Box Car Blues (1930)

Lack of good storyline.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The Bosko cartoons may not be animation masterpieces, but they are fascinating as examples of Looney Tunes in their early days before the creation of more compelling characters and funnier and more creative cartoons.After an interesting if just slightly above average and not much more pilot cartoon 'The Talk-Ink Kid', the decent 'Sinkin' in the Bathtub' 'Congo Jazz' and 'Hold Anything' and the very average 'The Booze Hangs High', 'Box Car Blues' is a nice cartoon and one of the better Bosko cartoons at this particular point in the series, if not a cartoon masterpiece.Unsurprisingly, the story is slight to the point of being plot-less, basically an excuse to string along music and gags, and the pacing is at times erratic, with parts just right, parts rushed and parts slightly draggy. It does feel very routine too, and Bosko has shown more personality before.'Box Car Blues' animation is not bad at all. Not exactly refined but fluid and crisp enough with some nice detail, it is especially good in the meticulous backgrounds and some remarkably flexible yet natural movements for Bosko. The music is 'Box Car Blues' highlight component, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy.While never hilarious the gags are amusing at times and parts of the cartoon are cute and don't reach bizarre depths like 'The Booze Hangs High'. The sound is not too static either.In summary, decent if not great Bosko cartoon. 7/10 Bethany Cox

. . . (or steam whistle, to be precise). While seeing a Choo-Choo suddenly sprout hands and choke its own sounding apparatus to produce an Old Timey (from Today's perspective) railroad greeting may have amused Young Folks back in the day, what should it convey to We Millennials of the 21st Century, given that we're aware that virtually EVERY Looney Tune is embedded with a warning subtext from Warner Bros.' prophetic animators meant to alert People of Today of America's upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti. Obviously, this little engine that CAN'T (each accident on the tracks representing another failed marriage, bankrupt casino, and LOST presidential election, but still insists upon tooting its old horn with unabashed braggadocio) represents White House Resident-Elect Rump (though the engine's usually hidden hands seem much bigger than Donald J. Duck's Teenie Tiny Appendages). The lady disguised as a mountain whom the climbing engine Depants obviously is meant to represent the countless victims of Serial Finger Rapist Rump (to which his ACCESS H0LLYWOOD taped confession alludes). What happens to this Donald the Tanking Engine at the end? (SPOILER ALERT) In a horrendous crash, this Engine of America's Destruction explodes in a deafening collision, raining down decades worth of debris on Bosko, his banjo-playing hobo hippo buddy, and the rest of the USA!

Just watched this Bosco cartoon on YouTube. In this one, he's on a train with someone singing a song as that train goes up a really steep hill with some of the tracks missing. Then the train breaks apart with Bosco on the last one that disconnects and goes the other way. I'll stop there and just say there's quite a bit of unusual gags that you'll only find in these late silent/early talkie cartoons when animators were at their most cartoony, no matter how absurd they truly were. Like that "hill" becoming a person who pulls up his/her pants which causes the disconnected track to connect. Oh, and while Bosco adopts his "Mickey Mouse" falsetto here, when he says "Mammy!" in a dark place, you can bet some of his origins were in imitation of Al Jolson! So on that note, Box Car Blues is worth a look for anyone interested in these early animations.

This is a typical Bosko short: put him in a situation, some means of playing music, introduce a predicament or three for him to largely ignore blithely, usually singing as he does so and fill with sight gags. Here, Bosko has a partner in song, a pig rather than Honey. The use of music is the best thing here in an otherwise average cartoon. Worth watching. Recommended for fans of Harman and Ising and the old black and white cartoons.