Hobo Bobo (1947)

Hobo Bobo Review

Hobo Bobo is a 1947 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is an odd entry.

This one is odd because it doesn’t really feel like a Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies short in any way. It’s more in line with Disney movies and having in mind that both pink elephants and the name Jumbo are mentioned, this is very clearly influenced by ‘Dumbo’, maybe a bit too much. The movie needed more humor and less repetitive storytelling as that one joke was literally mined throughout.

But the joke still worked to a degree as they really parodied this fear of seeing pink elephants and its connection with drunkenness so well. I liked the main character quite a bit and I also really liked the mynah bird in that one scene that he got. But it’s weird that he only got one sequence and I wanted so much more from him.

Hobo Bobo has some good sequences and a fine main joke, but it’s repetitive throughout and overall not much of a Warner Bros. cartoon after all.