Barnacle Bill

I enjoyed this cartoon for what it is worth, as I do most of the cartoons of this era I watch. Here we have the second appearance of Betty Boop, released less than a month after her first cartoon, "Dizzy Dishes". In that and this cartoon, she is a dog (as one can tell from the dog ears). Here, she is not the main character, but she appears enough to glean more of her personality than "Dizzy Dishes". We have here the first appearance of Bimbo, who calls himself "Barnacle Bill", in this episode. He is an annoying character in the way that he is very arrogant.

The episode starts in a cartoony way (normal for the time), where the crew are singing about being on the sea. The ship briefly docks and the captain calls all the crew (one of them looking suspiciously like Mickey Mouse) and tells them that they cannot leave the ship. Barnacle Bill, however, has other ideas...

Later in the episode, Barnacle Bill meets Betty Boop as a dog and says some rather horrible things to her in his singing, which is why this cartoon is not particularly suitable for children (although I am not sure if this cartoon was directed at family, children or adults).

It is a cartoon worth watching all the same and I recommend it to people who like old cartoons with singing pretty much instead of dialogue. Enjoy "Barnacle Bill"! :-)

Not officially released as a Betty Boop short, but that's Betty and the early Bimbo. Bimbo stayed a canine throughout, while Betty became human. Bimbo comes across as a less than likable sort here, but then neither was Barnacle Bill the sailor (pay attention to the lyrics of the sea chantey). Bimbo was a more or less marginal character, for my tastes, although he was head and shoulders above most of the supporting characters in later years. Koko the Clown was the most effective bit player they used in the Betty Boop series. Bimbo spends most of his time making eyes and sighing at Betty in most of his appearances. The later design on the character was a marked improvement over the original character they show here. This is on the Betty Boop collection that's well worth having. This short is nothing special, but worth a look once.

Betty Boop starts to take more form in this, the second cartoon in which she appeared, although she still has floppy spaniel ears.... yes, Betty was a real dog when she was young!

This is one of the animated song cartoons that Fleischer did, and the gags fill out the singing of 'Barnacle Bill'. Not bad.

A dog named Barnacle Bill leaves his ship to go womanizing. He heads for the girl's house. She is Betty Boop with dog ears, although in his little black book she has a different name. The rest of her is incredibly suggestive. As Bill sings, he represents the nastiest stereotype of the "love 'em and leave 'em" mentality. There is a moment where they pull down the shades after snuggling on the couch. The dog, apparently, is the character of Bimbo, who appears later.

In the first decade or so of sound cartoons, studios tended to make their films with way too much singing and cuteness and way too little humor. So, I do understand the context for "Barnacle Bill"....but I also didn't need to like it, either. The film is sung from start to finish and really lacks humor and entertainment value when seen today. In fact, my score of 3 reflects the film when seen today--perhaps back in 1930 it would have earned a 5 or 6.

So is the film worth seeing? Well, it all depends. If you are a huge Betty Boop fan or are a big fan of early animation, it's worth seeing--as it's one of the earliest incarnations of this and the Bimbo character. Now it might be hard to see this as being Betty at first--she has long doggy ears and is animated in a stretched out manner. Bimbo also is VERY different. As far as the story goes, well, there isn't much of one--just lots of singing. The only real plus doesn't surprise me--the background animations were first-rate--which is what you should expect from a Fleischer Brothers cartoon.