Hollywood Diet (1930) is a weird, bouncy time capsule of gym culture

Is this worth watching today? Only if you have six minutes to spare and a weird interest in how people used to make fun of 'fitness' ninety years ago.

If you like old-school Terrytoons or early sound animation, you will probably find it interesting. Most people will probably hate it because it’s kind of repetitive and the humor hasn't aged great.

The whole thing starts with these 'society women' hanging out. They are playing cards, drinking, and smoking like chimneys. They look like they are made entirely of circles.

The movie says they are getting obesely flabby. That is such a blunt, 1930s way of putting it. You can almost feel the movie judging them for enjoying their lives.

They decide to head to a gym to fix the problem. This is where the movie gets really strange. The gym doesn't look like a place for health; it looks like a workshop for medieval torture.

There are these machines that look like they were designed by someone who has never seen a human body. One machine is just a big wooden arm that hammers away at a lady’s back. The sound effect for it is this wet, rhythmic thumping that goes on for way too long.

It reminds me of some of the odd, repetitive noises in Believe It or Not #3. It’s just constant noise that starts to feel like it’s vibrating inside your own head after a while.

Paul Terry and Frank Moser clearly liked things that bounced. Every character, every chair, and even the walls seem to have this rubbery pulse to them. It’s that early animation style where nothing can ever just stay still for a second.

I noticed a small detail in the background—a sign on the gym wall that looks like it has a typo. Or maybe that’s just how they spelled things back then? I couldn't quite tell because the film grain is so thick.

It’s a lot faster than something like The Man Without a Country. Thank god for that, honestly. I don't think I could handle thirty minutes of this bouncy slapping sound.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Hollywood Diet (1932) through its definitive frames.

There is this one bit with a vibrating belt machine. It’s the classic 1930s gym gag where the person using it starts to blur. The animators actually did a good job making the woman look like she’s dissolving from the shaking.

But the 'jokes' are mostly just... 'look at this person being shaken around.' It’s not exactly high-brow stuff. It feels very different from the drama you'd get in The Hatchet Man, which actually has a plot you can follow.

The music is just a bouncy piano track that loops and loops. It never stops for breath. It’s the kind of music that makes you feel like you’ve had five cups of coffee in a row.

Why is it even called Hollywood Diet? They aren't in Hollywood. Nobody is on a diet. They are just getting pummeled by gym equipment in what looks like a basement in New York.

I guess 'Hollywood' was just a buzzword they used to make the short sound more fancy. It’s like how every tech thing now has to have 'AI' in the name even if it doesn't do anything.

The ending is very abrupt. They all get skinny in about two seconds. Then the cartoon just... ends. It’s like they ran out of ink or the lunch bell rang and they just stopped drawing.

It has that same frantic, slightly messy energy as Call a Cop!. It’s just fast, loud, and gone before you can really process what you just saw.

I wouldn't call it a 'good' movie by any modern standard. But it is a fascinating relic of a time when people thought gym equipment should look like power tools.

• The way they hold their cigarettes is weirdly detailed compared to their faces.
• One machine looks like a giant rolling pin for humans.
• The background art is actually pretty nice if you look past the characters.
• There is a cat in one scene that just stares at the camera.

Anyway, don't go in expecting a masterpiece. It’s a six-minute distraction that feels a bit mean. If you’ve seen The Untamed, you know 1930 was a weird year for movies, and this is just one small, sweaty part of it.

I probably won't ever watch it again. But I’m glad I saw it once just to know it exists. It’s just... rubbery.