Mother Goose Land (1933)

Like the later Alice in Wonderland spoof, "Betty in Blunderland" (1934), "Mother Goose Land" (1933) puts Betty in a famous picture-book setting with all sorts of familiar characters and then has her abducted by a threatening figure from that setting, while the classic characters are forced to pursue and rescue her. Here, Betty reads Mother Goose stories at night and sings a song about wanting "to go with Mother Goose on a journey/just to visit with the dame who lived in a shoe," and is soon transported there and gets to meet all the famous nursery rhyme characters as well as some from other children's tales, including a jazz-playing Pied Piper who gets outsmarted by a rat with a harmonica. Betty attracts the attention of the man-sized spider who torments Miss Muffet and it abducts her and runs off, only to be pursued by the vengeful "four-and-twenty blackbirds" baked in a pie.

The nonstop musical soundtrack offers a mix of original songs; popular songs of the era, including "Sweepin' the Clouds Away" and "Bye Bye Blackbird;" and new recordings of nursery songs like "Old King Cole" and "Sing a Song of Sixpence." It's a nicely animated piece for the children, with vivid depictions of the famed Mother Goose characters, but it doesn't offer the inspired gags that have made other Betty Boop cartoons so attractive to an adult audience.