Review of Ha! Ha! Ha!

When I first viewed this brilliant Betty Boop cartoon short knowing that it had in fact at one time been banned for "portraying drug abuse" I was expecting to see a bong pop up in it or something, but mere gas, are you kidding me? What did they think that all the impressionable little brats of the time were all gonna head on down to their local dentist to score some laughing gas? Fuff, ridiculous! Oh my, how I just luurved this one. A lot of the shorts are really weak and mediocre later on, but the sheer jolly wanton madness of the early Betty Boops really speak to my current sensibilities. It does start out a tad slow, but very rapidly becomes something bizarrely amazing. The first thing I liked was the creepy interior view of Koko's mouth with the realistic-looking throbbing tooth. That looked like the type of image you'd get in the Ren and Stimpy show, so very many years down the line. The second thing I liked was the fight between the dental instruments! Very nice bit of random insanity there, and the thing that made me really love this and consider it to be something great was when the laughing gas infects Betty and Koko...and oh yes, the whole freaking world!!! I love the weird effect of the animation mixed in with real things. It's crude, and no Roger Rabbit effect but it still looks amazing to me even today. My favourite sight gag was the laughing tombstones! I never thought I'd see the day... Seriously, I didn't see it coming! The delightfully mad laughter is so utterly infectious that I couldn't help laughing a little too! Just a little. A cartoon with the rare and strange ability to evoke such a reaction from the viewer is nothing short of remarkable in my book. One of 'Ms Boop's very finest, thank you very much.