The Robot

While Betty Boop only makes a brief appearance, Bimbo the dog seeks marriage with another young female. She insists that he go after a 5000 dollar prize for beating a nasty prizefighter who is annihilating everyone. Bimbo is unflappable and comes up with a robot, put together from car parts, to battle the fighter.

Bimbo is a mechanic whose girlfriend (not Betty) agrees to marry him if he wins a fight against "One-Round Mike."

Quick as a wink, he transforms his car into a robot to help him in the ring!

Some uninformed person said the girlfriend was the precursor to Betty Boop.

Hogwash!

Betty Boop first appeared in 1930 and this cartoon is copyrighted 1933! Further the original Betty was a canine with long ears!

The girlfriend in this doesn't really bare a resemblance to Betty except, oddly for just one scene where she is drawn just like her. What was that all about?

This cartoon is one of the weaker Fleisher Brothers cartoons. The characters are regimentally drawn and the story is dumb.

Forget that this is on a compilation of Betty Boop shorts-this is a Bimbo cartoon and the female character bears just a slight resemblance to Betty. Most likely this is a phase of her evolution, very early in the character's develpment. An okay cartoon, but nothing special. WOrth watching.

I found it curious that a cartoon made in 1931 would show a closed circuit television setup. Would have been very futuristic at that time, although TV existed it was not really too far out of the lab. There were no commercial stations broadcasting or anything like that. All in all a nice little cartoon although as mentioned elsewhere, it's really a pre Betty Boop sort of female character. One thing I did find out, U.M. & M TV Corp bought the rights to the Fleisher cartoons in the 1950's, long after the cartoons were orginally made. There was no U.M. & M TV corp in 1931 (or 1932) when this was made.

My assumption when watching "The Robot" is that the filmmakers were either insane or under the influence of some mind-altering drug. This is the only thing that would adequately explain why this cartoon is so incredibly weird. It isn't bad--just very weird.

The film begins with Bimbo* asking his girl out for a date. They soon see a sign offering $5000 for any one who can last a round with the boxing champ. One after another, guys are being knocked out so Bimbo turns his car into a robot and uses that to fight and win. You just have to see this one to believe it--it's so odd. Hard to describe otherwise.

*By the way, in the early 30s, there were TWO different Bimbo the Dogs in the Fleischer Brothers cartoons that looked nothing like each other. To make it even more confusing, Betty Boop was the girlfriend of one of them. The one in "The Robot" is white and his girlfriend is NOT Betty. This makes me think that despite the copyright date of 1932, this one was actually made earlier, as the Bimbo of 1931 on looked a lot different. I think this one really was made in 1930 or early 31--this might explain why they looked so different.