18 November 2009

Big Ramapith From the North

Another big blog entry coming soon, I promise; but I'd be remiss not to draw your attention to this update of my earlier Halloween post. Following on the challenge I gave you there, I've now got some in-depth analysis of 1920s production methods with—I hope—some interesting observations.
To the right we're seeing some of Vitaphone's original press material on Big Man From the North (1931), one of the relevant shorts. "Bosco" (sic) is spelled as such in most early Looney Tunes publicity materials I've seen, though the proper version of the character's name had in fact been formally registered as early as 1928.

2 comments:

The Jerk said...

is it possible that the name "bosco" was taken from the name of a certain chocolate syrup of the same name, which was first produced in 1928 or is there a mutually shared source of the name that predates either of these "bosco's"?

ramapith said...

Michael Barrier has established that the Bosko character was registered very early in 1928—January 3, to be precise. It thus seems impossible that the character could have been named after the drink.