At some time, someone released 9 VHS tapes of Betty Boop cartoons. One of them was called 'surrealism', and this wasn't on it. Go figure.

In truth, this is a godawful cartoon, and the only reason it scores as highly as it does (which isn't very) can be summed up in two words - Louis Armstrong.

Some of the Betty Boop cartoons featured musical stars of the day in live action segments, and this one managed to capture a 30 year-old Louis Armstrong virtually at the peak of his powers, just after his legendary 'hot 5' and 'hot 7' recordings. It's hard to tell which band he's playing with here, as he was with about five between 1929 and 1932, but by my account he has about a 9 piece outfit.

The short starts with Louis and his band in live action (one of the very first sound film recordings ever made of them). It then segues into the cartoon proper, with Armstrong providing three backing songs, most prominently "I'll be Glad When You're Dead, you Rascal, you!"

Meanwhile Betty, Koko and Bimbo are on some unexplained expedition through the jungle when they are jumped by a bunch of natives. They prove to be cannibals. Betty is tied up, but Koko and Bimbo (why does she have a dog for a boyfriend?) manage to rescue her (via use of a sort of inflatable porcupine). This sequence contains some of the most amazingly blatant racism I've ever seen. For example, a black cannibal pounding away at some cooking pot switches to a live action shot of the drummer from the band, grinning and pounding away on a kettle drum. I imagine these guys got decently paid for their work here, but the racial humilation is painful.

It doesn't get muich better as the disembodied head of the cannibal chief then chases Koko and Bimbo, morphing into a live and terrifying action shot of Louis Armstrong's head, menacingly singing "I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you!" And what's more, this makes absolutely no sense. I mean, this is a song about a guy wishing death on someone who cheated with his wife. One of the most preposterously incongruous lyrics goes, "You bought my wife a Coca-Cola, so you could play on her Vitrola".

What's more, Mae Questel's vocal contributions consist mostly of indecipherable squeaks.

It's stupid. There's almost no plot. What there is, is cringingly racist, and apart from a few sight gags which aren't bad, I can't think of anything to recommend it.

Except Satchmo. This is precious, very early sound footage of Armstrong improvising both lyrically and physically (apparently they had to draw a chalk circle around which he wasn't allowed to dance outside of), and the music is really just great.

Really, this is an historic early jazz/swing clip with a dumb, offensive cartoon attached.

BTW, maybe the weirdest thing about this short is that when Koko is running away, an odometer suddenly pokes out of his butt, which measures his speed in mph until it goes over 100, and then changes to Hebrew!