Well, for starters it gets points for originality, that's for damn sure! It certainly seems there was once a time when cartoons were made for adults too. I love the way the jolly old-timey opening suggests a short that's going to be all rosy and sweetness-no way, Jose! This is one of those special and awesome Betty Boop shows that gives strong credence to the notion that all animators of the 1930s were on substances of a, oh shall we say, questionable nature! Like the best kinds of old toons it is dark, even spooky. And it's got that vital 'lil dash of the macabre-perhaps more than just a little this time! Everything is alive and 'kickin, and the sinister sight gags soon abound with swiftness. Mere moments in we get creepy morlock clans, scary anthropomorphic pointy things,(one just somehow knows it's a bad thing when the knife licks its own blade!) startlingly twisted and warped perceptions, inescapable rooms and a dog-eared slutty woman. Apparently at one point they were considering Betty being some kind of poodle-like creature. Must not have panned out. It's almost as if most of the gags were done by the animators just to show that they could. There's all the wonderfully random nightmarish nonsense that I do so love! ::: Horror show frat: see the brutal recruitment methods of the good 'ol days! When Bimbo says he doesn't wanna be a member, they make his life a living hell-literally! "Wanna be a member, wanna be a member!!?" I love that, it's so absurd and surreal. I mean, a member of what exactly? This is crazy cooky 1930s Fleischer cartoon land-who the hell cares! Anything can happen there...WHY NOT?! I love the cool revolving room with the many doors of mystery where every room has some gimmicky trap. And now behind door number one... And the show really takes off beautifully when it gets to Bimbo's final run through the tunnel of doom. It's like a ghost train. And I would like to point out that the brilliant door-within-a-door-within-a-door scene is the part of the cartoon that can be briefly glimpsed on a TV screen in Twilight Zone: The Movie! ::: Very well worth seeing for any fan of vintage animation or just for anyone who likes a little dark wanton with their toons.
Review of Bimbo's Initiation
