History of Betty Boop

[The Moocher]

Hi all, and welcome to this sparkling new forum.

In this thread I'm going to revise the material I posted in the Chit Chat Lounge. I compiled it in a hurry, and there were errors. I hope to correct most of them.

Please post comments and corrections. The last thing I want to do is monopolise the thread.

Because a fair proportion of posters speak UK English, and it's my natural language, I intend using UK spelling (colour rather than color). However, if there are any strong feelings about this I can switch to US English if required.

I'll start with a filmograpy. This includes both talkartoons and cartoons. I'll explain the difference between talkartoons and cartoons later, and I'll deal with screen songs later.

I'll list the shorts in release order. I won't state month of release as this is often debatable. The shorts weren't necessarily released in the order they were made.

I've put question marks after Hot Dog and Accordion Joe. The former starred "Bimbo and a pretty girl" and the latter "Bimbo and a woman" but the female character in either case is not identifiably Betty (although she probably was). I've done the same for The Herring Mystery Case because Betty wasn't in her normal form but had a small part as a very pretty fish.

Betty also appeared as a cat in the screen song Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl (1931).

1929
Accordion Joe (?)

1930
Hot Dog (?)
Dizzy Dishes
Barnacle Bill the Sailor
Mysterious Mose

1931
The B*m Bandit
Silly Scandals
The Herring Mystery Case (?)
Bimbo's Initiation
Bimbo's Express
Minding the Baby
Mask-A-Raid
Jack and the Beanstalk
Dizzy Red Riding Hood

1932
Any Rags
Boop-Oop-a-Doop
The Robot
Minnie the Moocher
S.O.S
Crazy Town
The Dancing Fool
A-Hunting We Will Go
Chess-Nuts
Hide and Seek
Admission Free
Betty Boop Limited
Stopping the Show
Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee
Betty Boop M.D.
Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle
Betty Boop's Ups and Downs
Betty Boop for President
I'll Be Glad When Your Dead, You Rascal You
Betty Boop's Museum

1933
Betty Boop's Ker-Choo
Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions
Is My Palm Read
Betty Boop's Penthouse
Snow-White
Betty Boop's Birthday Party
Betty Boop's May Party
Betty Boop's Big Boss
Betty Boop in Mother Goose Land
Popeye the Sailor
The Old Man of the Mountain
Poor Cinderella
I Heard
Morning, Noon and Night
Betty Boop's Hallowe'en Party
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

1934
She Wronged Him Right
Red Hot Mama
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Betty in Blunderland
Betty Boop's Rise to Fame
Betty Boop's Trial
Betty Boop's Lifeguard
There's Something About a Soldier
Betty Boop's Little Pal
Betty Boop's Prize Show
Keep in Style
When My Ship Comes In

1935
Baby Be Good
Taking the Blame
Stop That Noise
Swat The Fly
No! No! A Thousand Times No!
A Little Soap and Water
A Language All My Own
Betty Boop and Grampy
Judge For A Day
Making Stars
Betty Boop and Henry, the Funniest Living American

1936
Little Nobody
Betty Boop and the Little King
Not Now
Betty Boop and Little Jimmy
We Did It
A Song Day
More Pep
You're Not Built That Way
Happy You and Merry Me
Training Pigeons
Grampy's Indoor Outing
Be Human
Making Friends

1937
House Cleaning Blues
Whoops! I'm a Cowboy
The Hot Air Salesman
Pudgy Takes a Bow-Wow
Pudgy Picks a Fight
The Impractical Joker
Ding Dong Doggie
The Candid Candidate
Service With a Smile
The New Deal Show
The Fox Hunter
Zula Hula

1938
Riding the Rails
Be Up to Date
Honest Love and True
Out of the Ink Well
Swing School
Pudgy and the Lost Kitten
Buzzy Boop
Pudgy the Watchman
Buzzy Boop at the Concert
Sally Swing
On with the New
Pudgy in Thrills and Chills

1939
My Friend the Monkey
So Does an Automobile
Musical Mountaineers
The Scared Crows
Rhythm on the Reservation
Yip Yip Yippy

1980
Betty Boop For President (compilation)

1985
Hurray for Betty Boop (compilation)

1988
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1989
The Romance of Betty Boop

2004
Betty Boop and the Girls of Mischief


My thanks to Neckless, who was the first (as far as I know) to post a full filmography in the Chit Chat Lounge.

