Countdown to Halloween: Felix the Ghost Breaker (1923)

Felix the Ghost-Breaker (1923)
A Pat Sullivan Comic
Dir.: Otto Messmer
TC4P Rating: 6/9

Unlike many people of a similar age to me (that age being now, incredibly to me for a variety of reasons, 56), I do not have early childhood memories, outside of toys and clocks, of Felix the Cat. A great many of my age were introduced (it seems) to the character primarily from the television cartoon series from the late '50s and early '60s (specifically, 1958-1961) in which Felix battled The Professor and other baddies in two-part cliffhanger episodes. 

The giveaway for me when people talk about Felix is when they mention either his voice (done by Jack Mercer, previously of Popeye fame), his theme song ("Felix the Cat/The wonderful, wonderful cat...") or how much they loved his Magic Bag of Tricks. I immediately know they are talking about the television series and not the original run of silent cartoons from Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan, wherein the Cat originally began his tremendous popularity. It's not that I feel they are "posers" or something along those lines; such thoughts are squarely idiotic. I don't care when you started liking what you purport to like; just take a little time to learn something about the history of whatever it is you like and we will be fine. Such slights of knowledge were more excusable in the pre-internet days, where you either had to run into a stray article in the newspaper or hike it to the local library and do some research to learn anything. Today, any cellphone gives you access to nearly any subject in mere seconds.

As a child growing up in Alaska throughout the late '60s and through the '70s, I am certainly too young to have watched the series on its initial broadcast, but I also do not recall ever seeing the Felix television series in reruns (at least, not until I was much older and had cable television). If it did run on my local channels at some point, it would have to be due to an astounding slip of my television vigilance, because I watched nearly anything I could (on all four available channels, plus some stray UHF) that lied within the purview of my interests. Animation being one of those interests at the very tippy-top of that list, I could not only practically sniff out cartoons immediately upon turning on the TV set, but even had entire TV guides nearly memorized the day they came out. Unfortunately, while I was aware of Felix as a cultural icon pretty early in my youth – I certainly had friends with dolls, clocks and puzzles emblazoned with his smiling image – it wasn't until my mid-teens that I caught a collection of early silent cartoons on PBS where I finally got to see what all the hubbub was about concerning Felix the Cat.

I do not know if Felix the Ghost Breaker was one of those first shorts that I viewed; honestly, there wereonly a couple of Felix films inside a wide mix of other silent shorts, and the only one that I truly remember by title is Winsor McCay's original Gertie the Dinosaur. But since Felix the Ghost Breaker's plot falls neatly into the realm of horror-related material in time for the Halloween season, it is the short with which I am kicking off my long-delayed return to active cartoon blogging after a nearly 3-year break. Felix the Cat just celebrated his 100 anniversary as a cultural icon last November, and while I am a tad late in celebrating him myself, he seemed the perfect subject for this very moment.

The short was produced for the second batch of Felix silents (1922-1925), which were produced by Margaret J. Winkler. She was a key figure in silent animation history, aiding not just the rise of Felix to superstardom status, but also helping to forge the early careers of the Fleischer Brothers and Walt Disney. While Felix was initially created in 1919 and his early films distributed by Paramount Pictures, Pat Sullivan signed a deal with Winkler in 1922, bringing animator/director Otto Messmer with him. (There has long been a dispute over who the real creator of Felix is: Messmer or Sullivan. Most animation historians of any sort of decent repute tend to side with Messmer. I have no reputation, though I am far from decent, so I will not weigh in with my opinion, as I really don't have enough information.)

Felix the Ghost Breaker is actually fairly Felix light as far as his true involvement in the story goes. Though he is a constant presence throughout the picture, Felix mostly stands about and acts shocked at things for much of the cartoon, and really only springs to action in the final third. The true star of the picture is a spookily obnoxious "ghost" who first haunts a cemetery, then a barn, and then finally a house in short order within the story. Now, there is a big problem regarding the ghostly hijinks in this short, but we will get down to discussing that issue later in this piece. First, let's rip through the plotline bit by bit...

