More Pep

MORE PEP is a cartoon that proves to have a lot of promise, but fails ultimately to be anything other than slightly above ordinary.

The plot starts rather dramatically--a narrator, "Uncle Max" (Max Fleischer, in a cameo voice-over) boldly announces the latest stunt to be performed by Betty Boop's dog--unfortunately, he's too sleepy to do anything. Betty comes to the rescue, singing an original song "You Gotta Have Pep" while shipping up a vitamin-fortified brew that happens to run amok, spraying the energetic drink everywhere BUT where it is supposed to be.

Once the dog fails to perform, the old OUT OF THE INKWELL process appears, for the first time in years--Betty pops out of the ink bottle, offering to help out Uncle Max complete the cartoon. The use of archival footage starts out creative, but runs out of steam quickly, and the INKWELL concept is abandoned until the very end.

A neat cultural artifact, and a decent cartoon--but mostly a curiosity.

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.

'More Pep' returns to the "out of the inkwell" format, which agreed starts off very interesting but feels rather under-explored by the end of the cartoon due to the second half neglecting it.

It is agreed that the content is lacking a little in humour and one does miss the risqué and surreal edge of the pre-production code cartoons.

On the other hand, the animation is beautifully drawn and detailed and the music infectious, toe-tapping and dynamic.

Pudgy is adorable as ever, parts are very cute and the first half with a very entertaining voice over contribution from Max Fleischer and the "out of the inkwell" format inducing much fascination with some creative achival footage. The voice acting is good.

All in all, decent cartoon though with a potentially interesting but under-explored concept. 7/10 Bethany Cox

As another reviewer pointed out, "More Pep" brings back the style of the older Fleischer Studios cartoons from the 'Out of the Inkwell' series which starred Ko Ko the Clown in the 1920s. Now, in 1936, the same style was brought back for a cute Betty Boop cartoon.

"More Pep" begins with a human hand creating a cartoon in ultra-high speed. The animator then describes an incredibly dangerous stunt that Pudgy the dog is going to complete. The problem is that all Pudgy wants to do is sleep. So, Betty crawls out of the inkwell and tries to rouse her pooch--to no avail. So, Betty creates a machine to instill Pudgy with pep. Unfortunately, the machine goes crazy and begins spraying everywhere. Most of this isn't really funny and just speeding up stock footage of real people isn't all that clever. But, I did LOVE the interaction between Betty and the voice of Max Fleischer--the head of Fleischer Brothers Studio--that was clever and cute. Well worth seeing even if some of the laughs are a bit forced.