Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle

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Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle
Betty Boop series
Directed by	Dave Fleischer Shamus Culhane (uncredited)
Animation by	Shamus Culhane (uncredited) Seymour Kneitel Bernard Wolf
Voices by	Mae Questel
Music by	The Royal Samoans
Produced by	Max Fleischer (producer)
Distributed by	Paramount Studios
Release date	September 13, 1932
Format	Black-and-white, 8 mins
Language	English

Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle is a 1932 Fleischer Studios Betty Boop animated short, directed by Dave Fleischer. It is now public domain.

[edit] Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After a short live action performance by the Royal Samoans, Bimbo appears on screen playing a ukelele while riding in a motorboat. The motorboat goes faster and faster, until it crashes into a tropical island. Bimbo flies into the air and lands in another boat, this one containing a topless (except for a strategically placed lei) and dark-skinned Betty Boop. Bimbo and Betty, after nearly falling down a waterfall, are flung from the boat into a clearing surrounded by hostile trees, who torment the two. A group of savages appears, but Bimbo disguises himself by painting his face and sticking a bone in his hair. Bimbo is treated as an honored guest, and to a performance of Betty dancing the hula. A sudden rainstorm washes off Bimbo's disguise, and he and Betty make a hasty escape from the angry savages. After another rapid boat ride, Bimbo and Betty ride up the Mississippi River, where they attempt to kiss in private behind an umbrella (with a convenient hole).

The hula performance by Betty Boop was a visual high point of this episode. Betty's hula dance appears to be closely modeled on the hula dancer that appeared in the opening live action sequence. This is one of the more apparent examples of the rotoscope technique which the Fleisher Studio used for realistic animation. The hula sequence was later reused in 1934's Betty Boop's Rise to Fame.