User Reviews

The plot here is quite simple. Betty Boop is voluptuous. There are two characters vying for her affection. One is good old Bimbo, whose star is now a bit tarnished. The other is an old man who seems to be the king of the masquerade ball. As the two fight it out with swords, there is lots of movement and action. It's a pretty typical Betty Boop cartoon.

This one consists principally of sight gags that arise out of Bimbo's mooning after Betty and both Betty and Bimbo dealing with the interest shown in Betty by a rather persistent and quite obvious suitor. Bimbo making cow eyes and chasing after Betty is fairly standard. The older fellow is what makes this one fascinating, for me at least. It's nice occasionally to have someone other than Bimbo or KoKo trying to catch Betty.

The Betty Boop personality is formed by this point, for the most part. The music is good, the comic timing is pretty good and the animation is excellent. Part of the Definitive Betty Boop box set and well worth having. Recommended.

Just discovered this early Betty Boop cartoon on YouTube courtesy of one of various cartoon blogs I've been looking up on. The author of this particular blog thinks the singing voice and mannerisms of Bimbo near the end sound a lot like Louis Prima and I have to heartily agree. This short being made pre-Code, there are lots of stuff that it wouldn't get away with after 1934 like Boop's skirt going up revealing her panty and someone helping skirt stay down with the help of a bobby pin. Lots of bizarre things involving some vintage songs happen that are hard to describe so all I can say is Mask-A-Raid is highly recommended for any fan of Max Fleischer especially during this period.

This Betty Boop cartoon is very weak. Some of the time, her cartoons were just crammed with music--and this is certainly one of those times. There are three songs in just a short cartoon! The cartoon begins with Betty wearing a long gown walking through the palace*. The king definitely admires her attributes. However, Bimbo definitely wanted her and was interested in some cross-species love. Not surprisingly, the king was not pleased with this and he and his guards try to capture Bimbo.

Like some of the Boop cartoons before she was cleaned up due to the 1934 Production Code, this one sells sex all the way. Betty shows off her cleavage and the men go wild for her in this one. Unfortunately, there just isn't much more to this one. It's thin on plot and is just jam-packed with music. Not particularly enjoyable but very well animated.

*Holding the tail of Betty's dress are two small mice who look just about identical to Mickey Mouse. I am pretty sure this was NOT an accident.

I've been spending a lot of time with precode movies that feature what was then considered sexy. One can't do that without spending some time with Betty Boop. Cartoons are abstractions but for them to work those abstractions have to be rooted something that matters. This is the only comic I know that depends on what is known about sex. I suppose Clara Bow is who we should be thinking about, though I believe this notion is deeper than any single human soul can carry.

That's because it is so very extra, I mean this is a pretty human body. It jiggles, it wiggles, teases and hides coyly. Its very very human. But then her head and face is from another world. Her face is from the cartoon world while her body is from the real world and acts like it's from the real world. This is exactly the opposite of what we will see in films, live- action films from this period. And I mean the pre-code era.

I think that reversal of focus is what makes this so engaging and seem like so much fun.

Each Betty Boop cartoon has some minor threat — well actually a major threat that has Betty a moving into dangerous territory because of her sexiness or sex-related risktaking. And they all feature some interleaving of these abstractions with similar abstractions of then jazz music. But this one is unique so far as I know in that the threat is an unwanted lover, someone with power, someone who she inexplicably was sitting on a throne with. There's a story there.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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. That charm, sensuality and adorable factor is not lost anywhere here, nor her comic timing and she is very well supported by the ever fun Bimbo and the suitably sinister antagonist.

'Mask-A-Raid' is up there with one of my favourites of Betty Boop. It's slight and standard but it is a strong example of how to execute a familiar and melodramatic premise and give it freshness and plenty of imagination and entertainment.

The animation is outstanding, everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination. Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness, great for putting anybody in a good mood.

As hoped, the fun is ceaseless, with some very well timed and funny gags, and delivers on the creativity and imagination as well as (for Betty Boop especially) and as ever ahead of its time humour. The voice work and such is good.

Overall, excellent. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This is an early Betty Boop cartoon I now love. I know it is part of a series of Max Fleischer cartoons called "Talkartoons", but I think it is part of Betty's cartoon series. This is also the only cartoon featuring Bimbo that I love.

Set in a masquerade, Betty is the queen of the ball, and Bimbo duels with a lecherous king for Betty's affections. Admittedly I love this cartoon, because of the "Delaware Lackawanna" song sung in it. I thought it was funny, despite the stereotypical references in it. So anyway, that is all I have to say, and this is another favorite Boop cartoon.