Please don't think that I'm defending this movie, but if you've only seen it once, really dislike it, and don't understand the appeal, then you really should watch it again. It's less hateful when you sit through it a second time. No, really. You begin to understand just how messed up it is-- someone upthread said that he/she hated the "it-was-all-a-dream-and-you-were-there-and-you-were-there-and-you-were-there-too" ending, but it helps if you remember that it's not a dream, but a tranquilizer overdose hallucination. A second viewing doesn't make Hugh Herbert any funnier, but you "get it" (the movie itself) a little more.
I'll leave it to historians of popular culture to explain why Hugh Herbert was a comedy star, 'cuz I don't understand. Now, it's true I haven't seen all 100 or whatever movies he's been in-- I've seen him in those Looney Tunes caricatures (where I admit I used to think it was Lou Costello, a guy I find equally irritatingly un-funny), I've seen him in HELLZAPOPPIN', I've seen him in THE BLACK CAT, and I've seen him in SH! THE OCTOPUS, and that's it. All I see is an unpleasant, flustered middle-aged man who occasionally and inexplicably repeats a phrase and punctuates it with a silly "hoo-hoo," and apparently that's hilarious. It sounds more like a symptom of Tourettes syndrome to me, but the world was a different place in the 1930s.
