More Bosco! --uh... Bosco??

 

Yes, this guy. Bosko of the Looney Tunes fame. (don't ask me why the promoters misspelled the name).

Resuming the -relatively small- series of articles about Bosko, here is that review of Congo Jazz from Les Spectacles d'Alger (Alger was part of the French colonial empire back then), published in Nov. 19, 1930 -- probably a good three months after its initial American release. With the sophisticated prose seen very often in newspapers of the time.

Note how the author -apparently- gave this cartoon a running time of 20 minutes (!). The role of the musical score is emphasized.
"There's novelty, verve,  jeunesse, and genius". Thus were the critic's words. You be the judge:

And back we go to Europe in Dec. 19, 1930, this time to read the review of Contre-enquête (one of several local adaptations of Warner's Those Who Dance ) as seen in Les Spectacles (once again!). Two cartoons are mentioned in the ending of the article:

Bosco en voyage suggest something along the lines of "Bosko goes on a trip" etc., likely Box Car Blues.

Bosco policier casts Bosko as a policeman... we'll associate this title with Big Man from the North.

But here we are, confronted to an issue: how is it that the French audience got to see the latter of the two  in December of 1930 while the cartoon is given a later release date in American screens -usually Jan or Feb of 1931-? It is possible that Big Man from the North was initially shown earlier than most sources state - pinning down the exact release date is made mind-numbingly difficult by the lack of copyright notices.

Unfortunately, good things must come to an end, and to paraphrase an infamous Nickelodeon promo, "No more Bosko. Sorry, Bosko!"