Dizzy Dishes

The Best thing about this talkartoon feature was it the first cartoon to feature the animated character Betty Boop. Betty was nameless in this feature and was Originally meant as a Caricature of Helen Kane. she most likely was meant to have been Helen kane only in a cartoon form and thats why she was nameless also not to mention Betty Boop was a canine.

to avoid confusion margie hines was the first helen kane soundalike chosen to record the singing for this cartoon meaning she was first to voice Betty Boop.

The Caricature Performs one of Helen kanes Novelty Hits (I Have To Have You) with some scat lyrics of Boop Oop a Doop/ Poop Poop a Doo/ Boop Boop a Doop. the cartoon has the regular fleischer studio Gags. basically revolving around bimbo the dog. Gus the gorilla can also be seen in this short who was actually one of the characters from the Betty Boop series. Betty boops singing doesn't last very long but its great to see all the expressions in her face, some are really scary. if only her sequence went on longer.

I give this cartoon 10/10 because it was the first cartoon to feature Betty Boop. she was classed as ugly in this appearance but sooner or later she went though a few more changes which resulted in her becoming the title name called The Betty Boop Cartoons.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style was 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. 'Dizzy Dishes' is a very early cartoon for her, and as well as being nowhere near her best there is the sense that Betty was evolving still, meaning that what made her famous doesn't come through enough and she is not particularly well drawn, pretty weird actually.

Most of the animation is pretty good, the detail and use of black and white is rich and attractive enough and apart from Betty the cartoon is drawn well. The music is infectious and beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, putting one in a good mood and enhances the action wonderfully.

'Dizzy Dishes' does have some cuteness and charm, and the waiter is a lively character. The voice acting is serviceable, but did get better later on.

However, along with Betty underwhelming somewhat, like the post-introduction of production code, if anybody enjoyed the pre-code Betty Boop cartoons for being creative visually, wonderfully surreal and for its daring risqué content that was ahead of the time back in the 30s and wouldn't be seen a lot now in cartoon, they will be disappointed in 'Dizzy Dishes'. Because all of those are missing here, so in comparison to what came later everything feels very safe, tame and dare one say it...bland.

Judging it on its own entity too, the content is thin and only has the odd minor bit of amusement. The story is not just not much of one.

In conclusion, has historical value but there are much better Betty Boop cartoons around. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Dizzy Dishes (1930)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is a somewhat forgettable short but it does have one historically important thing that makes it worth watching. The story is quite simple as everyone in the film is a dog character and we are treated to our main character, a waiter, who is falling behind at work. That's until he walks out into the lobby where we see what would be the first appearance of Betty Boop. DIZZY DISHES isn't all that good as there aren't any laughs and the story itself is nothing special. The reason people will want to watch this is that it does feature the first appearance of Betty Boop, although she doesn't look like she eventually would. She has dog ears here and is a lot taller than what most people think of her as. Fans of Betty will want to check this out even though it doesn't offer much else.

Betty Boop to this day remains one of the most cherished cartoon characters of the 20th century, if not of all time. If it weren't for her spunk personality, charming physique and surreal tone, who knows what non-Disney animation would have been like back then. However, when it comes to her first ever appearance, that being the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, it's far from anything great.

Now the cartoon does credit Grim Natwick as the lead animator, and rightfully so as he actually created Betty Boom herself, or at least this can be deemed a prototype. As she was modeled after Helen Kane and Esther Jones, Natwick really knew how to bring this lustrous femme to life through broad animation and bizarre proportions. Even though Max Fleischer took credit, it's always a bonus to give praise to the true man who crafted the og version of Betty that led her to stardom. Also, as this cartoon was made in the early 1930s, it is very fun to see the days where almost every cartoon embraced the surrealistic attributes of visual comedy.

Sadly, that's where my positives end. Although most of the negatives I have for this cartoon are more based off the severe limitations of silent filmmaking back then, they still need to be addressed. For one thing, the sound quality is so bad that it's near impossible to comprehend what the others are saying (even Betty's own song for goodness sake). Plus, the animation is inconsistent and jerky, the jokes don't really hit that well, and even the bouncy feel of cartoon animation back then isn't as thrilling as it sounds here.

And then there's the actual storyline itself. The main character, who would later become Betty's sidekick Bimbo, is a waiter who needs to prepare a roast duck for a hungry customer. However, he gets caught up in the dancing fun to the point where the customer gets aggressively uptight at him. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this, but that customer has every right to be angry at that dog. How much free time can one dog have before it bites him in the butt? Regardless, while I do admire this cartoon for being Betty's first unofficial appearance, I can't get into it because of how little it entertains me.

I won't dwell on the obvious first appearance of Miss Boop. She really is a dog. This is about one of those restaurants with a bunch of waiters and no cooks. There is one character who dominates the screen and he is totally incompetent. As watcher of cartoons we shouldn't ask questions like, How can this night club even exist?"