At the outset of the story, it is a dark but not at all stormy night. Felix, wandering alone through the evening, decides to take refuge inside a cemetery for a good night's sleep. Felix walks up to a comfortable looking grave, and with the help of a handy word balloon straight out of a comic strip, informs we viewers, irony fully intact, "That's what I call an ideal resting place!" He curls up beneath a tombstone and falls fast asleep. However, a ghost has a different idea and decides to start taunting our hero cat. First, he employs an unearthly (I presume, since the film is silent) "Oooh"-ing sound. The sound awakens the cat, who then attempts to regain his snooze, but the sound emits from the tombstone again and again.

With the third iteration of the sound, a pair of white-clad hands spring from around the tombstone, and Felix is up and on the alert. Shaking his head and breaking the fourth wall again, he tells us, "I must have been dreaming!" He again lies back down, but the "Oooh"-ing sound continues, and he pops up again, this time seeing a large hand extend straight upward from the top of the grave marker. He again tells us, "I must have been dreaming!" but before he can even consider lying down again, a sheet-style ghost pops up behind the tombstone, looks left and then looks right with dramatic arm flourishes, and then glares at Felix and points down at the grave. Felix shakes in fear, and the ghost momentarily disappears.

While the moon looks down wistfully in the distance at the graveyard shenanigans, Felix scans the air where the ghost evaporated. The cat shakes his head, and then twirls his finger near his ear to tell us he must be going crazy, and then laughs wildly. The ghost sneakily pops back up behind Felix and gives him a fright. The cat grabs a large rock to throw at the ghost, but the spook evaporates once more and reappears on the other side of the grave. It sticks its tongue out at the cat and flies off into the night. Felix swears to go after the ghost, telling us, "That ghost is up to some kind of mischief. I'll follow him!!"

Cut to the spook sneaking up tip-toe style on the open door of a barn. Before the ghost even makes it to the door, Felix likewise is tip-toeing up behind the ghost. After the spooks floats through the door, a long "EEEEEEEEE!!!" emits from someone or something unseen inside. The sound carries to the nearby farmhouse, where a light comes alive on the second floor, and the once-sleeping farmer sticks his head out the window to find out what is making that ungodly noise. After looking about, he peers with great surprise in the direction of the barn, where the action cuts to show the farmer's donkey streaking out the barn followed by the ghost. The donkey stops and quakes with fear while the ghost taunts and points at the animal. The poor equine rears up to attempt a powerful kick at the ghost, but the spook disappears, and then uses the same trick it played on Felix by reappearing behind the donkey, frightening it anew. The spirit then sternly gestures for the donkey to run for the hills, and the terrified creature does just that.

The ghost flies back into the barn, with Felix looking on quizzically at what the horrid thing might be seeking out next. His answer comes quickly, as he first hears a squeal of terror, and then a wheelbarrow flies out of the barn, followed by a sow. As she grabs the handles of the barrow, a dozen small piglets flee from the barn and pile up into the cart. The sow turns the barrow and wheels it at the highest speed she can manage towards the horizon. Her speed is so great that she eventually catches up to the donkey who had fled previously.

The ghost heads towards the house and disappears through the wall. Felix tries to follow the terrible spook, but owing to Felix's inherent corporeality, he merely splats face-first into the wall and then rolls backward. Felix regains his composure and scurries up the porch to peer through the window of the bedroom upstairs. He sees the farmer being terrified by the ghost, who repeatedly points with a stiff arm to tell the farmer to leave the premises. The farmer pulls a gun on the spirit, but it doesn't work to scare it away. The poltergeist then attempts to hypnotize the farmer, but it seems to wear off quickly, so then we see four pairs of ghostly eyeballs floating about at the end of his bed. The farmer leaps for the telephone. "Help!" he cries into the phone, "Send the reserves! There's a ghost in the house!"

