Betty Boop in "Ha! Ha! Ha!" (1934)

[frizfrelengfan]

I found this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Tb4TMibk0) and would appreciate all your thoughts about it. I don't think I've ever seen it before!

I think it's kind of creepy and disturbing. I like it!

Notice that one of the animators was Roland "Doc" Crandall, who also worked on Betty Boop in "Snow-White."

[Surenity]

I saw this one on youtube too some time ago. I don't know if it was really banned or not, sometimes I think they just say it was banned so that it gets more views. The makers of Ren and Stimpy must have been inspired by this episode, anyone seen the one where Ren has a toothache? (They both show little guys inside the tooth pounding on a nerve ending.)

The part where Betty grabs Koko's tooth with the plyers and they dance around makes me flinch.

[FleischerFan]

This is a great Betty. As far as I know it was never "banned." It has appeared on any number of home video collections. The print on YouTube looks like it comes from Republic's "Definitive Collection."

The drug use seems to be simply nitrous oxide, still in use in dentist's offices throughout the country. Claiming drug use for this cartoon is only a step below the infamous claims made against Mighty Mouse during the Bakshi era.

What is unusual about this cartoon is that it is, I believe, the only Betty Boop cartoon where Ko-Ko appears without Bimbo. While Bimbo appeared with Betty in many cartoons that do not feature Ko-Ko, this is the only one where the reverse is true IIRC.

[Marty26]

Fourth Wall cartoons always crack me up. This is no exception. I also find the "drug use" reason for it being banned (supposing it WAS actually banned) kind of odd. Particularly since there are plenty of other cartoons that featured laughing gas but weren't banned.

[Bobby Bickert]

A couple of weeks ago I watched "Laughing Gas" (:flip: ) for the first time, which made me realize how few classic cartoons about dentists there are. The only other ones I know of are "The Awful Tooth" (:buzzy: ) and "Winky the Watchman". Any others?

[David Gerstein]

None that I can think of.
LAUGHING GAS is above average for Flip the Frog. Whose teeth would be harder to extract than a walrus? Check. Has the walrus got his toothache from eating impossible crap? Check—a model car, among other things. Have we got extraction of teeth via dynamite? Check.
There may not be lots of dentistry cartoons, but for the period this one is pretty good.

[rex racer]

None that I can think of.
.

:eek::eek::eek:

Stratosphere (1933) , with Willie Whopper , is a surreal adventure bookended by a visit to the dentist for removal of a bad tooth. Willie gets overly gassed by a cad of a dentist, then after coming down off the high, finds that the wrong tooth has been pulled! Not totally about dentistry, but kind of parallel to the Betty cartoon.

[Duck Dodgers]

Del and David,
you both forgot Ozzie in "The Merry Old Soul";)

[Surenity]

The only other dentist short I can think of from that time period isn't a cartoon so this is off topic I guess; The Three Stooges short "I Can Hardly Wait" takes a hilarious look at toothaches and dentist offices.

[Eugene the Jeep]

This is my first time seeing this, too. I loved it; it's nice to see the Fleischers still doing really weird stuff in 1934.

[ThePeterNetwork]

What about that scene in Chew Chew Baby where the guy takes Chew-Chew to the dentist for what he thinks is a toothache, but turns out to be a light snack.

[Mac]

A Mickey Mouse cartoon was planned in the late 30's called "Mickey's Toothache". In that Mickey (again under the influence of laughing gas) has a surreal nightmare about giant teeth, dentistry equipment and an evil dentist version of Pete.

Getting back on topic, I think that the scene in "HA! HA! HA!" where all the real things start laughing is absolutely amazing, really beautifully (and creepily) done.