The Mystic Order of the Koo-Koo-Ma-Hatcha!

Good morning. Let’s turn on the time machine and watch an original nightmare cartoon from last century’s Depression-era cultural dreamscape: “Bimbo’s Initiation” (1931). This classic animation from the great Max Fleischer is a surrealist haunted house story as much as it is a edgy, pre-Hays Code, Betty Boop classic.

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“Bimbo’s Initiation” is currently featured on the Fleischer Studios front page — or you can catch it on YouTube

If you like this kind of thing, you’ll also dig Fleischer’s “Swing You Sinners,” which transpires in an uncanny graveyard. Both films are detailed in Cracked.com’s article, “5 Old Children’s Cartoons Way Darker than Most Horror Movies.”