There are some great ideas, very imaginatively drawn and done with great visual creativity and fluid timing. The cartoon also is hugely atmospheric and while terrifying to a child (Fleischer rarely got nightmarish, and this is coming from someone who saw the likes of 'The Cobweb Hotel') it's pretty creepy still through adult eyes as it should be. Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness but also an ominous spookiness and eerie quality that sets the tone of the cartoon brilliantly.
As always, the animation is outstanding (though Betty's different-to-usual character design, like with the ears, is a touch odd), everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination.
'Bimbo's Initiation' is, as the cartoon's title indicates, very much a Bimbo cartoon, and Bimbo is on top form where one really cares what happens to him and often feels the same emotions as he. She does feature here, towards the end in a very nice short appearance that shows her trademark charm, sensuality and adorable factor, and also a bravery and care for Bimbo. Despite the Betty Boop picture on this page, 'Bimbo's Initiation' is not a Betty Boop cartoon, or at least not one where she is a lead. Their visual style was often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation. After being swallowed by a manhole and locked in by a demonic Mickey Mouse (evil Mickey Mouses were rampant in the early Fleischer cartoons) Bimbo finds himself in a dungeon inhabited by a psuedo-Masonic group with chamberpots on their heads who chant,"Wanna be a member, Wanna be a member?" When Bimbo refuses, he is thrown into a labyrinth filled with surrealistic tortures while the Lodge brothers continue to chant, "Wanna be a member.?" Does Bimbo relent? Watch the cartoon and find out! No spoilers here!įleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Like many of the Fleischer's Depression era cartoons, "Bimbo's Initiation" is filled with desperate characters dealing with an unstable, even hostile universe. By this film the little dog had settled into the design he would keep until he was eclipsed by Betty Boop's popularity in the mid-thirties.
A strange, cocky, decidedly urban character, Bimbo went through many character designs and voices during his early films. Bimbo's Initiation (1931): An early Max Fleischer cartoon starring the studio's pre-Betty Boop star, Bimbo.
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