Very well executed

Some things I liked some I did not.

A Disappointing Continuation

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

As this short opens one could be forgiven for thinking it wasn't a cartoon at all as it begins with live action footage of Cab Callaway and his band performing the opening to 'Minnie the Moocher'. When the cartoon proper begins we see Betty's parents remonstrating with her for not eating her dinner. Her father clearly sounds like a broken record, stuck in the groove, to her as his head literally turns into an old fashioned gramophone player. She soon has enough and retreats to her room; here she write a note informing her parent that she is leaving then goes off with her boyfriend Bimbo. The two of them take shelter in a cave and things become very surreal; they see an apparition of a walrus like creature that is dancing and singing 'Minnie the Moocher'. As the song progresses they see a number of disturbing images including dancing skeletons and ghosts going to the electric chair! Understandably by the end of the song they are terrified and run back home as fast as their legs will carry them.While this short is hardly a laugh-riot, it isn't meant to be, it does have some amusing moments and the animation is very creative; far more surreal than most more recent cartoons. This provides a good illustration of the fact that animation wasn't always considered to be a medium primarily aimed at children with the numerous creepy images and drug references in the song. The combination of imaginative animation with Cab Callaway's classic song work brilliantly; any fan of classic animation is sure to love this.

The title is a song made famous by Cab Calloway, and we immediately see him making like Michael Jackson smoothly dancing as she leads his orchestra in the song. Calloway was definitely a very cool cat, and ahead of his time.After that short performance comes the cartoon story, in which we see Betty being blasted by her father at the dinner table. She's in tears, can't eat and walks away singing the blues, ready to leave home. She writes a note: "Dear Ma and Pa, I'm leaving home because you're not so sweet to me. I won't ever be home again. Betty."She calls Bimbo and the two leave together. They get scared when it gets dark and hide in a cave, where a giant walrus (Calloway) materializes and sings them the "Minnie The Moocher" song. Bizarre?? Yeah! During the song we see skeletons, jailbirds singing on electric chairs, spooks, ghosts, all kinds of very strange sights. After witnessing these strange sights, Betty changes her mind about never going back home. Home, all of a sudden, looks pretty good.Not hilarious, but a very entertaining cartoon. I love it when Betty and Cab get together.

Spoilers herein.Spooky in three ways. The first is in the implied use of the derogatory for the black performers. The second is in the bizarre story involving a visit to hell. Of all the strange Boop adventures, this is perhaps the most disconcerting (together with `Red Hot Mama') visits to the demonic side. The more unsettling it becomes, the more you think about it. No Scooby do here, this is real.The third spookiness is in how the rotoscope imbues the ghost on the screen with the personality and very subtle movements of the lively Cab, a man haunted by his own demons.This was during the period that it was possible to have a character (in Betty) that superficially looked and acted silly but conveyed deep and dangerous tides of sex. If these would have been in color, she would be redheaded, like Clara Bow.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The first part of the film shows us a younger Betty Boop than we're used to seeing in the Fleischer Brothers cartoons.Betty is a girl in her early/mid teens, being nagged to tears by her immigrant parents. Betty sings the 1911 Von Tilzer number "They Always Pick On Me". Notice how the animator attends to such details as the bouncing of Betty's breasts on the staircase-- such details would soon be suppressed in USA animation by the Hayes Code.This is the first of 3 Fleischer cartoons with Cab Calloway featured on the soundtrack. They proved popular-- and Calloway used them as advertising, having the cartoons shown in theaters of towns the week before his travelling band would arrive."Minnie The Moocher" is good, as is the last of the series "The Old Man of the Mountain", but Betty Boop's "Snow White" is the best of all.