwell.
Influenced by
- Out of the Inkwell
Influenced
- Looney Tunes
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid 190613 LTPC.webm)
- Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 (DVD, 2003)
- Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 (Blu-ray, 2012)
