Bosko's Mechanical Man (1933) User Reviews

Bosko and the robot

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 12 June 2017]

The Bosko cartoons may not be animation masterpieces, but they are fascinating as examples of Looney Tunes in their early days before the creation of more compelling characters and funnier and more creative cartoons. There are some good cartoons, as well as some average or less ones.

'Bosko's Mechanical Man' is neither among the best or worst Bosko cartoons, a middling and slightly above average one if you will. The premise is an interesting one, not used to full potential but has its moments.

Admittedly, as expected, the story is thin often and more an excuse to string the gags a lot. Pacing could have been tighter, at times it's a bit draggy, and Bosko is still a bit limited as a character and not exactly funny or interesting. His dog is funnier and more interesting, as is charming Honey but it's the robot that steals the show.

As always for a Bosko cartoon the animation is good. Not exactly refined but fluid and crisp enough with some nice detail, it is especially good in the meticulous backgrounds and some remarkably flexible yet natural movements for Bosko. The music doesn't disappoint either, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy. Bosko's rendition of "Sweet Georgia" is fun.

Sound quality has clarity and the synchronisation isn't sloppy and has imagination. The way Bosko is animated is well done and remarkably natural.

The gags have their moments of fun and invention, but that quality doesn't come consistently, some of them needed to be far sharper and less predictable.

In conclusion, middling and above average but inconsistent. 6/10 Bethany Cox

See Bosko. See Bosko build a robot.

[llltdesq · 6/10 · 11 October 2006]

This short is reasonably decent, even if it basically copies a trend among other studios which did similar shorts based on the same premise and springing from roughly the same inspirational source. It was the last Bosko done for Warner Brothers, as Harman and Ising left there to go to MGM, where they used the character occasionally and drastically redesigned him, but that's another story. I want to talk about some of the gags, so this is a spoiler warning:

In the 1930s, there was a movement called "Technocracy", whose proponents believed that technology was the salvation of mankind. A number of shorts made use of the theory as a jumping-off point for the basic inspiration, including this one. The short begins with Honey doing housecleaning chores, specifically cleaning a window. Bosko makes the mistake of showing up (he also takes Honey's flowers from the front yard to "give" them to Honey. Bruno, being far wiser, stays outside.

Honey is delighted to see Bosko, telling him (in a rhyming couplet, no less) that he's going to help her with the dishes, which he finds terribly amusing. The scene dissolves to find Bosko and Honey-you guessed it-doing the dishes. Bosko, incapable of acting seriously, "shuffles" the stacks of plates together and tries dancing his way to the cabinets with a huge stack of dishes. The predictable disaster happens and Honey chews him out, but Bosko sees a headline about robots and decides to build one to do his work for him. So he rapidly builds a robot out of items he just happens to find laying around and builds his own "mechanical man". He starts it up and it promptly goes berserk! This is where most of the really visually interesting gags come from in the short. The animation on the robot is very good and watching it crash through Honey's house taking out door after door (with Bosko trapped between two of them) is quite effective.

Honey briefly stops the rampage by spraying perfume on the robot, which then starts prancing around and tearing off sheets from a roll of bathroom tissue. This stops when it sees Bosko and it goes after him again. Honey then sticks a record player (with a copy of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the turntable) into the robot and it calms down again-until the record sticks and it goes nuts again. It chases Honey and Bosko out the front door, startling Bruno, who runs after them when the robot shocks him. Bosko ends the chase (and the short) when he hurls a bomb into the robot's mouth and blows it up.

This has some very nice animation and is a nice finish to the series at Warner Brothers. I hope that it winds up on a future Looney Tunes Golden Collection. Recommended.

Decent Looney Tunes short

[Michael_Elliott · 20 October 2009]

Bosko's Mechanical Man (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Early Looney Tunes short from Warner has Bosko at his girlfriend's house and he's not too happy to be having to do all sorts of chores. He then reads that robots can do whatever you want so he gathers up various parts lying around the house and builds one but, like Frankenstein, learns not to build things from the dead. This is a fair short that manages to keep you entertained throughout the running time but in the end there aren't enough laughs to make it anything overly special. The highlight, of course, is the robot coming to life and causing all sorts of damage but it's the dog that gets most of the pain as the robot electrocutes him! The animation is pretty good if you like this early form and Bosko is as lively as ever.

At the end of this animated short . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 18 January 2017]

. . . a series of numbers are repeated, not unlike the string that "Hurley" encounters during LOST. Numerologists still are deciphering the possible meanings in the digits emanating from BOSKO'S MECHANICAL MAN (and repeated, as dates, in this exact order:) 1-2, 4-20, 5-4, 6-7, 7-11, 11-6, and 12-25 (or 46-75, collectively). After a DAILY BUGLE headline declares that "Robot will do the work of 100 men, say technocrats," Bosko builds his own private Bot so that he can have his Honey, and 99 more on the side. Now, any mathematicians worth their Pi will tell you that the sum of 46-75 is 11 squared (which is not as gross as when you do the same thing to 12). If you minus the 100 from this sum, you're left with 11, one rotten egg short of a dozen. Toss in birthdays for Jesus, Hitler, and an American convenience store chain, and you're still a day late and a Dollar Tree short for New Year's and D-Day, but a day ahead of Completion Day for the Great Wall of Trump. That leaves November 6 all by its lonesome, as the day the Robots will Rule for once and for all. Don't expect them to re-elect Trump.