GeorgeC
07-23-2004, 01:04 AM
I'm new in this forum today but I've posted on animation forums before and have to ask the simple question at the source --
Why isn't there an officially licensed Betty Boop DVD set yet?
Honestly, all these licensed goods (posters, books, calendars, dolls, statues, Monopoly game) are cute and all, but isn't it ironic that the very animated cartoons that PUT Miss Boop on the map aren't available?
It's funny that kids today get acquainted to Boop whenever they go to one of the Universal Studios Parks in the US or some memorabilia store but they can't even see the cartoons on TV anymore! AMC and the US Cartoon Network used to show a few of the original B & W theatrical shorts, but no more!
I think it's fine and dandy that Max and Dave Fleischer's heirs have formed a licensing and production company (the successor to the original Fleischers Studios) to keep the likenesses of Betty and her friends alive out there but isn't the mission ONLY half-fulfilled if the CLASSIC Betty Boop shorts themselves are NOT available in licensed DVD sets? It's ironic that companies can make all manners of goods but nobody's released the shorts in a decent collection for years! What's the point of a Fleischer Studios existing if the Classic Fleischer shorts themselves are held back from circulation for whatever misguided reasoning?
Right now, I can get maybe 20 or 30 of the shorts on DVDs that are public domain and have rotten to passable video and audio quality. Somewhere in a vault in California there sits nearly all the Boop shorts and there ARE collectors out there that have the "missing shorts" that were NOT put into the Betty Boop Definitive Collection that came out in the 1990s on VHS and laserdisc.
What needs to be done is to talk to the fans and figure out what WE want. I'm sure most of us DO want to the see the shorts back in print on home video in a DVD collection that's remastered MUCH better than the 1990s set and that includes ALL the cartoons that ever featured Betty Boop in them. I know that I want a set that DOESN'T have god-awful line drop-outs because of cheap visual remastering like the Betty Boop: Definitive Collection and keeps the audio in the good old monaural soundtrack it originally was presented in! (Yep, on some of the public domain DVDs, the companies go to the trouble of ruining the soundtracks and remastering them in 5.1 sound with "new and improved" sound effects that stick out!)
It's sad that on these boards I see a bunch of talk about new drawings, calendars, and such but very little about the theatrical shorts that made Betty Boop a legend in the first place!
Why isn't there an officially licensed Betty Boop DVD set yet?
Honestly, all these licensed goods (posters, books, calendars, dolls, statues, Monopoly game) are cute and all, but isn't it ironic that the very animated cartoons that PUT Miss Boop on the map aren't available?
It's funny that kids today get acquainted to Boop whenever they go to one of the Universal Studios Parks in the US or some memorabilia store but they can't even see the cartoons on TV anymore! AMC and the US Cartoon Network used to show a few of the original B & W theatrical shorts, but no more!
I think it's fine and dandy that Max and Dave Fleischer's heirs have formed a licensing and production company (the successor to the original Fleischers Studios) to keep the likenesses of Betty and her friends alive out there but isn't the mission ONLY half-fulfilled if the CLASSIC Betty Boop shorts themselves are NOT available in licensed DVD sets? It's ironic that companies can make all manners of goods but nobody's released the shorts in a decent collection for years! What's the point of a Fleischer Studios existing if the Classic Fleischer shorts themselves are held back from circulation for whatever misguided reasoning?
Right now, I can get maybe 20 or 30 of the shorts on DVDs that are public domain and have rotten to passable video and audio quality. Somewhere in a vault in California there sits nearly all the Boop shorts and there ARE collectors out there that have the "missing shorts" that were NOT put into the Betty Boop Definitive Collection that came out in the 1990s on VHS and laserdisc.
What needs to be done is to talk to the fans and figure out what WE want. I'm sure most of us DO want to the see the shorts back in print on home video in a DVD collection that's remastered MUCH better than the 1990s set and that includes ALL the cartoons that ever featured Betty Boop in them. I know that I want a set that DOESN'T have god-awful line drop-outs because of cheap visual remastering like the Betty Boop: Definitive Collection and keeps the audio in the good old monaural soundtrack it originally was presented in! (Yep, on some of the public domain DVDs, the companies go to the trouble of ruining the soundtracks and remastering them in 5.1 sound with "new and improved" sound effects that stick out!)
It's sad that on these boards I see a bunch of talk about new drawings, calendars, and such but very little about the theatrical shorts that made Betty Boop a legend in the first place!