Shortly thereafter, a small truck arrives and pulls up in front of the farmhouse. The back doors burst open and roughly four dozen "reserve" members (or cops, clearly) pour out in succession – in the manner of a clown car in a circus – and race through the front door of the house. Felix awaits the results from outside as the sounds of a furious battle begin to be heard from inside. Much yelling and screaming and even gunshots are described to us via words popping up on the screen. The house then flashes almost psychedelically and the stripes of the flashes spin around the house like a merry-go-round (though the house remains stationary). Finally a large hole is torn open on the roof. One by one, each cop comes somersaulting from out of the hole, and then each bounces on the ground and subsequently lands inside the small truck. The vehicle get wider and fatter as it fills up with the defeated reserve members; then, with all the cops collected, the truck speeds off the way it originally came.

With the cops on their way, the last one to be kicked out through roof hole to land on the ground is the poor farmer. He turns to Felix and cries, "I'm ruined! The place is haunted!" Felix gestures for the farmer to not worry, and says, "Leave it to me! I'm a regular ghost-breaker!" He sneaks inside and moves into a room, where at least a half dozen spooks creep past a doorway. When Felix decides to move toward that door, a pair of massive eyeballs appear in midair and stare at the cat, swirling about once or twice. Felix tries to back away and leave, but the ghost appears behind him and points for him to leave. Felix turns and the ghost is suddenly in front of him again in that direction. He turns again and four ghosts confront him; one more turn, and the number is a full dozen. They converge upon him in a tight circle but then the whole group suddenly disappears. Felix, with his eyes still closed, throws several punches in the air, but then realizes he is all alone. He acts tough and determined, but then a large hand pops up through the floor and pulls his tail, sending him running for the door.

In the next room, he stops and arches his back normal-cat style and hisses. He sets himself back to two-foot mode and stands there thinking, but a hole opens up on the wall behind him. The ghost is seen leering at him, and then reaches out to pull the switch on a lamp and send the room into utter darkness. The ghost flies out and attacks Felix. There is a tussle but Felix gets away into the dark. The ghost floats forward toward the screen and points menacingly at the filmgoers in the audience. With the ghost moving away, Felix turns the lamp back on but is frightened by a large skeleton standing just outside the range of the lamplight. Felix jumps up and knocks off the lampshade and the whole room erupts into brilliant light, rendering the skeleton insubstantial.

Felix tries to think of a plan, saying "I wonder how I can trap him?" and then he hits upon a solid idea, perfectly suited for an era then roughly chest-deep in the dryness of Prohibition. (Alcohol gags are fairly prevalent in 1920s cartoons.) After pacing for a quick bit, he notices a bottle of booze on the table. Knowing his audience exceedingly well, the cat says, "They all fall for this!" The ghost reappears and smell the booze in Felix's hand. After a closeup shot revealing that it is indeed a bottle of rum, it becomes Felix's turn to do the taunting as he runs away with the ghost in fast pursuit, greedily grasping for the bottle. Felix then pulls a gun on the spook, ordering it to put its hands up in the air. The farmer rushes forward and pulls the sheet off of the ghost, revealing the cretinous human inside. The old farmer is shocked at the revelation and yells, "Trying to frighten me into selling, eh? I'll fix you!" Jabbing two fingers into his mouth, the farmer whistles loudly for his donkey. The long-eared creature eagerly runs up, rears his hind legs back, and kicks the ex-ghost all the way towards the moon on the horizon! And thusly, the film ends.

Now, while one should not expect too much coherence from a cartoon clearly built to excite the then-fairly wide-eyed filmgoing audience (in relative terms compared to today... and not just kids, either) with the surreal notion of talking cats and havoc-wringing ghosts, I have some definite issues with the film. Most noticeable is the reveal of the "ghost" to be a normal human, a move I almost always despise in almost any form of storytelling. While I personally don't believe in the notion of ghosts as conceived in popular terms, I don't like it when a story that is meant to invoke a fantastical setting at its beginning degrades into normal reality by its end. One can invoke the case of Scooby-Doo's mysteries, which nearly always end in the same manner, and while I did (and do) love the show as a nostalgic presence in my life, it always rankled me that the monsters and spooks were never "real". However, both Scooby-Doo and this Felix short do end with the same fantastical premise as a base: that a talking, intensely anthropomorphized four-legged mammal is the star at the center of the action.

