Wonderfully offbeat film!

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

A Masterpiece!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.Despite the Betty Boop picture on this page, 'Bimbo's Initiation' is not a Betty Boop cartoon, or at least not one where she is a lead. She does feature here, towards the end in a very nice short appearance that shows her trademark charm, sensuality and adorable factor, and also a bravery and care for Bimbo.'Bimbo's Initiation' is, as the cartoon's title indicates, very much a Bimbo cartoon, and Bimbo is on top form where one really cares what happens to him and often feels the same emotions as he.As always, the animation is outstanding (though Betty's different-to-usual character design, like with the ears, is a touch odd), 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 but also an ominous spookiness and eerie quality that sets the tone of the cartoon brilliantly.The cartoon also is hugely atmospheric and while terrifying to a child (Fleischer rarely got nightmarish, and this is coming from someone who saw the likes of 'The Cobweb Hotel') it's pretty creepy still through adult eyes as it should be. There are some great ideas, very imaginatively drawn and done with great visual creativity and fluid timing.Overall, a great nightmarish cartoon. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Since I am limited to 1,000 words, I cannot do this picture justice from the start. Therefore, I will simply say: who's to say what it means? Should we each individually subscribe to any one interpretation and thereby join a group? (Wanna be a member?) I think that is the most important point if anything. At least Bimbo seems to think he has the right to walk, happy-go-lucky, through a neutral society (going in and out the window without actually ever going in or out as he whistles along) without falling into a trap set for him by Mickey Mouse or other corporate traps, lol. When he does fall into one, he has the right to say no, but when all groups are reduced to their least common denominator, male and female, he also has the right to say "YES!". It is unfortunate as it seems that Betty did not remain faithful and later turned into a real "Bimbo" in her other pictures, lol.I believe the least common denominator is arrived at by phi over pi (0.5150362148) indicating that Bimbo is only a little over half a person without his female companion. Together they would add up to a little over one 1 with the overage leading back through time to their origin. The leader of the secret society has a prop that seems to suggest their belief in the opposite, pi over phi which is 1.94161103873 and is nonsensical unless you say that a group is more than the sum of its parts and this perhaps somehow gives them more import or rights than an individual or married couple or any person who does not desire to be incorporated. I assume that Fleischer was a Jew and so had been instructed in the importance of male and female union and so this makes sense from that perspective.

As I watched "Bimbo's Initiation", I was surprised how good the cartoon was as well as how inappropriate it was for younger audiences! In a strangely surreal film, the Fleischer Studio managed to appeal and repel two different audiences! However, despite the title, Bimbo is a dog--Betty Boop's friend and companion--so the film is NOT adult in this regard!The film begins with Bimbo walking down the street when he's tossed down a manhole by a BRIEF appearance of a character that looks exactly like Mickey Mouse! However, he comes and goes so fast--probably so that they wouldn't get sued for using this Disney character! But, since we are in the age of DVDs and computers, stop and look--it IS Mickey!Bimbo falls down this tunnel into a fun-house like world where he is constantly being asked if he wanted to join some secret society or cult. When he says no, they appear to try to kill him in many weird and funny ways. None of it is cute--mostly it looks like a film directed by or inspired by Salvador Dali or a man on LSB (is there a difference?). You just have to see it to understand what I mean. However, if all Betty Boop cartoons were this bizarrely entertaining, I'd seek them out--but unfortunately they are not.FYI--This movie was recently listed by Crack Online on their list of Five Cartoons Way Darker Than Most Horror Movies. And, based on what I saw, I would agree.

Bimbo's Initiation (1931): An early Max Fleischer cartoon starring the studio's pre-Betty Boop star, Bimbo. A strange, cocky, decidedly urban character, Bimbo went through many character designs and voices during his early films. By this film the little dog had settled into the design he would keep until he was eclipsed by Betty Boop's popularity in the mid-thirties . Like many of the Fleischer's Depression era cartoons, "Bimbo's Initiation" is filled with desperate characters dealing with an unstable, even hostile universe. After being swallowed by a manhole and locked in by a demonic Mickey Mouse (evil Mickey Mouses were rampant in the early Fleischer cartoons) Bimbo finds himself in a dungeon inhabited by a psuedo-Masonic group with chamberpots on their heads who chant,"Wanna be a member, Wanna be a member?" When Bimbo refuses, he is thrown into a labyrinth filled with surrealistic tortures while the Lodge brothers continue to chant, "Wanna be a member...?" Does Bimbo relent? Watch the cartoon and find out! No spoilers here!