Is My Palm Read (1933)

Puns, clever sight gags, a few risqué shots, some really old-fashioned Rudy Valley-type song, and just a generally wild story highlight this pre-Code Betty Boop.

I've noticed that in the early days of animation, the writers and artists really loved to make inanimate objects come alive. They would have fire, water, smoke, etc., all have hands that would appear and do something. Here, the waves on the ocean turn into big hands and dump a big steamship upside and drop the people in the water. Then the boat would be upright again and smoke rings from the two big stacks would turn into giant life rafts for the people. Betty would get washed ashore and "fingers" from the water would claw the sand or slap Bette on the behind! Later, we see smoke from a chimney spell out the word, "smoke." These kind of things are seen every few seconds in this cartoon. That kind of sight gag is still used today but not as much as in the '20s and '30s. You also didn't see naked women, either, but Bette would bare herself here and there before the censors would make her keep her clothes on by 1934.

What also marked Betty Boop as a different were the songs that would be inserted into the stories, even if they were very short as they are in this one. Betty (Mae Questel) was quite the singer and dancer!

There really isn't a much of a story to this one, just wild scenes, one after the other, but it's certainly entertaining! KoKo The Clown, from a silent decade earlier, and Bimbo the dog, make "guest appearances."