Zula Hula

Betty and Grampy are flying across the ocean when a lightning strike forces them to land on a tropical island. Grampy builds all sorts of devices to make them more comfortable until a tribe of natives attacks and they must flee.

Poor Betty! For three years she was the Fleischers' big star until the Production Code desexualized her. She was still popular, so she became a supporting character in her own series. The Production Code decreed her behavior was lewd and immoral. Eventually the Code crashed and people realized how good her early cartoons were -- and how evil she became with cartoons like this, with its depiction of the natives as stereotyped Ubangis, with a lot of current racial jokes thrown in. Evil! Such things must be banned! It makes me wonder what the next turn in the wheel of what people deem indecent will be. Perhaps it will be the final gag in which Grampy powers his makeshift auto-gyro by making a monkey scramble up a treadmill in futile pursuit of a banana. Cruelty to animals! We must ban any such depictions, blah blah blah......

It's a decent Fleischer for this period, filled, as Dave Fleischer liked, with a plethora of high-speed gags. Me, I miss the old Betty.

A good deal of the pre-Production Code Betty Boop cartoons are daring and creative, with content that makes one amazed at what's gotten away with. While the later Betty Boop cartoons made after the Code was enforced are still watchable and exceptionally well-made, they are so toned down that they feel bland.

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.

Unfortunately, once again she has little to do with not much screen time and by now her personality has been so toned down that she also feels bland.

Grampy makes 'Zula Hula' watchable, especially in the first half where he is funny and adorable and his inventions creative and cool, but then his material becomes crueller in the second half like in the final gag. He is upstaged by the natives, for obvious reasons and sadly it's not a good thing as it's for them and perhaps the final gag as to why 'Zula Hula' is seldom shown. The natives are poorly drawn, stereotypically characterised (in a very exaggerated and negative sense, enough to make those in the "Censored 11" cartoons tame in comparison).

Too much of the material is not that funny or imaginative after starting promisingly in the interplay between Betty and Grampy and his earlier inventions, before falling downhill a quarter or so of the way through.

Have mentioned numerous times about having a preference for the Betty Boop cartoons with more creativity, imagination, humour and a risqué and surreal edge, so the pre-Code cartoons. All of those things are missing in 'Zula Hula', even when lacking the surreal and risqué edge and a running out of ideas vibe a good deal of the post-Code cartoons managed to still have some amusement and endearing charm and 'Zula Hula' even misses out on those. With all those missing, it is very difficult to forgive a story that really isn't much of one at all.

'Zula Hula', despite on the whole being one of the Betty Boop misfires, does have good points. Quite liked the first two minutes, Grampy is always watchable and enjoyed his chemistry with Betty. The voice acting is solid. As to be expected, the animation is extremely good, being beautifully drawn, crisply shaded and meticulous in detail. The music is infectious, lush and dynamic.

In conclusion, started off well but once the natives appeared it fell apart making a potentially decent cartoon into a misfire with its moments. 4/10 Bethany Cox