15: Mysterious Mose

Mysterious Mose, 1930
Fleischer Studios

Being a blogger with a header like mine, you'd have thought I'd have featured a Ghost cartoon a little sooner right? Cartoon ghosts are always solid gold when it comes down to it. They're the ultimate shape shifters and the silent-thru-golden age of cartoons used them to their fullest.

Three being the magic number, I bring you three classic ghost cartoons.

I said the best till last, and I meant it. Who did spooky ghost cartoons better than Fleischer Studios?
I've credited Mysterious Mose a dozen times on the dA masterlist, it feels like I've been talking about it forever. It is one of the singularly brilliant pieces of animation the studio ever did and I don't say that lightly.

Dog Betty is merely the tip of the ice burg. A comment on the video suggests she looks vaguely Josephine Baker-esque in this version of her early incarnation. Betty was based on some of the most beautiful women of the black and white era, Clara Bow being the one she most strongly bears resemblance to, but the commenter is right, and its not JUST because of her skin tone.

This video also, sadly, contains my favourite design of Bimbo the dog. Ghost or not, he'd never look that good or smarmy again. You may just say he looks like a rip-off of the Mouse, but really, what character wasn't.

So watch and re-watch my dears, as that song never quite leaves your head.