Bosko the Doughboy

Plot

During World War I, animals are fighting, and Bosko, a doughboy on the losing side, starts by eating from a big pan of peas until artillery destroys it. He then grabs a piece of cheese from a mousetrap and sits sadly in the trenches. To lift his spirits, he pulls out an oversized picture of Honey, but gunfire destroys that too. This pushes him to fight, though he gets shot down and barely escapes death.

A cow soldier cheers him up by playing the harmonica, and they make music on floor tiles. A dachshund soldier, woken by a flea that heard the music, suffers from fleas in his fur. Bosko lets enemy soldiers shoot the dachshund’s helmet, which helps remove the fleas. The animals go back to battle with heavy casualties.

Bosko gets bombed by an enemy soldier riding a pelican before he can get through the trenches. As a last move, he has the dachshund swallow a spare bomb and send it upward, knocking the pelican out of the air to its death. The dachshund is then shot, shrinks to a tiny size, and runs off hiding. Bosko dashes through gunfire to a hippo soldier, who shields him but swallows a bomb.

The hippo accepts his coming death while Bosko uses a leftover suit that moves on its own to deflect a bomb and destroy a cannon, saving the hippo by unzipping his body like a bodysuit. Bosko gets bombed while celebrating, his body covered in soot.