Swat the Fly

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. The good news is that she has not lost her charm, she is still cute and her comic timing is good.

Less good is that, thanks to the production code her sensuality is heavily muted, and it was like she had lost a large part of what made her such a unique character back then and what made her popular.

Some of 'Swat the Fly' is cute and initially is amusing. The animation is beautifully drawn and detailed and the music infectious and dynamic. Pudgy is adorable, and the character you feel most sorry for and the one you relate to most. The voice acting is good.

However, if anybody enjoyed the pre-code Betty Boop cartoons for being wonderfully surreal and for its daring risqué content that was ahead of the time back in the 30s and wouldn't be seen a lot now in cartoons, they will be disappointed here. Both are missing which gives a rather tame and bland feeling throughout.

Creativity and more consistent (in quality and timing) jokes are also missing, while the story is very thin which makes the cartoon drag and never holds any surprises. Worst of all is the character of the fly, getting increasingly irritating (yes even for a fly, but this fly was also meant to be funny and very rarely was) until the annoyance was almost unbearable.

In summary, well-made but just okay, for Betty Boop okay is not enough. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This film makes "unfunniness" a way of life: we're supposed to be laughing our behinds off at the cute antics of the (very nondescript) fly and roaring at Betty flinging her cake batter at the little pest (CAN'T have too much room for facial expression with such a miniscule character). About the only thing remotely funny is the way Pudgy unknowingly invents breakdancing, and even that wears thin after less than a half a minute. This cartoon makes "The Impractical Joker" and "Buzzy Boop" seem like works of pure comic genius. "Swat The Fly" is an absolute masterpiece in comparison only when compared with "We did It".

'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.

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.

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.