Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Short Synopsis
Over the credits, a chorus of hooded fraternity brothers boasts about how easily they will initiate Bimbo. Bimbo strolls down the street whistling "Go In and Out the Window" and drops through an open manhole; a figure who looks very like Mickey Mouse slams the lid shut behind him. Bimbo slides down a long chute into the underground lodge of a secret society, where the leader asks: "Wanna be a member?" Bimbo says no, and is sent through a series of deadly trials, each followed by the same question and the same refusal. He dodges blades and spikes, runs on a revolving floor, falls into water and fire, and is chased by the hooded members through a building whose rooms and stairs keep shifting under him. Finally he grabs the leader and unmasks her: it is Betty, who offers him the same choice. Bimbo now says yes, the other members unmask, and every one of them is a copy of Betty, dancing.
Why It Matters
- It is pure nightmare logic, with corridors that stretch, floors that vanish and a candle-headed creature, all rattling along at a frantic pace, and the repeated "Wanna be a member?" gives it the rhythm of a bad dream you can't wake up from. Leonard Maltin called it the darkest of all the Fleischers' cartoons.
- It is one of the most celebrated Fleischer shorts. Animation professionals voted it number 37 in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, and the cartoonist Jim Woodring has said it helped lay the foundation of his life's philosophy, a sign of how deeply its surreal style has influenced later artists.
Notes and Trivia
- It was the last Betty Boop cartoon animated by her co-creator Grim Natwick before he left Fleischer.
- Betty still has her dog's floppy ears here; within a year they would become earrings.
- See also: Swing You Sinners! (1930), Minnie the Moocher (1932).