Bosko goes North and it's basically a seven-minute fever dream

I finally got around to watching Big Man from the North from 1931. If you have seven minutes and like watching things that feel like they were drawn by someone on a heavy sugar rush, this is for you.

It’s a Bosko cartoon. You either love that weird, bouncy inkblot style or you find it slightly creepy.

Personally, I think it's worth watching just to see how utterly chaotic animation used to be before everything got all polished and corporate. People who want a deep story will probably hate this, though.

The whole thing starts with Bosko as a Mountie. His sergeant is this giant, screaming head that literally spits when he talks. The spit hits the camera. It’s a small detail, but it made me laugh because it feels so unnecessary.

He has to go get his man. Standard stuff, right? Like something out of The Law of the North, but with more rubber limbs.

The Logic of the North

The logic in this movie is nonexistent. Bosko’s horse is basically a accordion. It stretches and squishes in ways that should definitely break its spine.

The snow looks like thick, white ink. It doesn't even look cold. It looks like the characters are just walking on a giant sheet of paper.

There is a scene in a bar—or a trading post, I guess—where everyone is just vibrating to the music. Even the mugs of beer are bouncing. I spent way too much time wondering who is paying for all the spilled drinks.

Then Honey shows up. She’s playing the piano. But she isn't just playing it; she is attacking it. Her whole body turns into a whip. It’s actually kind of impressive animation for 1931.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Big Man from the North (1930) through its definitive frames.

• The villain is just a huge pile of hair with a gun.
• The bar fight involves a lot of rhythmic punching.
• The horse does most of the actual work.

The villain is named Killer. He looks like a thumb covered in fur. When he walks into the bar, the music stops, but only for like three seconds. Then everyone goes back to being weirdly happy.

There is a moment where Bosko tries to be tough. He pulls out a gun, but it feels like he’s just playing pretend. It’s much more like Boots and Saddles if everyone was made of licorice.

Wait, why is the piano eating him?

One of the best parts is when the piano literally starts helping out. Or maybe it’s just the physics of the world. Everything in this movie is alive. The stools, the floor, the walls. It’s a bit claustrophobic if you think about it too hard.

The ending is very sudden. He gets the guy, I think? It doesn't really matter. The whole point was just to watch the drawings move.

I noticed a weird mistake in the background. In one shot, the window just disappears. Then it's back. I love stuff like that. It reminds you that real people were hunched over desks drawing this frame by frame.

If you're looking for something more serious about the North, maybe try Die ewige Nacht. This is not that. This is just pure, 100% distilled silliness.

The music is catchy, though. It’s been stuck in my head for three hours. Help.

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not trying to be. It’s just a loud, bouncy relic from a time when cartoons didn't need to make sense. Sometimes that’s exactly what you need on a Tuesday afternoon.

One last thing—the way Bosko eats his food is disgusting. He basically inhales a whole plate. I don't know why that bothered me more than the talking horse, but it did.