There are many words that come to mind when watching the above Betty Boop cartoon from 1934, ‘Betty In Blunderland’. They include surreal, nightmarish, demented, outlandish and, most importantly, fascinating. The Fleischer brothers approach to animation was madly untethered to anything resembling reality. Plot doesn’t exist, though ‘Alice In Wonderland’ is the basis–or maybe ‘excuse’ is the better word–for the goings on. Even the jokes are weird–while funny they inspire more awe and fascination than outright laughter. Note that this was a Paramount release and thus we get two well-known songs from movies of the period thrown in (presumably for free). ‘Everyone Says I Love You’ originally appeared in The Marx Brothers ‘Horsefeathers’ (1932) and ‘Did You Ever See A Dream Walking’, which debuted in a 1933 Jack Oakie film called ‘Sitting Pretty’. Oh, and Paramount’s very strange version of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ was released one year prior to this short. So something was in the Paramount air when the Fletchers embarked upon this piece of mad whimsy. Enjoy what I can only hope is the weirdest seven minutes of your day…