Be Human

The "be nice to animals" message is presented with some unsettlingly violent images of cartoon animal abuse. It's just a little shocking, which is exactly what the creators intended. It's probably best not to spoil any of the gags; sufficient to say that the mixture of cuteness and brutality is certain to startle present-day cartoon watchers.

Be Human (1936)

** (out of 4)

Betty Boop is in her home singing when she sees that her neighbors is severely beating his dog. Later she sees him abusing another animal so she calls Grampy to come and take care of it. BE HUMAN isn't a good film but at the same time you can't help but recommend it to adults who enjoy really weird films. I'm really not sure what the filmmakers were going after but it's hard to get any sorts of laughs out of the torture scenes. I use the word torture because the animals are really beaten to a pulp so you have to wonder if the director thought this was going to be funny and you also have to wonder how many kids saw this back in 1936 and were left terrified. Obviously this thing isn't meant to be seen by kids and especially those of today's generation because this thing would probably leave them in tears. As you'd expect from the series, the quality of the animation is quite high and I actually thought the title number was quite good. There's some great imagination at work during the finale of the film but by this time you're still not over what you've already seen.

The basic problem is if the episode or yourself are too , too old. Because in this ball of cruelty against animals, the punishment against the farmer making a hell the life of his dog, horse and chicken , absolutely bizarre songs, stupefiant scene of eggs as pieces of snooker , all seems too much and too wrong. Including the last scene , with a kiss indecent today, to. But , it is Betty Boop , so provocation to every step.

Betty is singing a song about being human. Suddenly, she hears the cries of a dog. A man with a whip is beating the dog profusely. He then punches a cow and strangles a chicken. Betty's cries do no good, so she calls in Grampy, who works for an animal's rights group. Some of this is pretty brutal and would have been hard for children to watch.

Betty is singing a song called "Be Human," about being kind to animals when he hears horrible noises outside. She looks and sees her brutish neighbor beating a little dog. It's actually kind of shocking the see, even though it's only a cartoon, but the man keeps whipping this little dog who is howling in pain. Frankly, I've never seen anything that unpleasant in a cartoon before. Then the guy punches a cow in the face and strangles a hen because they wouldn't deliver milk and eggs, respectively.

Betty, in desperation, calls Professor Grampy of the Animal Aid Society. From that point, we get humor as Grampy's desk turns into an automobile and he slides down the fire poll (in the car!), races to the scene and quickly captures the animal abuser. That guy is then deposited in a dungeon at Grampy's place, where he gets whipped and in the process, sets off some clever assembly-line sight gags which feed all the animals.

Although brutal in parts, it's a good message and told in a blunt-but-most humorous way.