page_title: Sinkin' in the Bathtub
section_title: Plot synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Sinkin' in the Bathtub / Plot synopsis
caption_attribution_description: English: Still from "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" (1930)
context_page_description: Sinkin' in the Bathtub is the first Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon short as well as the first of the Looney Tunes series. The cartoon features Bosko, and the title is a pun on the 1929 song Singin' in the Bathtub. The name of the Looney Tunes series bears an obvious debt to the Walt Disney Animation Studios' Silly Symphony series, which began in 1929. Steve Schneider writes that this "immediately reveals Harman and Ising's belief that the only way to compete — or even to survive — in the cartoon trade was to cleave to the Disney version."
  Made in 1930, this short marked the theatrical debut of Bosko the "Talk-Ink Kid" whom Harman and Ising had created to show to Warner Brothers. Bosko became their first star character, surpassed only much later by Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. Notably, this is the only publicly released Bosko short to feature Bosko's original blackface dialect provided by animator Carman Maxwell; he would later adopt a more falsetto voice for later films.
  The short was produced, directed, supervised and co-animated by Harman and Ising, with animation by a very young Friz Freleng and his friends.
context_section_description: The film opens with Bosko taking a bath while whistling "Singin' in the Bathtub". A series of gags allows him to play the shower spray like a harp, pull up his pants by tugging his hair, and give the limelight to the bathtub itself which stands on its hind feet to perform a dance. (There is a clear shot of a toilet during this scene, and the bathtub tears off sheets of toilet paper during its dance, permissible only in the pre-Hays Code days.)
  Once he finds his car, which had left the garage to use the outhouse, Bosko goes to visit his girlfriend Honey, who is showering in front of an open window. "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" plays in the background. A goat eats the flowers he brought, so he serenades her to get her to come out. A saxophone full of bubbles (caused when she dumps a bathtub full of soapy water into Bosko's saxophone due to his butchering of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips") provide a floating cascade of steps for her as she alights from the balcony. "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" accompanies this action.
  Their country drive presents grave perils for Bosko, with the first obstacle being a stubborn grazing cow. After the cow is pushed out of the way, the indignant cow walks away to the tune of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance Marches". The drive continues as the car is at first resistant to go up a steep hill, then speeds out of control while Bosko collides into various objects that create the sounds of ascending and descending C major scales. (Bosko exclaims "mammy" in the original version during this portion of the film.) The sequence ends with the car plunging over a cliff into a lake. Always able to adapt, Bosko continues their date as a boating trip and plays the last refrain (a reprise of "Singin' in the Bathtub") using lilypads as a marimba.
  The cartoon ends with Bosko saying the classic line "That's all Folks!"
caption: Bosko plays the shower spray as a harp
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