Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931)

I have such warm memories of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, most particularly because when I was in Kindergarten we put on a classroom play about the story, and I remember that I got to play The Huntsman. I basically stood by and waited for my cue to save the day by coming out on the stage and cutting the big bad wolf's head off, feeling like a hero. Strange that I had such a lucid dream only a couple years ago about that Kindergarten play, where I was a kid again and was oblivious to the life I led after that, as if my whole adult life was a dream and returning to my childhood self was the real reality.

The pre-code Betty Boop cartoon Dizzy Red Riding Hood is a playful spin on the Brothers Grimm tale Little Red Riding Hood that stars our favorite classic cartoon leading lady Betty Boop (voiced by Ann Little) in the role of Little Red Riding Hood. Sadly, my childhood heroic alter ego, The Huntsman, is absent, but in a way Bimbo sort of plays him, as he disposes of The Big Bad Wolf early on, saving Betty's life in the process, unbeknownst to her. Mischievous Bimbo skins the wolf and uses the skin to pose as the wolf. Bimbo also rushes off to Grandma's house while Betty is distracted in the woods, and since Grandma is away finding herself a young stud at The Fire-men's Ball, Bimbo also dresses up as Betty's Grandma, while also still dressed as the wolf. Once the gig is up, Betty and Bimbo seem happy to see one another and they are magically whisked away to the moon, and they start to get swung around by the living trees in a celebratory manner while an enchanting Disney-like castle looms in the background. It's a rather pointless ending that I kind of like for some reason.

The musical numbers have a certain nursery rhyme feel that kids will easily pick up on and start humming and singing along to, making this seem very kid-like on the outside but rife with sexual content clearly visible just barely below the surface, giving it that cartoony but risque classic Talkartoons vibe. It's a mildly entertaining diversion that isn't really all that funny, just weird and surreal, with gags like a walking, talking forest planting itself around Betty's path, which had previously been straight and clear-cut, making the conflicts along the way to Grandma's seem like obligatory yet trivial story elements. The animation is so technically impressive for its time and is really quite charming, most particularly the 3-D landscapes with the Wolf following Betty as Bimbo watches from behind the trees. The scene with Betty and Bimbo in the bed at the end is so sexually suggestive that I pretty much assume the rocking moon scene is basically telling us that Bimbo took Betty to the moon with the erect phallic symbols making up the castle in the background saying the rest.