Dizzy Dishes

...Never in my life have I watched a Betty Boop cartoon - until today. I thought I could give this one a go, as this was Betty's debut and I wanted to see what she would be like.

Betty Boop only appears in this odd and old episode for a little bit of it, but seems to be an important character. In this appearance she has dog ears, to attract the dog waiter who is the main centre of the episode. He is catering for a pub-type place with a stage for dancers (Betty Boop is a dancer and the waiter seems to dance for her later because he loves her so much). The main plot-line of the episode is the fact that the waiter is incredibly slow and everyone is waiting for him. The most stressed out customer is a rather big dog who wants roast duck. The waiter is just about to bring the roast duck to him until he is distracted by Betty Boop and dances with the duck (cooked and prepared).

Anyhow, that's pretty much the plot of the episode. I thought it was cute, entertaining and one that I would watch again. As for Betty Boop, she was not a character to interest me enough (partly because she was not the main character), so I think I'll have to watch some newer episodes with her to have a better idea of her.

I recommend this episode to people who like lots of arbitrary dancing and music in a short cartoon episode and to people who want to see Betty's first appearance - with dog ears. Enjoy "Dizzy Dishes"! :-)

7 and a half out of ten.

Dizzy Dishes (1930)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is a somewhat forgettable short but it does have one historically important thing that makes it worth watching. The story is quite simple as everyone in the film is a dog character and we are treated to our main character, a waiter, who is falling behind at work. That's until he walks out into the lobby where we see what would be the first appearance of Betty Boop. DIZZY DISHES isn't all that good as there aren't any laughs and the story itself is nothing special. The reason people will want to watch this is that it does feature the first appearance of Betty Boop, although she doesn't look like she eventually would. She has dog ears here and is a lot taller than what most people think of her as. Fans of Betty will want to check this out even though it doesn't offer much else.

While Fleischer cartoons are generally well-animated and thus worth watching from that standpoint, the only real point of interest is the comparatively brief look at Betty Boop-version 1.0. Originally, Betty Boop was conceived as a dog and gradually evolved into the Betty Boop most recognizable today. There isn't much to say about the short itself, as it's nothing terribly special. The gags are occasionally cute, but it isn't especially memorable for anything other than Betty. I've had waiters this bad before, however. Dizzy Dishes is on Betty Boop-The Definitive Collection, an excellent compilation. Maybe Popeye will receive similar treatment on DVD sometime before the heat-death of the universe. For completeists only.

Technically, this is the first Betty Boop cartoon--and because of that, it's very important historically. However, if you see it, you'll notice that Betty isn't yet the Betty we all know. The animation of this character is poor, she has doggy ears (as she did in the first five or so of her films) and there is little in the way of personality--she's just a dog-like cabaret singer grinding out a tune. The actual star of the cartoon is the waiter is this goofy restaurant who is giving terrible service to a huge and scary looking character who keeps eating the plates! The ending also isn't very Boop-like, as it's quite surreal and difficult to describe. All in all, a pleasant but otherwise unremarkable little film. Judging by the look of this, it's not easy to see that Betty would soon be a big star for the Fleischer brothers and Paramount Studio.

I won't dwell on the obvious first appearance of Miss Boop. She really is a dog. This is about one of those restaurants with a bunch of waiters and no cooks. There is one character who dominates the screen and he is totally incompetent. As watcher of cartoons we shouldn't ask questions like, How can this night club even exist?"