Fleischer Studios Animated Horror

SWING YOU SINNERS!
(1930)
Dir - The Fleischer Brothers
Overall: GOOD

The most famous horror entry in the New York-based, Fleischer Brothers Talkartoons catalog which produced forty-two shorts in a mere three year period was Swing You Sinners!.  A surreal musical with enough dark elements to warrant its reputation, it was based somewhat on the song "Sing, You Sinners" by W. Franke Harling and Sam Coslow, here with slightly reworked lyrics.  Betty Boop's frequent love interest Bimbo, (even though he is a dog and ergo not human, but that is neither here nor there), finds himself trapped in a graveyard come to life where every tombstone, ghost, and vaguely sinister looking monster begins chasing him around and notifying him that his "time is up" and hell most certainly awaits.  The fact that it wraps up without any lighthearted payoff the way Disney most likely would have handled it sets it apart as a more glum, supernatural cartoon from the early sound era.

BIMBO'S INITIATION
(1931)
Dir - Dave Fleischer
Overall: GOOD

Bimbo back into more mischief in another odd smorgasbord of dangerous set pieces, Bimbo's Initiation finds the Fleischer Studios trademark dog being pursued in an underground bizarro world by vaguely racists looking ghosts with melted candles on their heads.  The strangeness does not stop there.  Lauded as one of the most surreal cartoons from the studio or indeed from any during the era, creepy and/or disturbing visuals like skeletons, axe murdering machines, animated flames, and an overall fascination with characters butts certainly makes the whole experience more weird than horrifying.  This is enhanced ever more so by the jovial music that accompanies it from beginning to end.  The outcome is equally puzzling with a barrage of dog-eared Betty Boops showing up, but by that point, eh, why not?

BETTY BOOP'S HALLOWE'EN PARTY
(1933)
Dir - Dave Fleischer
Overall: GOOD

This straight-forward entry in the Betty Boop series and penultimate one released that year, (oddly enough, four days AFTER Halloween), Betty Boop's Hallowe'en Party is exactly what the title proclaims.  With every character perpetually bobbing along to the musical soundtrack and Betty herself busting into "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing", (which what that has to do with All Hallows Eve is anybody's guess), it is a buoyant presentation to be sure.  Inventive moments like cans of cat and witch paint being able to provide perfect wall decor, a cow that punches holes in all the jack-o'-lanterns, and a bunch of ghosts terrorizing a party-crashing gorilla all make for a lot of innocent fun.  Nothing unwholesome going on here, just mildly spooky, festive fare.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS!
(1934)
Dir - Dave Fleischer/Willard Bowsky
Overall: GOOD

Moving from Bimbo and Betty Boop onto Fleischer Studios' other major and possibly most enduring property Popeye the Sailor, Shiver Me Timbers! was the twelfth cartoon ever produced featuring the spinach-eating, squinty-eyed sailor man.  He, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy stumble across a ghost ship on a beach which quickly sends them off on rocky waters and ghosts, skeletons, and other poltergeist like activity messes with them for six-odd minutes before Popeye punches everybody to extra death.  It is the usual concept of every Popeye cartoon where he is never once afraid of anything and his sidekicks never once are NOT afraid of everything.  Plus there are some clever gags providing enough hoots, like Olive Oyl falling into flour and then getting confused as looking like one of the ghosts.

COBWEB HOTEL
(1936)
Dir - Dave Fleischer
Overall: GOOD

This one being a part of Fleischer Studios' self-explanatory Color Classics series which ran from 1934 to 1941, Cobweb Hotel is not horror in the conventional sense of having ghosts, goblins, or spooky visuals presented in any kind of fun, haunted house manner.  Yet it does have a inventive premise of a hoax hotel run by a spider who uses it to keep his fly guests captive against their will.  It is presented in a disturbing enough manner as to qualify as macabre, with the aforementioned insidious spider gleefully singing about his establishment while helpless flies are shown struggling in vein to get free.  The fact that the spider's voice is almost annoyingly raspy and breathing makes the whole ordeal even more creepy.  Just desserts are served though so it all ends up a happily every after affair.