Minnie the Moocher (1932)

Minnie the Moocher, probably the most recognized Betty Boop cartoon episode, and for good reason, is a cool, jazzy experience with supernatural, surreal animation sequences involving ghosts, skeleton cats, and a rotoscoped dancing, scat singing, spectral walrus voiced by Cab Calloway. The technical ingenuity and macabre creativity combined with the jazz music makes this Talkartoons animation short an all time cartoon classic.

This was the first of three cartoons with Betty Boop to feature Calloway, the other two being Snow White (1933) and The Old Man of the Mountain (1933). It is also noted for containing the earliest filmed footage of Calloway, where he can be seen with his band dancing and doing what has been referred to as a proto-moonwalk.

Having Betty runaway from home with Bimbo after fighting with her parents does deliver a never-runaway-from-home message, with the creepy show in the cave being a kind of scare lesson that drives Betty and Bimbo back to home-sweet-home (I first got a similar lesson from Fleischer Studios as a kid with the short cartoon Small Fry (1939)).

It's Betty Boop's story, but the main focus and attraction is the haunted cave and the showy phantasmagoria that transpires within. For anyone checking out Betty's cartoons for the first time, Minnie the Moocher is no doubt the perfect episode to start with.