Fleischer Studios (1931)

Bimbo’s Initiation is a 1931 Fleischer Studios Talkartoon animated short film starring Bimbo and featuring an early version of Betty Boop with a dog’s ears and nose. It was the final Betty Boop cartoon to be animated by the character’s co-creator, Grim Natwick.

The surreal, nightmarish atmosphere of Bimbo’s Initiation has made it one of the most renowned Fleischer Studios shorts. Leonard Maltin described it as “the ‘darkest’ of all” the Fleischers’ cartoons. In 1994 it was voted #37 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation industry.

The cartoonist Jim Woodring identified Bimbo’s Initiation as “one of the things that laid the foundation for my life’s philosophy.”