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Director: Phil Mulloy
Release Date: 1995
Rating: ★★½
‘Thou Shalt Not Adore False Gods’ is number one of Phil Mulloy’s Ten Commandments films, even though it was not the first one made. This episode has a particularly bizarre story that makes little sense.
The short features one of Mulloy’s standard cowboys, who’s robbed by a burglar, and tied to chair in front of his piano. No-one ever releases him, but over the years he learns to play the piano with his nose.
Unlike most of the Ten Commandment films this short contains neither a voice over nor dialogue, apart from a few short cries. God himself is visible in this cartoon, being portrayed as a selfish and vain creature.
‘Thou Shalt Not Adore False Gods’ is available on the BFI DVD ‘Phil Mulloy – Extreme Animation’
Director: Hugh Harman
Release Date: January 16, 1933
Stars: Bosko, Honey, Rudolf Ising
Rating: ★★★
Review:
This Looney Tune has a Western setting with Bosko starring as a singing cowboy, a new type of Hollywood star that has risen during the early 1930’s.
Bosko enters a saloon in Red Gulch, immediately starts a dance and goes on playing the piano. Meanwhile his girlfriend Honey rides a stagecoach, which is chased by three vicious bandits. This chase scene is simply stuffed with animation cycles. As Bosko is busy entertaining, it takes quite a while before Bosko rides off to rescue his sweetheart.
The complete cartoon is rich in action, but surprisingly low on gags (there’s one about a homosexual). Nevertheless, the short ends quite unusually: suddenly we cut back to three animators. Rudolph Ising asks “Say, how does Bosko save the girl?”, an animator replies: “I don’t know.”, and another: “Let’s go home”, leaving Bosko on his sheet of paper. This gag is pretty unconventional, but one cannot but feel a bit of laziness and disinterest in this scene, as if the animators didn’t care much for their own star themselves. Even so, Bosko would star fourteen more Warner Brothers films, before Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising took him with them to MGM.
Watch ‘Ride Him, Bosko!’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Ride Him, Bosko!’ is available on the DVD ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Six’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: March 11, 1950
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Tom somehow is a cowboy at the ‘Dude Ranch’ in Texas.
This ranch is visited by a sexy kitten in cowboy dress, and Tom tries to impress her: first, by an outrageously cool smoking of a cigarette, then by singing to a record player and courting her at the same time. This is a wonderful scene and undoubtedly the highlight of this cartoon, which is highly enjoyable throughout, anyway.
The record player is an early testimony of the introduction of 331⁄3 and 45 rpm records two years earlier, for it is able to play with variable speeds. The cartoon also features a long bull chase, and ends with Jerry kissing the girl, and riding Tom into the sun set .
Tom and Jerry would return to the West four years later in ‘Posse Cat’, with much less funny results.
Watch ‘Texas Tom’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 49
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Saturday Evening Puss
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Jerry and the Lion
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 