Early Animation

I've always thought Betty Boop's sexuality had an interesting but creepy quality to it. If you poke around in early animation, you will notice a lot of dark, violent themes we would consider unsuitable for young people today. As with folk music compared to rap, silents compared to modern action flicks, or earlier painting compared to moderns, we falsely believe that current entertainment is much grimmer than more wholesome previous eras. Not so. Shakespeare had to compete with bear-baiting, after all, which is why there is a fair amount of onstage blood in his works. (Warning. It's the Gloucester scene from "King Lear.")

There's lots of fun to be had browsing around in early animation, however. Rubber hose or Ub Iwerks. The video above has an interesting bit of Cab Calloway singing "St. James Infirmary," a song distantly related to "Laredo." Very strange.