Hold Anything

Plot summary

The film features Bosko working on a construction site with a goat and several small mice (all of which bear a strong resemblance to Mickey Mouse; Harman and Ising had worked with Walt Disney for several years before joining Warner Bros.). After several minutes of relatively uneventful working (marked mainly by a song and dance sequence in which one of the mice is temporarily decapitated), Bosko spots his girlfriend, Honey, working in a nearby office building. After some brief flirtation, Bosko jumps down into Honey's office, pulls out a piece of sheet music, places it in Honey's typewriter, and begins playing the typewriter like a piano (Bosko types the words "Don't Hold Everything" before launching into the song). Meanwhile, back at the construction site, the goat eats a steam-powered machine and begins to float upward. Bosko reaches out the window and begins playing the goat like a pipe organ. The goat begins to float away, and as Bosko hangs on for his life, he accidentally grabs onto a set of udders and gets sprayed with milk, distracting him enough to lose his grip and fall onto a set of bricks. Bosko inexplicably divides into six miniature Boskos and begins playing the bricks as a xylophone before he reforms to his usual self and the cartoon irises out.

Later releases

The scene with the marching mice was later re-used in the Warner cartoon It's Got Me Again!, albeit with minor changes to the animation. Many decades later, a clip of Hold Anything was shown in the 2003 TV documentary Animated Century, which showcased over 100 animated films from 26 countries.