Not one of Betty Boop's better cartoons, not by a long shot, but an entertaining and charming one and important for being her "official" first cartoon as the title character.
Max and Dave 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, but her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable charm about her.
She acquits herself very well here and definitely steals, or shall we say stop, the show. The Fanny Brice impression is inspired and pretty brilliant. The Maurice Chevalier one less so, the accent is all over the place and not much of one, but there is something about the delivery of the lyrics and her movements that still makes it entertaining.
The black and white animation is very good, smooth, meticulously detailed and well drawn with the black and white not looking too primitive. Even better is the music, which is rousing and catchy with the songs showing off Betty's talents really well. There are funny moments, especially with the elephant and the baby during the "Noose Reel" and the ending, and the cartoon is charming stuff from Betty's appearance onwards.
It does get off to a lacklustre start however with the tedious "Noose Reel" (by far the worst thing about 'Stopping the Show', the Chevalier impression may not have been entirely great but it at least had entertainment value, the "Noose Reel" was just dull beyond belief), which really didn't add anything to the cartoon. The christening of the ship was meant to be silly but actually didn't come over silly enough instead coming over as bland, and the Bimbo Koko sequence was far too short and rushed to make any kind of impact.
To conclude, a decent Betty Boop cartoon where Betty stops the show but there's better cartoons of hers around. 7/10 Bethany Cox
