Congo Jazz (1930)

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Absolutely brilliant

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

. . . Warner Bros.' animators are urging the World to hunt down and kill EVERY wild animal that can harm people with this 1930 release, CONGO JAZZ. This brief cartoon opens with Buzz Bosko hunting down one of the World's few remaining tigers. When his gun misfires, Mr. Bosko tricks the giant feline to careen off a high cliff to its doom. Unfortunately, he loses his gun in the process, so he's unable to foreshadow how Real Life Ohio Zookeepers recently gunned down the giant ape who got too curious about people when a cartoon giant ape threatens Buzz. If you stop and think about it, JAZZ's animators would have been incredulous at the idea that sharks would still be chowing down on the humans NOT already offed by poisonous snakes, rabid bats, baby-eating dingoes, and killer mosquitoes this late into the 21st Century. Most science fiction prognosticators of their day pictured Mankind enjoying a virtually sterile, threat-free environment in the 2100s, with the only non-human animals--dangerous or not--confined to Jurassic Parks and Time Travel Tours.

"Congo Jazz" is a 6.5-minute cartoon made by successful animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising in the year 1930, so it had its 85th anniversary last year. It is in black-and-white, but it has sound and the title already gives away that the music in this little movie is one of the core components, actually the core component I would say. It is still better than most other Bosco stuff I have seen, but the funny moments about the hunter becoming the hunted and some chewing gum music action alone are not enough anymore, not even for the early 1930s as animation was improving drastically around that time and the Bosco cartoons became outdated really quickly. I think only huge cartoon lovers should check this one out. No English is spoken, so you can watch it wherever you are from and won't need subtitles. But the real question is, do you really want to? I give it a thumbs-down.

Bosko, in case you've never heard of him, was the original Looney Tunes star, appearing in the cartoons from 1930 until 1933, when his creators moved to MGM. In "Congo Jazz", the character hunts animals. What's interesting is that in the instance of an attack by a gorilla, Bosko makes the big guy forget that they're supposed to be enemies; just like what Bugs Bunny frequently did! True, there's not much in the way of plot. Of the few Bosko cartoons that I've seen, this was far from the best. Mostly it functions as a cultural historical reference, a look into the early days of what within a few years became the domain of Porky, then Daffy, and finally Bugs.BTW, is it just me, or when Bosko spanks the monkey, do they show the monkey's butt? Seriously, I know that this was before the Hays Code, but still.

In Congo Jazz, Bosko is a hunter who is chased by a tiger. He shoots but the bullet comes out with a whimper instead of a bang. Eventually, Bosko pulls a flute out and serenades the tiger to the edge of a cliff before kicking him off. He then encounters a couple of young apes. One of them gets in trouble with Bosko so he opens the baby's butt-fur and attempts to spank him (this was obviously pre-Code). The father arrives. Feeling threatened, Bosko offers some gum. The father ape obliges. They then make beautiful music together when both play with their tongues. All the jungle animals join in. It all ends with two laughing hyenas laughing at Bosko's expense though Bosko himself does too...Another musical Bosko that has its own charm despite no real plot to speak of, just gags connected by music and setting. Pretty entertaining though a far cry from later Looney Tunes that became classics after Tex Avery and other "new blood" arrived in 1936...