Is this worth watching today? Only if you have ten minutes and a high tolerance for
rubbery limbs and scratchy audio. 🎷
If you like the polished look of modern Disney, you’ll probably hate how jittery this is. But if you like seeing how weird the 1930s could get, it’s a tiny gem.
Bimbo is the hero here, though honestly, he just looks confused most of the time. He has these massive eyes that take up half his face, and they blink at different speeds sometimes.
The movie starts with him trading a cow for beans, which is standard stuff. But the way the cow looks at him is
heartbreaking in a very goofy way.
When the beanstalk grows, it doesn't just grow; it pulsates. It looks like a bunch of balloons being inflated and deflated at the same time. 🎈
The music is constant and it drives the whole thing. Everything bounces to the beat, even the rocks and the clouds.
I noticed that the background art is actually pretty detailed for something so old. It has this dark, grimy feel that makes the giant's castle look genuinely unwelcoming.
Then there is Betty Boop. She isn't quite the Betty we know yet—she still has those weird dog ears because the Fleischer brothers hadn't fully made her human yet. 🐶
She’s scrubbing the floor and singing, because that’s what you did in 1931 cartoons when you were kidnapped. Her voice is so high it almost hurts my ears, but it fits the
chaotic energy of the scene.
The giant is a big, ugly guy with a voice that sounds like he’s gargling gravel. He’s not really scary, just kind of annoying and loud.
There’s a moment where the giant eats a whole bunch of stuff, and the way his throat moves is just... unpleasant. It’s like watching a snake swallow a bowling ball.
Bimbo hides in a giant shoe at one point. It’s a simple gag, but the way he peeks out is actually kind of cute. 👟
The action scenes are a mess of moving lines. You can barely tell where one character ends and the other begins during the big chase.
It’s definitely more frantic than
The Mighty, which came out around the same time but feels way more grounded. If you wanted something more serious, you’d probably go watch
Thunder Mountain instead.
One thing that really stuck out to me was a random cat in the giant's kitchen. It has this
creepy smile and just watches the mayhem without doing anything.
The ending is super abrupt. One minute they are falling, the next minute it’s just... over. 🏁
I guess they ran out of paper or time. Or maybe they just thought the audience had seen enough weirdness for one day.
It feels less like a story and more like a collection of visual jokes that someone threw together during a fever. Some of the gags don't even make sense, like why does the giant have a musical harp that looks so bored?
The sound quality is pretty rough, let's be honest. You have to really strain to hear some of the under-the-breath comments Bimbo makes. 👂
Those little ad-libs are the best part of these old shorts. They feel more human than the scripted lines.
If you’ve seen
Home Scouts, you know how these characters usually behave, but here they feel a bit more raw. Like the animators were still figuring out the rules of their own world.
Everythign in the giant's kitchen seems to be alive. The knives, the forks, even the plates have little faces and attitudes.
It’s a bit overwhelming if you think about it too much. Imagine trying to eat breakfast while your spoon is judging you. 🥄
I’ve seen better versions of this story, but none that felt this
hallucinogenic. It’s like a time capsule from a decade where nobody was quite sure what cartoons were supposed to be yet.
It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s definitely not boring. I’d take this over a generic modern CGI short any day of the week.
Check it out if you want to see Betty Boop before she became a superstar. Just don't expect it to make any sense. 🌀
