Betty Boop at her most nightmarish?

Ha! Ha! Ha! (1934)
Starring: Mae Questel (voice of Betty Boop)
Director; Dave Fleischer
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Betty and Koko escape the cartoon world, and when Koko develops a toothache from eating real-world candy, Betty tries her hand at dentistry. Surreal horror ensues.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" is a fantastic bit of craftsmanship that sees cartoon characters roaming in and interacting with the real world, or real cars and other objects transforming into cartoons through a mixture of animation and standard film. It's a great deal of fun watch the cartoon world interact with the real one as seamlessly as it occurs in this picture.. at least until it turns nightmarish and terrifying.

It seems like I've been creeped out by cartoons from the 1930s a lot lately--"The Rocketeers", for example, contains the most horrific scene I've witnessed in just about anything--but "Ha! Ha! Ha!" is another one that I found to be an example of surrealistic horror on a Junji Ito level, with the world undergoing bizarre changes that may well ultimately lead to madness for all of humanity. It's not so much what's in this short film, but what isn't that keeps my imagination working once it's over... and it's not happy place that I find myself imagining.

But why don't you take a few minutes to watch this masterpiece of surreal humor and horror via the embedded YouTube video below. I'd also love to hear your take on it.