MYSTERIOUS MOSE - Walter Doyle & Mae Questel - (1930)

Bimbo might get the main credit, but Betty Boop is the real star of tonight's Halloween Countdown Saturday Night Special "Talkartoon" presentation, the super mysterious, "Mysterious Mose"!

This was Betty Boop's third appearance on the big screen following "Dizzy Dishes" and "Barnacle Bill!" The first one and this one both featured Margie Hines as the voice of Betty, Little Ann Little was Betty in Barnacle Bill and several features to follow, sharing the role with Margie, Mae Questel, Bonnie Poe and Kate Wright over the years!

Well, this kind of action sure would be unacceptable by today's cartoon standards!

Not only once, but twice, Betty gets her top completely scared off! You might notice that Betty's character hadn't morphed into a complete human being yet, and still featured dog's ears!

A few years later Margie Hines became the main voice of Olive Oyl, but still did some Betty Boop cartoons also. In 1939 Margie married her co-star, the voice of Popeye, Jack Mercer, but it only lasted for a couple of years! Now I'll bet that would have been an interesting home to be a fly on the wall in!

What Betty's doing in this house and what or who Mysterious Mose is, is a question only Dave, Lou, or Max Fleischer could answer, since they were responsible for about 90% of what their company was putting out at the time!

So to calm her nerves Betty breaks out into song! Right about here is where it really gets mysterious, and to make things even more confusing, even though Margie Hines was doing the voice of Betty Boop, it was Mae Questel who was actually singing the song! "Ooh-Ooh-Ooh-Ooh-Ooh!"

Mae Questel was also the voice of Olive Oyl for a number of years, along with Little Audrey, Little Lulu and more! She was also quite an actress, and will be remembered for all time for her last role, as good ole Aunt Bethany in National Lampoon's "Christmas Vacation"

Outside, things aren't much better!! "Ooh-Ooh-Ooh-Ooh-Ooh!"

"When your path at midnight dark by a graveyard goes,
And someone whistles, Whoooooo, That's Mysterious Mose!"

"He sees all, He knows all, He's just been everywhere, Some night, he might wait for you upon the stair!" And who is this guy anyway, Bimbo or is he Mysterious Mose??

Man, these two hit it off immediately, now it's time for Mose to make his move!!

Mysterious Mose goes all out to impress Betty with his charm, wit, and ability to go from inside the stovepipe to being decked out like an Alpine mountain climber, and the perfect lover!

Strike up the band!!! The music for "Mysterious Mose" was composed by a Mr. Walter Doyle and has been performed by not only The Walter Doyle Orchestra, but also Cliff Perrine And His Orchestra, Rube Bloom And His Bayou Boys, and R. Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders!

Just for the heck of it, here's R. Crumb's version! There's a couple of handfuls or more versions on youtube, plus you can also watch the whole cartoon, just do a search for "Mysterious Mose," you'll be amazed how many folks have gotten the Mysterious Mose fever over the years....

.....like this lively group by the name of The Soothsayers Jugband!!

There's so much going on, it just keeps getting weirder, and it will make your head spin before the whole scene explodes into chaos!

While Bimbo gets himself together, I'll tell you that one of the coolest things about "Mysterious Mose" is that it can be downloaded for free by anyone in a variety of formats at the mysterious Internet Archive!!!

You've probably seen it somewhere else, and we generally eschew videos in lieu of old fashioned music and pictures, but this is a little something everyone should see at least once, Betty Boop (Bonnie Poe) and Dracula (Bela Lugosi) together! "Are we having fun yet?"