Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee

By Brenna and Megaera Lorenz
    This 1932 Betty Boop Cartoon is Betty Boop's 30th cartoon appearance. It consists of basic Fleischer restaurant gags from beginning to end. In this cartoon, we find Betty Boop and Bimbo in their standard forms.
    The cartoon begins with a verse from Betty Boop's theme song. Betty Boop is a cook in a little lunchwagon where the only item on the menu is wheatcakes. We see a parade of creatures go into the lunchwagon skinny and march out the other side fat. Then a giraffe eats the sign that says, "Eat." The wheatcakes do a dance on the griddle. Bimbo wanders over to visit Betty; he yuks and giggles in an irritating manner, and gives her a flower, saying, "For you, a rose." The flower is not a rose, but is a standard Fleischer-style daisy. Betty's heart flies out of her dress and Bimbo tries to catch it, but finally it goes back to Betty, who grabs it and stuffs it back into her dress. During this courtship, we hear "When I Take My Sugar to Tea" as an instrumental in the background.
    We see Koko complaining about his soup being cold. Where did he get soup when the only item on the menu is wheatcakes? For awhile, the wheatcakes-only rule is suspended and we see all kinds of other foods going by as the customers sing/chant the following song, which begins with a grouchy little hippo asking someone to pass the sugar:

Pass the sugar!
Pass me the salt,
Please pass me an egg,
Chicken for me,
Please pass me the leg;
Pass me a knife,
Do I have to beg?
Pass the sugar!

Pass me the sauce,
Pass me the roast,
Pass me the cream,
Please pass me the toast,
Pass me the corn
And what I love most,
Pass the sugar!

Pass me the fruit,
And pass me the fish,
Pass me the cold cuts,
They look delish!
Aw, pass me the nuts,
You know what I want;
Betty interrupts: "Now, boys, you just tell me what you're having,
And stop all your grabbing!"
Pass me the cheese and crackers and peas,
Pass the sugar to me!

During this song, everything gets passed to everyone except to the hippo. At the end, everyone passes the sugar to him at once, and he is buried in sugar cubes, and someone pours coffee on him as well. More restaurant gags commence to old cheesy tunes like "Daisy, Daisy" and "Singing in the Bathtub," followed by "You're Driving Me Crazy." Then an enormous hippo enters and elaborately establishes his rear end on a seat and demands wheatcakes. (We have returned to wheatcakes-only.) The hippo is notable not only for his size and voraciousness, but also his dentition; he has fangs like a vampire. Soon wheatcakes are flying in all directions, even up and out of the lunchwagon chimney, where they are gulped down by the moon. The cartoon ends with all the customers, the moon, the stove, and the lunchwagon doubled over with indigestion from Betty's cooking.

This is a mundane cartoon with nothing much to make it stand out.

This cartoon is available in the following collection:

Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection

Return to the Heptune Guide to Betty Boop Cartoons.

Published 5/28/99.