The second sticking point for me is the ultra-late reveal that the human in guise as the spirit is using his charade to try to scare the farmer into selling his property. Again, it's a cartoon short from the silent era and no one is expecting the plot to be carefully laid out in such a way. And also, once again, this is an echo instantly bringing up a recall of Scooby-Doo. It is becoming increasingly clear that this short is practically a template for the mysteries of Scooby-Doo (while most certainly not the earliest example of such a plot).

And the third – and most noticeable – sticking point is the actions of the ghost itself. At least on Scooby-Doo, there was a short explanation by the Mystery Machine kids of how the perpetrator achieved some of his effects. For example: "He used these buckets to make this sound" or "This film projector created the illusion that he was going through the walls" or "He had this rope tied about him to make it look like he was flying by employing this hidden pulley system" etc. (Even though nobody ever saw a big thick hunk of rope dangling through the air at the time... but enough on that...) Here, the ghost is seen flying about the property of the farm in mid-air, disappearing and reappearing, going through walls, appearing as four sets of disembodied eyes, as a pair of giant eyeballs, coming up through the floor, and reappearing as four, six, and then twelve separate ghosts. And also as an entity that is capable of beating the snot out of four dozen armed police officers, causing them to flee. One guy. In a sheet. Neither the farmer or Felix thinks to ask, "How the hell did you do all of that?"

That said, I still enjoyed this cartoon very much. It's got decent atmosphere, it is definitely spooky in parts (with the closeup of the ghost approaching the audience especially memorable), and it moves along very swiftly from gag to gag. I am a little disappointed that Felix does not employ his magical tail as a tool or weapon at any point, as he tends to do in many of his early cartoons (and later ones as well, even the TV series). There is even a moment where question marks appear above his head, although in at least one other short I have seen, his tail makes the question mark when he is puzzled. (A missed opportunity...) But Felix's derring-do and need to make things right is definitely in place and the results are still quite fun.

Hmmm... this gives me an idea. Maybe this is a good way to get that house that I wanted... real cheap...

Happy (early) Halloween! See ya soon with the next 'toon!

RTJ

***

And in case you haven't seen it, you can watch the short below...

Swing You Sinners! (1930)

[Editor's note: This post is a completely rewritten article that was originally published on January 24, 2006. In those early days of the blog, the pieces were less detailed and in reviewing the article recently, I decided to expand upon it greatly, feeling I had not given this cartoon as much coverage as it deserved, including deciphering as many of the song lyrics as I could. The first comments at the bottom are from its original posting, but I hope more people take part in the discussion in figuring out this strange classic. This cartoon is a real treat, especially if you like weird or scary animation. Enjoy!]

Swing You Sinners! (Max Fleischer Talkartoons, 1930) 
Dir: Dave Fleischer
Animators: Ted Sears; Willard Bowsky; Grim Natwick; Seymour Kneitel; Shamus Culhane; William Henning; Al Eugster; George Cannatta
Cel Bloc Rating: 8/9

For the first two and a half minutes of Swing You Sinners!, a rather shocking Fleischer Brothers' Talkartoon short from 1930, you might be forgiven for just thinking this is a generic "cutesy" cartoon and giving up on the whole enterprise. Not that the rubbery animation isn't fun and silly and interestingly done, but in detailing the misadventures of a would-be hen thief who is pursued by a bulldog policeman, it is still rather generic.

If you gave up on the cartoon at the two-and-a-half minute mark, you could then surmise that the Fleischer Brothers' Talkartoon series, which ran for about four years from 1929 through 1932, was by turns both routine but slightly inspired. You might think they have the look and feel of having been both professionally animated but somewhat amateurishly rendered. And you would not be wrong on these counts. While the product is fluid in its motion, there is a roughness in their design that is applicable to their New York origins, and not quite as polished (until a few years later) as that of their West Coast competitors.

But to give up on Swing You Sinners! at that early point is to miss a true adventure in displaying the massive scope of animation. Like many of the early Fleischer films, Sinners! can be at times both sneakily commonplace but also “knock your socks off” surreal, even in the same scene. In this particular Talkartoon entry, what starts within a rather average scenario of a small-time criminal attempting to rob a henhouse turns almost literally into a walk into Hell itself. And, as always, one can never be sure of up or down within the oddly contoured world of Max and Dave Fleischer, whether walking down a street or trapped in the underworld of one's guilty imagination.

