Betty Boop, M.D.

If you're a fan of Fleischer cartoons, you'll probably really enjoy Betty Boop, M.D. The animation is clever and the cartoon is surprisingly funny and unpredictable. Betty Boop, who I've always found to be the least interesting element of Betty Boop cartoons, has a fairly small role in this one. The high points of the cartoon are the truly bizarre things that happen to the townspeople that take the medicine (an old man becomes a giant baby, a white baby turns into a old, gruff black jazz singer, etc.). But people used to the more comprehensible cartoons of Disney and Warner Brothers, especially young children, may find this surreal and unsettling.

"Betty Boop, M.D." finds our heroine selling patent medicine along with her friends Bimbo and Ko Ko. While you can see that they are only filling the bottles with water, again and again, frighteningly unpredictable changes take place in anyone who drinks it--and after Betty does her dance, everyone seems anxious to have it.

There really isn't much plot in this one. Betty sells fraudulent 'medicine', sings a song and the film then shows all the weird reactions that happen to those who take it. The song is rather zippy and enjoyable but it seems very, very weird to have a beloved cartoon character behaving in such an amoral fashion. This is really awfully strange and vaguely unsatisfying. The only real plus is the Fleischer Brothers Studio animation--which was much better than most of their competition.

There is a marked difference in the cartoons starring Betty Boop before and after the censorship code and the arrival of the Hays Office. The obvious changes aside, like her hemline, the manic, zany quality seems to fade away in later shorts. That quality is what makes cartoons like this one special. In print and available. Recommended.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation.

The character of Betty Boop, one of their most famous and prolific characters, may not be for all tastes and sadly not as popular now, but her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable sensual charm about her. The charm, sensuality and adorability factors can be seen throughout 'Betty Boop M.D', though she isn't as prominent as in some of her other cartoons, and she is a joy to watch, as are a very funny Bimbo and Koko.

Furthermore, the black and white animation is very good, smooth, meticulously detailed and well drawn with the black and white not looking too primitive. A lot of it is actually very imaginative, especially in the consequences of taking the medicine, which were unlike any cartoon before it or during. Even better is the music, which is rousing, catchy and unquestionably accessible to anybody who loves or is familiar with the compositional style.

'Betty Boop M.D' has an intriguing concept and does it very well, with some wonderfully bizarre and surrealist horror touches, like at the end with the baby turning in Mr Hyde strongly resembling Fredric March. The consequences of the medicine were also hilariously entertaining, but there is always a charm throughout.

Not much wrong here, though concept aside 'Betty Boop M.D' is virtually plot-less and don't even try looking for sense, looking for sense here is like looking for intelligence in a porn film or something.

All in all, bizarre but fascinating, yet another Betty Boop cartoon worth tracking down depending on your stance on her as a character. 8/10 Bethany Cox