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5.8/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.8/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Baby Be Good remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have eight minutes to spare today and love weird, rubbery 1930s animation, yes, this is absolutely worth your time.
Anyone who misses the chaotic energy of classic Fleischer cartoons will love it, while people who want logical plots or high-definition realism will probably turn it off in thirty seconds.
The setup is so simple it almost feels like an excuse to just draw weird things. Betty Boop is babysitting this absolutely menace of a kid named Little Jimmy.
Jimmy has way too much Pep, like he drank a gallon of sugary syrup before Betty sat down. 👶
He is basically a tiny agent of pure chaos who likes to destroy everything in sight.
To calm him down, Betty tells him a story where she plays a magical fairy, which is basically just an excuse for some incredibly strange visual gags.
Honestly, it reminded me a bit of the whimsical vibe in A Holiday in Storyland, but with way more domestic violence against household objects.
The highlight of the whole thing is when Betty’s fairy magic reverses time to fix all of Jimmy’s mess.
Seeing the ink spilled back into the bottle and the wallpaper putting itself back together in reverse is just... so satisfying to watch.
It’s a trick they probably did to save money on animating new frames, but it works so well.
Mae Questel’s voice work is, as always, doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Her squeaks and giggles are so iconic, even if the audio quality has that scratchy, old-record hiss that I secretly love.
It’s not quite as trippy as some of the earlier Betty Boop shorts, but it has that cozy, rainy-afternoon energy.
If you're looking for a deep message, you won't find it here, even though the movie tries to have a "moral."
The moral is basically "don't be a brat or a cartoon lady will haunt your dreams," which is fair enough.