At the start of Swing You Swingers!, we meet Bimbo, a dog character who was the first talking pictures star for the Fleischer Studios (and was also, for a short time, Betty Boop's official "boyfriend”). Bimbo stands biding his time and acting coyly near a henhouse. When a hen chances to pass by him, Bimbo follows it to the house and tries to steal it. A series of tussles begin between the two, with first the hen ending up in most of Bimbo's clothing, then the two are back to normal, then the two of them ending up switching half of their bodies, and then are back to normal again. At one point, their combined bodies turn into a strange globular mass that twists and contorts until they spring out in a new formation.

As Bimbo reaches into the henhouse to grab the chicken, his wrist is nabbed by a disapproving policeman, who Bimbo pulls all the way through the henhouse. When he sees the badge on the policeman's uniform, Bimbo immediately imagines himself first on a chain gang, and that fear transforms in his head into a date with the electric chair. Desperate, Bimbo replaces his own wrist with the neck of the chicken, placing it gently in the cop's meaty paw, and tries to makes his escape. The cop throws the chicken and it lands on Bimbo's head just as the dog was making a break for it.

Bimbo's carefully struts away, but the chicken grabs his nose and pulls it out as if it were on a spring. Bimbo reels his nose back into place by pulling out his tongue. The policeman, following behind, bellows with a series of noises out of his own enormous mouth, but Bimbo keeps moving, all the time punching the chicken so it will go away. But the chicken playfully jumps onto Bimbo's back and crawls down into his clothes, coming out at the top of Bimbo's pants, and looks back at the policeman. With the chicken's feet sticking out Bimbo's pants as well, the bird takes a few steps to send Bimbo moving backwards, as the cop's baton turns into a bugle, which the cop blows in their direction. Finally, the chicken leaps out of Bimbo's pants, as do several baby chicks, who peep like mad and give chase to their mother. (I don't even want to know if they were implying something here.)

Finally losing both the chicken and the cop, Bimbo runs into a generically forbidding-looking cemetery. At this point, any relation between normalcy and this cartoon totally dissolves. Upon entering the cemetery, the gate closes on its own behind Bimbo, the key turns in its lock of its own accord, and a mouth opens around the key and lock and swallows them both. The gate melts and transforms into a wall section much like the others, and a large stray stone sprouts feet and crawls into an open space in the wall.

Bimbo finds himself trapped as the tombstones start swaying about him while a mournful dirge begins playing on the soundtrack. The tombstones moan all around the petrified and quaking dog. Bimbo becomes so petrified that a block of ice materializes around his feet, trapping him in place as the tombstones begin swaying to the music. [Note: I originally thought it was a block of stone, until reader Howard – see comments below – recognized that Bimbo must be suffering from cold feet due to fear, thereby creating a block of ice. Thanks Howard! Totally missed that one.] The ice melts into a puddle of water – though it appears to have eyes in it and then crawls away. As Bimbo's knees knock, the tombstones sing their mournful dirge:

"Goodbye! This is your finish, brother!
You're never going to get away!"

As they sing, Bimbo hides his head in the dirt but it comes back out on top one of the graves balancing a bone on his nose, he develops what I believe would be a yellow streak down his back if this film weren't in black and white, and the ground next to him turns into a giant mouth that tries to bite him. Bimbo frantically shimmies up a flagpole, and screams, "Oh, no!" but a tombstone with a face makes itself as tall as the flagpole and answers, "Oh, yeah!" Bimbo falls to the ground, but another tombstone sprouts arms and softly catches him, releasing him to be tortured further. A ghost pops out of a nearby grave and sings:

"You'll never rob another's henhouse!"

The plot of grass on the grave shoots up to look like the hair on top of a face made of dirt, who adds:

"You've sinned, and now you must obey!"

[Note: I think the last word is "obey," but may be wrong. I am fairly certain he sings "must" but the last two syllables could be "go pay" as well, but that sounds clumsy to me. Shoot me a note if you believe otherwise.]

