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.While there are better Bosko cartoons, there are also worse. 'Yodeling Yokels' is watchable, but only just a little above average, so as far as Bosko cartoons go in ranking it's somewhere in the middle. As ever with a Bosko cartoon, the story is slight and some of the antics and peril with Bosko and Honey is predictable and struggles to maintain momentum.'Yodeling Yokels' does have some amusing moments and good visual gags, but the predictability and repetition of some of the gags make the cartoon an amusing one in parts rather than a continually very funny or even hilarious one. And yes, Honey and particularly Bosko's yodelling is pretty painful.On the other hand, the 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 doesn't disappoint either, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy.Bosko's personality is neither fleshed out or annoying, more endearing than before and fun if a little bland. Likewise with Honey. The best character here is the mouse, whose material is much funnier and whose scenes and story have a lot of freshness and charm. The sound is good and hardly static.In summary, watchable but just a little above average. 6/10 Bethany Cox

. . . and one of the always psychic warnings from Warner Bros.' Division of Animated Shorts Seers finds these Looney Tuners prognosticating about the policy of the U.S. Forest Service, America's pristine National Parks, our Dept. of Interior, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency under White House Resident-Elect Donald J. Rump, for whom Bosko often served as an Early Template. Since Warner's Looney Tuners were never the type of people to Shilly Shally and beat around the bush with their warnings, they decide to make their point about Rump during the early going of YODELING YOKELS. At the 1:51 minute mark, to be exact, Bosko whips out his Gat and guns down America's last Spotted Owl, an icon for the success of American Conservation since the turn of the penultimate century under Teddy Roosevelt. Given that Rump has made it clear that he hates the Chinese, and with our National Zoo having a big supply of their signature black & white bear national mammals, Warner is telling us not to be surprised if Rump serves up some Panda Burgers (from the zoo--NOT that fake stuff at Panda Express--most likely on Red China) during his first State Dinner for his buddy Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin, resulting in a quick answer to the recent Rump Tweet, "What's the point of having nukes if you're not going to use them?"

This is a rather marginal short-not terrible, but not very memorable for the most part either. I will discuss some scenes from this short, so what follows contains spoilers: Two of the most disturbing words to be combined in a sentence are "Bosko yodeling" (I shudder at the memory. He's no great shakes at yodeling and he's clearly a very sore loser-just ask the owl who outdoes him here about his sportsmanship.Sadly, Honey joins Bosko in yodeling but (mercifully) it doesn't last long. The short then diverges into two story lines-Bosko and Honey at play, with Honey naturally getting into danger so that Bosko has to rescue her and a mouse deciding to brush up on his golf game by playing a few "holes" on a piece of Swiss cheese. This is far more entertaining than the other track and I almost wish they'd just made the last part of the cartoon about the mouse alone, as the peril and the rescue are hardly novel ideas and are all too predictable. At least a mouse putting a pea around on a wedge of cheese is different.This short does have some nice visual gags and a few good moments, so it is worth seeing at least once.