Plot
The cartoon opens with images of explosions, gunfire, and heavy artillery; one character even fires into the camera. It is World War I, and the ever-cheerful Bosko is a doughboy eating down in a trench. Enemy fire destroys his meal, and later a picture of his girlfriend, Honey. Bosko shows a rare moment of anger, but is quickly cheered up by a fellow soldier. The two begin to dance, only to be interrupted by more gunfire. Bosko finally decides to fight back and downs an enemy bomber (actually a pelican) by using a fellow soldier as a cannon. A friendly hippopotamus is shot down by heavy artillery, which Bosko destroys with a pair of longjohns-turned-catapult. He then saves the wounded soldier by unzipping his navel and retrieving the shell inside. The projectile explodes anyway, turning the already black-faced Bosko even blacker and prompting him to exclaim "Mammy!" à la Al Jolson.
Bosko the Doughboy is notable for its departure from the standard cartoon formula of its era. Bosko is usually infallibly happy and chipper; Doughboy forces him to drop this demeanor and fight back. Other Bosko shorts concentrate primarily on Bosko cavorting with other characters in a musical wonderland; in Doughboy, Bosko can't dance more than a few seconds before coming under enemy fire. Bosko's cartoons generally have little to no conflict; Doughboy is nothing but fighting. In short, Bosko the Doughboy is almost a total departure from other shorts in the series (and from those of other studios of the time). It is usually regarded as a high point of the character's cartoon career.
Read more about this topic: Bosko The Doughboy
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot thickens, he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (19171977)
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitors thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?1400)