Once more, Bimbo cries out, "Oh, no!" and this time a chorus of female ghosts and the grave plot sing back, "Oh, yeah!" The chorus sings:

"Oh, no, you never rob your brother!"

A ghost who looks like Monroe Silver, a popular comedian of the day who employed a Jewish dialect in his routines, turns his palms upward and says, "Ya needed it!" And then the chorus sings:

"And now, we'll haul your bones away!"

At the song's close, a skeleton puts a "For Rent" sign on an open grave, causing Bimbo to shiver with fright. As the ground tries to drag Bimbo under the cemetery, another section of music begins, and various creatures and objects sing of his litany of crimes, while Bimbo tries to defend himself:

Bat: Chickens you used to steal!
Bimbo: I don't steal no more!
Tree: Craps you used to shoot!
Bimbo: I don't shoot no more!
Shadow: Gals you used to chase!
Bimbo: I don't chase no more!
Tree: Get ready, brother --
All: Your time has come!!!

Bimbo desperately tries to escape as the walls of the cemetery march toward and close in about him until he is tight in their embrace, but he squeezes out at the top, avoiding their spikes, and zipping away. He runs to a nearby barn which creates a mouth that swallows Bimbo inside, where a large black hand continually tries to grab him, and ghosts and all manner of monsters sing, play, dance and threaten him through song...

"Stand up, you sinner!
We've got you at last!
You can't get away,
there's no time to pray,
your finish is g'wine to be fast!

Brudders and sisters,
come on, get hot!
'Cause I'm gonna take your vo-do-de-o
and tie your bones in a knot!"

While Bimbo continues to elude a haunted haystack, the various ghosts, and the black hand, a chicken takes over in the second verse, and then does some scat singing before starting to dance. It's body gets more and more rubbery and its legs stretch out until it is several sizes taller than it once was, filling the screen. Two ghosts with top hats do a quick dance routine, slapping their rears from side to side, and then a strange figure that appears to be a pair of pants with eyes joins in. It splits into three bean shaped figures with legs that strut for a while. An empty pair of shoes clops down some stairs, then the boards from the stairs march away, revealing a pair of ghosts in each step, who sway from side to side.

Bimbo's soul seems to leap out of his body, and splits into two white figures on either side of him. He jumps back into one of them, and then the other slides over to join them. Bimbo runs for it, leaving the barn through a door and slamming it, but the doorknob slides to the other side of the door. When it opens again, Bimbo is marched back into the barn by ghost playing a trombone. The ghost follows Bimbo around while playing an extended solo, hitting Bimbo in the rear with the horn, and at one point pulling out his underwear, which march in step between the pair. At the last second, the underwear turns into another ghost.

The second ghost (that sounds somewhat like Cab Calloway) produces a noose and hangs it in front of Bimbo. It sings...

"Brother, you sho' gonna get yo' face lifted --"

...while the trombone ghost whips out a straight razor and adds...

"-- and a permanent shave!"

All the ghosts gather around Bimbo and add "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Bimbo runs in circles around one ghost, and it spins and spins with his motions until the ghost becomes a barber pole. The straight razor ghost steps from behind the pole and with a terrifying grimace, threatens Bimbo. It takes a swipe at the dog with its razor and cuts the top part of his hat off, but Bimbo's ears reach up and pulls the hat back down in place.

Bimbo runs out of the barn and runs down a road where the telephone poles throw a row of shadow crosses in his path. The barn sprouts legs and gives chase. The ghosts pour out of the windows in the form of giant faces, including one that looks like a crazed Uncle Sam with incredibly long hair (though this might be another Jewish stereotype), and continue singing behind the back of the fleeing Bimbo. Dragons and horrid tentacled creatures join in the chase, and what seems to be a mile-long chain of ghosts wave their arms and pursue poor Bimbo up and down over hills until he runs with the full cadre of evil breathing down his neck as he runs into a dark cave. Swing You Sinners! breaks out in its full gory glory, with all manner of dancing, frightening creatures swaying and jumping to the deviant music. All hell breaks loose...

"You can't make any excuse!
Oh, get square with your goose*
'til we've picked up your noose!
Swing, you sinners!

