The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 92

Mickey Mouse and Merry Melodies: Ho
Entertained and Inspired Americ
dience feel like they’re a part of the story.
When her Prince Charming comes
looking for her, he finds a note that
reads, “Dear Princy: Got tired of waiting,
went to a Warner Bros. Show. Lovingly,
Cinderella.” The scene pans out
to show Cinderella has “exited” the film
and now sits in the audience. There was
often no boundary between animated
characters and live audiences viewing
Warner Bros. cartoons. These types of
shorts harkened back to pre-sound and
pre-Depression movie palaces that encouraged
audience participation—now
seen as a violation of acceptable movie
theater behavior. 54
Another Warner Bros. short that
had this vaudeville sensibility featured
one of the studios’ first characters. Ride
Him, Bosko, from 1933, featured Bosko
as a cowboy riding and singing through
the desert. It was an animated musical
western that featured fighting, shooting,
and plenty of booze. When Bosko’s girl
is attacked by desperados on her way to
see him and then the Deadwood stage
is robbed, Bosko rides into the desert to
be a hero. However, the cartoon ends by
panning out from the screen and showing
a trio of animators sitting around
talking and smoking. The three clock
out for the night with a promise to finish
the cartoon the next day. 55 The short
technically never ends; the animators
leave Bosko without support or a neat
resolution to his story. That lack of a
resolution or remedy was a feeling felt
by many Americans in the first years of
the Depression.
Warner Bros. debuted Bosko
with Sinkin’ in the Bathtub in 1930. The
Talk-ink Kid would set the stage for
4