Swing You Sinners!

THE STORY & GENRE -- Bimbo tries to rob a hen-house, then gets his comeuppance from ghosts & demons. Fleischer Studios.

THE VERDICT -- Wow, this is weird! I LOVE IT.

FREE ONLINE -- Two versions available. The original Paramount and the UM&M re-release. Online, the UM&M is clearer and there doesn't seem to be any content difference other than the title cards.

They don't make them like this anymore. The complete surrealism of early Fleischer cartoons is working on all six cylinders here- everything has a life of its own and the very background pulsates to the jazzy soundtrack.

It starts out simply enough with some pretty basic cartoon gags, but it slowly builds to a completely mind-blowing finish: as if tombstones growing rubbery faces and singing weren't weird enough, once the scene switches to a barn, there's no turning back from this nightmarish world: a bag of grain becomes a pig, a rake becomes a scythe which then grows a mouth and speaks, the animation becomes more and more grotesque and the imagery becomes completely abstract, with random shapes and strange creatures forming from out of nowhere: a scat-singing quasi-frog, a big human face sprouting from a tree-like shape, until the final, macabre image of a skull zooming towards the camera.

It's hard to believe this dark, insane, Daliesque phantasma was a TYPICAL product of the Fleischer studio at this time, and even harder to believe that something like this was produced in an era before marijuana and LSD were commonly used. If you can find this cartoon, watch it- it might scare the hell out of you, but it's an absolutely incredible film!

Cracked Online recently posted an article listing five cartoons that are DARKER than most horror movies. "Swing You Sinners!" was #1 on the list! They also said "...there's no way it was created without massive doses of acid being pumped into everyone involved". And, after seeing it, I would have to agree.

This is an early talking cartoon from the Fleischer Studios--the same folks who made Popeye. This film stars Bimbo, Betty Boop's friend the dog. Bimbo tries to steal a chicken and is chased by a cop into the cemetery. There, a completely surreal nightmare occurs--as if drawn by Salvador Dali...on drugs! It's really hard to describe but is very imaginative, splashy, weird and morbid--with lots of corpses, ghosts, knives and razors trying to kill Bimbo and the like! And, by the end of the cartoon, you really have no idea whether or not poor Bimbo even survived!! Overall this IS a fun film with very catchy music but it's not something to show the kids...it's more a morbidly curious film to show older audiences to get their reactions!

This cartoon seems to get better and better, every time I watch it. Bimbo the dog is seen by a policeman trying to steal a chicken, and hides in a graveyard. Once inside, the ghosts rise from their graves and teach him a lesson, singing him the title song.

The animation in this early Fleischer Talkartoon is distinctly primitive looking when compared to their later shorts. There are some very simple drawings here, but the timing, music and mood add so greatly to this toon, that you simply can't forget it. The theme in this one is very similar to the later, "Minnie the Moocher", which also uses a popular jazz song, but this cartoon goes a little bit darker. As Bimbo is menaced from the graveyard, inside an old barn, and out again, the drawings become more grotesque, more rubbery, and macabre. The final outcome, with the spooks chasing him into what looks like Hell, is quite creepy for a cartoon.

One of the great ones. This one seems to be difficult to view these days. It was included as part of the "Betty Boop Confidential" which toured theatres in 1995, but I have never seen a video release of it. It's worth tracking down. One of the best shorts of the 1930s, and of the Fleischer studio.

Bimbo, who gets his comeuppance for stealing chickens, encounters various talking gravestones with faces, many farm animals, a walking barn, and plenty of spooks and ghosts in one of the most musically jazzy surrealistic cartoons I've ever seen. Both the music and the animation makes you wonder how much drugs were taken to get the images that were presented here in the pre-Code era. Everything presented here is so unusual, so collage-like, that there's no way this would pass muster on Saturday morning television. Anyone with a love for both jazz and Fleischer animation should definitely check this one out. Hard to imagine Disney doing something like this, even when he made Fantasia.