You'll make a chicken 'scalope!*
You're at the end of your rope,
so just give up all hope!
Swing, you sinners!

We'll stretch you like a giraffe,
maybe cut you in half!
Just you give up that laugh,
Swing, you sinners!"

[*Note: once again, if you feel strongly about changes to these lyrics, plead your case in a comment. I am fairly certain of the other lines, but the ones marked with asterisks are iffy to me. It does however, make sense to me that they would threaten to turn him into a chicken escalope, since it is a piece of meat that has been pounded really thin and he is acting like a chicken (and is a hen thief to boot). And also because it sounds that way.]

A skeleton hand with a giant knife takes a swing at Bimbo, which he evades, but he is finally eaten up by a huge flying skull. With that gulp, the cartoon ends both shockingly and abruptly, in what I feel is one of the greatest finales in animation history.

There is so much that jumps out at you in such a crazed flurry of images that it is extremely hard to recount (or remember) all that occurs in this film without, as I have writing it all down. Even then, I left out many details and bits. 

As sharp as some of the imagery is, there is also a very sketchy quality to some of the characters, and it comes as no surprise to discover the huge amount of famed animators that actually worked on this film, including the incredible Shamus Culhane and Grim Natwick (though only Ted Sears and Willard Bowsky receive screen credit.) Dave Fleischer's tremendous regard for gags piled on top of gags fulfills itself to the extreme in this marvelously freaky short.

As someone who is always on the lookout for great Halloween material, I find this cartoon aces the creepiness test. In fact, with the fact that there is no escape from Bimbo's tragic fate at all, no matter what he does, this might be the ultimate in "scary" cartoons. (At least he gets to go out with a party!) Where most horror related cartoons kind of soft-pedal the scarier images with cuteness, this film and its humor is clearly aimed at adults, and acts that way to boot. 

What I really like are some of the wilder characters such as the long-haired hat wearer and a couple of the goons shown in the finale that have a touch of Basil Wolverton to them. It does make me wonder if this film, or at least the Fleischers' output overall, was an influence on the famous Powerhouse Pepper, Lena the Hyena, and MAD Magazine artist?

As for the oft-touted "surrealism" of Fleischer's early shorts, while it is an often misused term -- where people apply it just because something seems weird or dreamlike to them -- for much of this cartoon the description is most apt, with many of the gags coming completely out of the blue and having no real connection to what came before or what would be coming next.

As for poor Bimbo, he ran into all sorts of problems. Betty Boop, introduced in 1930, gradually became the breakout star of the Talkartoon series, which went away so that the Fleischers could concentrate on Betty's own series. This pushed Bimbo and former silent star Koko the Clown, who jumped from Out of the Inkwell into the Talkartoon shorts, into the background. Bimbo would eventually disappear from the cartoon world, possibly due to the Hays Office. Apparently, they had a little problem with bestiality. (This is odd, since his girlfriend, Betty Boop, did start out as an actual dog character! Look at her earliest appearance and you will notice she has long dog ears.)

This is reaching for it, but I've often wondered if perhaps Bimbo, despite his white face, was also seen by some in the censorship office as a black character, too; while he doesn't have the outrageous physical stereotypes that most black characters were imbued with in the 30's and 40's, he is black in hue. (Of course, so are Mickey Mouse and Goofy, but they are generally living the WASP dream in their cartoons, especially the later ones in the '50s, and I have never heard anyone with a serious argument that they are represent black characters.) After all, Bosko, who started out at Warner Bros., was generally seen as a black character, and he is not much different from Bimbo. When Bosko went to MGM, Harman and Ising, who created the character, turned him fully and definitely into a small black boy for several more films.

So maybe with Bimbo, it wasn't just bestiality that was the concern, but miscegenation as well. The music and references that abound in Bimbo's world also play off of common stereotypical behavior such as crap-shooting, gin joints, robbery, and jazz. If this theory holds, this would imply that he and Betty's relationship was one of a racially mixed couple. If so, I would bet that in the '30s, that would have been almost more of a no-no than just a little dog lovin' to the white establishment.

Whatever the reality for Bimbo: Cartoons he used to act in! He don't act in 'em no more!

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it: