Film
Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle
- Slapstick
- Light-hearted
- Dip in and out
A seven-minute burst of pre-Code animation where Betty Boop, drawn in her earliest form, encounters Bimbo on a tropical island. It's loose, anarchic, and tonally all over the place—part slapstick, part dated exotica, part whatever gag came to the animator's mind next. Made when cartoons were still figuring out what they wanted to be.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy early sound-era cartoons where the pleasure lies in rubbery movement, jazz-age goofiness and a quick gag rhythm rather than in plot.
Skip it if you need a storyline or modern pacing; with only eight minutes of mostly visual gags, the dated island stereotypes will sit uneasily with many viewers today.
What it asks of you: Eight minutes of close, undivided attention, since the jokes arrive in quick bursts and the music carries most of the rhythm.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Steamboat Willie1928
Disney's debut with Mickey is the obvious ancestry, but this is rawer and stranger—more interested in pure rhythm and chaos than in story. Essential to understand what animation was before it got polished.
But Barely four minutes long, it's a curiosity rather than a complete experience. The novelty of early sound animation doesn't age well if you're not interested in animation history.
Dizzy Dishes1930
Betty Boop's actual first appearance, and she's already fully formed—that voice, that attitude. This is where the character you recognize begins, and it moves faster than you'd expect from something this old.
But The racism is casual and pervasive. What plays as 'period flavor' is actually just ugly, and it lands hard if you're not braced for it.
Hell's Bells1929
An early Fleischer Studios film (the team behind Betty) that shows their surreal, jazz-drunk sensibility in full flower. Genuinely unsettling in ways cartoons stopped being after the 1930s.
But It's a fever dream with no real narrative. If you want plot or even coherent motivation, you'll be frustrated.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Allegro non troppo1976
Both are animation experiments from outside the studio system, anarchic and uninterested in being likeable. Both let the medium do weird things instead of forcing it to tell a safe story.
Bruno Bozzetto's feature uses animation to visualize classical music, but it's the opposite of reverent—funny, strange, sometimes grotesque. It proves that abstract animation can be genuinely moving without a story.
But It's a collection of short pieces, not a narrative. Long stretches are unsettling rather than entertaining. Some sequences are genuinely disturbing.
More like this (7)
The Skeleton Dance1929
Mickey and friends, yes, but this is the Silly Symphonies at their weirdest—skeletons moving to Saint-Saëns, genuine animation ambition. It proved cartoons could be more than gags.
But The pacing feels deliberate and slow compared to Betty's frenzy. It's almost an art film, which some find tedious.
Song of the South1946
A feature-length animated spectacular with rotoscope sequences and genuine visual invention. Shows what animation could do when budgets got serious, even if the premise is appalling.
But The political and racial content is horrifying. The film was locked away by Disney for decades. You're watching racist propaganda dressed up as entertainment.
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs1943
A Warner Bros. cartoon that pushed animation technique to wild new places—fast, impossible, technically brilliant. The ambition is real even though the racism is worse.
But This is a hateful film. The caricatures are so extreme they're almost incomprehensible now. Watch only if you're studying animation history and can sit with genuine ugliness.
Gulliver's Travels1939
The Fleischers' only feature-length film, packed with their trademark surrealism and visual strangeness. It's the bigger, weirder sibling to Betty's eight-minute chaos.
But The plot barely holds together and the pacing drags. It's a collection of good sequences pretending to be a story, and it feels unfinished.
Aladdin1992
A modern cartoon that learned from what Betty's era did right—fast gags, anarchic energy, a character who's genuinely funny rather than just cute. Robin Williams is the connection.
But It's Disney-safe in a way Betty never was. The edges are rounded off. If you love the genuine weirdness of 1930s animation, this will feel tame.
Fire and Ice1983
Both come from studios pushing animation into spaces the major studios wouldn't touch. Both feel like the animator's fever dream instead of a polished product. Both are harder to watch than they should be, and that's the point.
Ralph Bakshi's rotoscoped fantasy is a technical marvel—live action traced into animation, creating something that looks like a hallucination. It's hypnotic even when the plot doesn't track.
But The animation technique draws attention to itself constantly. Some find rotoscoping eerie rather than impressive. The story is genuinely incoherent.
The Phantom of the Opera1989
Both use animation for effect rather than narrative—Betty's cartoons are visual gags freed from words, Argento's is visual dread freed from plot. Both ask what animation can do besides tell stories.
Dario Argento's animated operatic horror: stop-motion and drawn animation spliced together, grotesque and beautiful and completely unhinged. Animation used for pure mood rather than entertainment.
But It's slow, ponderous, and graphic in ways animation usually isn't. The violence is sudden. This is art-house horror, not a good time.
People
Cast
Satini PualoaRoyal Samoan
Mae QuestelBetty Boop
Directing
- Dave FleischerDirector
Production
- Max FleischerProducer