Swat the Fly

'Swat the Fly' is a nice cartoon featuring Betty Boop and Pudgy the Pup. While Betty (voice of Mae Questel) is baking a cake and Pudgy is sleeping a fly enters their lives. They are both distracted and even annoyed by the little creature so they will not rest before they get him. Especially Betty keeps throwing stuff at him.

Like I said, this is a nice cartoon but nothing more than that. The animation looks quite normal and actually the whole story does. Therefore it is not very original, in story or animation, and that is too bad. It is one of the things I always like with the Betty Boop cartoons. Still, I had fun watching this and that is the most important thing.

Swat the Fly is a pleasantly slow-paced cartoon about Betty Boop and her battle with a fly. Unlike many other Betty Boop cartoons, don't expect anything crazy to happen here. This one actually stays close to the world of reality, and features only three characters (counting the fly) in one setting. Betty is charming and her dog is adorable, and unlike many other cartoons where the fly is the plucky hero, in this one I was rooting for Betty and really did just want her to squish him.

Swat the Fly (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mildly entertaining short finds Betty Boop getting ready to bake while her dog Pudgy tries to catch some sleep. Soon a fly comes by and starts bothering both of them so they must try and destroy it. SWAT THE FLY isn't a classic Boop short by any stretch of the imagination but I thought there were enough good moments to make it worth sitting through. I thought most of the jokes were rather minor including the first one dealing with Betty pouring some baking powder. The rest of the jokes revolve around the fly as it torments the dog by flying through its ears and then goes after Betty in countless ways. The majority of the running time has the fly just buzzing around while Betty throws countless items at it. The biggest problem is that none of this is all that funny and without the laughs it just becomes somewhat annoying as it goes along. Typical for the artists, the animation is very good throughout and there's a lot of imagination here but there just needed to be more laughs.

Betty is happily baking something in her kitchen at home when a pesky fly interrupts things. It won't let her or her little dog alone, tormenting both - especially the dog.

I found this to be a very un-entertaining Boop cartoon because (1) it wasn't funny; (2) the fly was so irritating - going in little Pudgy's ear twice and torturing him; (3) it was frustrating as nothing could be done about it.

Sorry, I just didn't see any humor in this one. I was almost as aggravated as Betty and her dog! This was not the usual fun Betty Boop cartoon.

Betty is making piecrust (I think) and an annoying housefly interrupts her work. It also tortures her little dog. The entire cartoon is an effort to kill the fly, mostly by throwing dough at it. The fly is persistent as houseflies usually are. There is nothing very imaginative about this one. It seems to go on and on.