Cingalli Circle

Big-Hearted Bosko (March 1932) has an odd error toward the end, at least in the version in circulation.

The cartoon is fairly routine, with the first half taken up with Bosko and Bruno skating on a pond. They find a baby in a basket and take him home.

The second half shows Bosko and Bruno failing to stop the child from crying until the dog puts on a lamp shade as a hula skirt and starts wiggling. All three of them start swinging to Richard Whiting’s “Cingalli.”

For four frames, a circle flashes on the screen. What’s it supposed to be?



Oh, well. It doesn’t stop them from dancing. A roast duck makes a cameo appearance.

Friz Freleng and Ham Hamilton are the credited animators.

The New MGM Cartoon Team: The Raven and the Bookworm

The kindly Dr. Jekyll tries to undo the brain (and size) transfer wrought by Mr. Hyde on a New York-ish raven (Mel Blanc) and a bookworm in The Bookworm Turns, a 1940 MGM cartoon.



After a struggle, he throws the switch. A lightning-esque electric current activates.



It forms a hand that magnetically captures the raven and the bookworm and deposits them into a system that transports them via liquid-filled tubes and turns them back the way they were. The layouts and colours are certainly impressive.

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This is the second cartoon starring the bookworm and the raven (neither of which have a name in a profile in the July-August 1939 edition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Short Stories.

Boxoffice’s review credited it for “Highly imaginative information and brilliant execution,” but warned exhibitors kids might have nightmares watching it. Think of the children!!!

Hugh Harman is the only person who gets screen credit.

The cartoon was released July 20, 1940, a week before A Wild Hare at Warner Bros. The first Tom and Jerry cartoon had already been in theatres for about 5½ months. Sorry, Hugh. That’s the direction Metro is going.

A Dusting of Cleanser

Old Dutch Cleanser doesn't just "chase dirt." It appears in a Bosko cartoon as well.

Bosko goes cleaning crazy in Bosko's Store (1932). He dusts off some eggs (which hatch) and then turns his attention to a cut-out, stand-up ad for an obvious-but-unnamed cleanser. The maid comes to life and gives out with a squealing giggle.



Evidently, she's fickle. She turns around and bops Bosko.



Bosko staggers back from the blow. But, no matter. He resumes his dancing and dusting like nothing happened.



There's another pop culture reference. On the phone, Bosko yells "Okay, Chicago!" It comes from Walter Winchell on the Lucky Strike radio show. On November 3, 1931, Winchell and his magic carpet appeared on the Red network (WJZ) for the first time, and switched to different dance bands around the world with an "Okay... (name of city)." That was the cue for the engineer to switch lines. It was parodied in a syndicated newspaper cartoon of the day.


There's a crotch/pain gag and a piano, something not uncommon in cartoons made on the West Coast in the early 1930s.

Friz Freleng and Bob McKimson receive the animation credits. Bosko sings "There's A Rainbow On The River" by Dave Oppenheim and Sam H. Stept (copyright Jan. 25, 1932) before giving us his version of "Turkey in the Straw."

Re-Using Harman-Ising

Reusing animation was not beneath Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising at Warner Bros. No, we don’t mean the same stomp-slide step Bosko and other characters did. Or the same three-quarters view, open-mouth-with-tongue expression found in all kinds of circle-headed characters. We mean whole scenes.

Here’s a good example from We're in the Money, released Aug. 26, 1933. It’s a pretty lacklustre cartoon. The same old toys-come-to-life-and-play-a-Warners-owned-song schtick. One scene has a toy with wheels for feet. He rolls along in a right-to-left pan, stops and twirls. It’s a cycle of eight drawings.

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Why, here it is again from A Great Big Bunch of You, released November 12, 1932.



The end title animation is reused, as the toy shouts “So long, folks!” From the Money ending.



And the Bunch ending.



Like a number of Harman and Ising, there are cycles in Money of cheering, applauding characters. Some cycles were used more than once.

The animation credits on A Great Big Bunch of You went to Ham Hamilton and Tom McKimson. On We're in the Money, the credits go to Friz Freleng and Larry Martin.

Money was the last Merrie Melodies cartoon from the Harman-Ising team. On May 4, 1933, The Film Daily reported Leon Schlesinger had ended his contract with them.

The title song was heard 55 times in a Warners cartoon, more than any other tune owned by the studio (The William Tell Overture was used 88 times and Yankee Doodle in 58 cartoons).