This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

I'll tell you why so serious

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This early Fleischer cartoon isn't one of my favourites of theirs and really isn't one of the most interesting or memorable shorts ever produced by the studio. I get that everyone has to start somewhere but the sound is really rough and grating on the ears, and the animation is just dull as heck and for me it's just a bit of a depressingly drab little effort. It's not fluid with its animation or as wildly inventive as the terrifically surreal animations that would later be put out, and it's clear that they were still honing their craft at the point of this short. Oh and Betty Boop more or less puts in her first ever very brief appearance in a bizarre form that's very different from what she'd look like by the time of her twelve cartoon or so. She has a hideous flappy mouth, an enormous bouncy behind, noodle arms, piggy snout, and drooping gross ears - suffice it to say that in her animated debut, Betty was most-definitely a dog! Some of her famous traits were there right from the start though, like the lilting voice and big eyes and shapely feminine legs. For the most part though it's hard to believe that the sassy ugly mutt that appears in this short would soon evolve into a wildly popular character that would at one point be america's sweetheart and an endearing icon of early animation to this day. That her first appearance is probably the most noteworthy aspect of this short really doesn't say too much for it.. There were far better Fleischer works yet to come, and this early stepping stone is probably of main interest to Fleischer and/or fans of vintage animation historia, only!

At pretty much exactly 6 minutes, this is one of the shortest Betty Boop short films. This one is from 1930, so over 85 years old already and it was the very first on-screen appearance by Betty and as she was not an established star at that point yet, she has to share her screen time with several other characters in here and is just as supporting as these are. Also physical appearance is very different. Just like Tom from Tom and Jerry changed dramatically over the years, it is probably even more extreme with Betty. In this one here, she is a chubby creatures that is still much more dog than human and the sex appeal of the character they relied on so heavily in the years to come is missing entirely in here. The film is basically a collection of individual scenes that were intended funny, but rarely deliver in terms of comedy. It is not working as a film with a coherent story, just as a collection of individual sequences I would say. But it's okay. You cannot launch a character like Betty with perfection already. Still good they introduced her at all. Only worth seeing for huge cartoon lovers though.

Dizzy Dishes (1930) ** 1/2 (out of 4)This is a somewhat forgettable short but it does have one historically important thing that makes it worth watching. The story is quite simple as everyone in the film is a dog character and we are treated to our main character, a waiter, who is falling behind at work. That's until he walks out into the lobby where we see what would be the first appearance of Betty Boop. DIZZY DISHES isn't all that good as there aren't any laughs and the story itself is nothing special. The reason people will want to watch this is that it does feature the first appearance of Betty Boop, although she doesn't look like she eventually would. She has dog ears here and is a lot taller than what most people think of her as. Fans of Betty will want to check this out even though it doesn't offer much else.

Technically, this is the first Betty Boop cartoon--and because of that, it's very important historically. However, if you see it, you'll notice that Betty isn't yet the Betty we all know. The animation of this character is poor, she has doggy ears (as she did in the first five or so of her films) and there is little in the way of personality--she's just a dog-like cabaret singer grinding out a tune. The actual star of the cartoon is the waiter is this goofy restaurant who is giving terrible service to a huge and scary looking character who keeps eating the plates! The ending also isn't very Boop-like, as it's quite surreal and difficult to describe. All in all, a pleasant but otherwise unremarkable little film. Judging by the look of this, it's not easy to see that Betty would soon be a big star for the Fleischer brothers and Paramount Studio.