Bedelia (1930) Online

These bouncing ball animations generally featured timeless songs. In this one a guy who appears to be a dog or some neutral animal is on his way to see his girlfriend. She's not much of a prize, having to wear a wig and keeping her teeth by her bedside. But he loves her. The story is dull and there isn't a whole lot to laugh at here. Very repetitive.

Bedelia (1930)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The story here has a man going to his sweethearts house where he wakes her up and sings her this song. As far as those "follow the bouncing ball" shorts go, this one here is entertaining enough for what it is and it features some nice and funny animation. The story here has some funny moments and especially at the expense of the woman who is constantly losing her teeth among other things. The song itself is actually the weakest part of this short so I doubt too many will be singing along.

This is an early Screen Song produced by the Fleischer studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

The Fleischer studio had a series of shorts called Screen Songs, which consisted of a relatively short animated sequence at the start, then a singalong for the movie theater audience, with the words projected on the screen and accompanied by a "bouncing ball" as a cue to the lyrics being sung. The title of the short would generally be the song title. As the series progressed, the Fleischers would add live action footage of an artist performing the song to the mix, but the early ones had only the animation in front, the singalong and a brief bit of animation closing out the short. The series concept was carried over to Famous Studios when Paramount made the break with Fleischer.

Bedelia has some engaging and humorous animation at the start, with a guy driving to pick up his sweetheart, Bedelia. He drives a rather helpful car, as it helps him blow his nose at one point. He gets to Bedelia's home and he calls up to the sleeping Bedelia, who awakens, puts on a wig and puts in her teeth and runs for the window. Between the teeth falling out and the wig and dress falling off, Bedelia is having trouble keeping everything together.

She looks out upon her suitor and becomes annoyed, probably because he's belly dancing. She throws something at him, hitting him and squashing him. Then comes the song cue and the singalong begins. Bedelia is largely forgotten today, which is understandable, because there isn't much to engage the listener for terribly long. The animated antics of the guy during the second go-round of the singalong are good, but the song is mediocre.

This short can be seen online and is recommended for the animation.

Just watched this Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon on YouTube. In this one, someone is wooing the title character who is seen sleeping in bed with her bare feet showing on screen in near close-up. When she gets up, we see her putting on her long blonde wig and false teeth, both of which constantly fall off when she's walking to the balcony! She also hits her would-be-suitor a few times by throwing stuff like plants and such to him down below but every time she does it, this guy is even more infatuated with her. What a guy! Then after he tells us to follow the Bouncing Ball, he sings it and then near song's end jumps on the last words. This was one of the more hilarious ones from the Fleischer studio what with the aforementioned wig and false teeth scene having me in stitches! So on that note, Bedelia comes highly recommended.