Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid
| Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes series | |
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| Directed by | Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Voices by | Carman Maxwell |
| Studio | The Vitaphone Corp. (with Western Electric Apparatus) |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. (as Warner Brothers Production) |
| Release date(s) | May 1929 |
| Running time | 5 min (1 reel) |
| Followed by | Sinkin' in the Bathtub |
Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid is a 1929 live-action/animated short film produced to sell a series of Bosko cartoons. The film was never released to theaters, and therefore not seen by a wide audience until 2000 (71 years later) on Cartoon Network's television special Toonheads: The Lost Cartoons. The film was produced in May 1929 and directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising.
Rudolf Ising is thinking of ideas for a new character, until he draws a blackfaced person, who comes to life. The new character introduces himself as Bosko, and he speaks, sings, dances and plays the piano before Ising sucks him into his ink pen and pours him back into the inkwell. Bosko pops out of the bottle and promises to return.
In 1928, when Walt Disney lost control of his Oswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoon series, producer George Winkler hired away several of Disney's animators to continue producing the Oswald cartoons for Universal Studios. These animators included Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Isadore "Friz" Freleng, Carman "Max" Maxwell, Norm Blackburn, Paul Smith, and Rollin "Ham" Hamilton. Universal later chose to produce the Oswald series using its own in-house animators headed by Walter Lantz, which left Winkler's animators out of work. The unemployed animators decided to produce their own cartoons and made Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid as a demonstration to show to distributors. Rudolf Ising appeared on-screen as himself in the short and Carman Maxwell performed the voice of Bosko. Harman and Ising shopped for a distributor, but were turned down by both Paramount Pictures and Universal. Leon Schlesinger, head of Pacific Title & Art Studio took an interest in Bosko and used his connections with Warner Bros. to get a distribution deal for a cartoon series that Harman and Ising later named Looney Tunes, a play on the name of Walt Disney's Silly Symphony series.
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