Mooch

[bboop480]

Hi all, and welcome to this sparkling new forum.

In this thread I'm going to revise the material I posted in the Chit Chat Lounge. I compiled it in a hurry, and there were errors. I hope to correct most of them.

Please post comments and corrections. The last thing I want to do is monopolise the thread.

Because a fair proportion of posters speak UK English, and it's my natural language, I intend using UK spelling (colour rather than color). However, if there are any strong feelings about this I can switch to US English if required.

I'll start with a filmograpy. This includes both talkartoons and cartoons. I'll explain the difference between talkartoons and cartoons later, and I'll deal with screen songs later.

I'll list the shorts in release order. I won't state month of release as this is often debatable. The shorts weren't necessarily released in the order they were made.

I've put question marks after Hot Dog and Accordion Joe. The former starred "Bimbo and a pretty girl" and the latter "Bimbo and a woman" but the female character in either case is not identifiably Betty (although she probably was). I've done the same for The Herring Mystery Case because Betty wasn't in her normal form but had a small part as a very pretty fish.

Betty also appeared as a cat in the screen song Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl (1931).

1929
Accordion Joe (?)

1930
Hot Dog (?)
Dizzy Dishes
Barnacle Bill the Sailor
Mysterious Mose

1931
The B*m Bandit
Silly Scandals
The Herring Mystery Case (?)
Bimbo's Initiation
Bimbo's Express
Minding the Baby
Mask-A-Raid
Jack and the Beanstalk
Dizzy Red Riding Hood

1932
Any Rags
Boop-Oop-a-Doop
The Robot
Minnie the Moocher
S.O.S
Crazy Town
The Dancing Fool
A-Hunting We Will Go
Chess-Nuts
Hide and Seek
Admission Free
Betty Boop Limited
Stopping the Show
Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee
Betty Boop M.D.
Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle
Betty Boop's Ups and Downs
Betty Boop for President
I'll Be Glad When Your Dead, You Rascal You
Betty Boop's Museum

1933
Betty Boop's Ker-Choo
Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions
Is My Palm Read
Betty Boop's Penthouse
Snow-White
Betty Boop's Birthday Party
Betty Boop's May Party
Betty Boop's Big Boss
Betty Boop in Mother Goose Land
Popeye the Sailor
The Old Man of the Mountain
Poor Cinderella
I Heard
Morning, Noon and Night
Betty Boop's Hallowe'en Party
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

1934
She Wronged Him Right
Red Hot Mama
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Betty in Blunderland
Betty Boop's Rise to Fame
Betty Boop's Trial
Betty Boop's Lifeguard
There's Something About a Soldier
Betty Boop's Little Pal
Betty Boop's Prize Show
Keep in Style
When My Ship Comes In

1935
Baby Be Good
Taking the Blame
Stop That Noise
Swat The Fly
No! No! A Thousand Times No!
A Little Soap and Water
A Language All My Own
Betty Boop and Grampy
Judge For A Day
Making Stars
Betty Boop and Henry, the Funniest Living American

1936
Little Nobody
Betty Boop and the Little King
Not Now
Betty Boop and Little Jimmy
We Did It
A Song Day
More Pep
You're Not Built That Way
Happy You and Merry Me
Training Pigeons
Grampy's Indoor Outing
Be Human
Making Friends

1937
House Cleaning Blues
Whoops! I'm a Cowboy
The Hot Air Salesman
Pudgy Takes a Bow-Wow
Pudgy Picks a Fight
The Impractical Joker
Ding Dong Doggie
The Candid Candidate
Service With a Smile
The New Deal Show
The Fox Hunter
Zula Hula

1938
Riding the Rails
Be Up to Date
Honest Love and True
Out of the Ink Well
Swing School
Pudgy and the Lost Kitten
Buzzy Boop
Pudgy the Watchman
Buzzy Boop at the Concert
Sally Swing
On with the New
Pudgy in Thrills and Chills

1939
My Friend the Monkey
So Does an Automobile
Musical Mountaineers
The Scared Crows
Rhythm on the Reservation
Yip Yip Yippy

1980
Betty Boop For President (compilation)

1985
Hurray for Betty Boop (compilation)

1988
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1989
The Romance of Betty Boop

2004
Betty Boop and the Girls of Mischief


My thanks to Neckless, who was the first (as far as I know) to post a full filmography in the Chit Chat Lounge.

Mooch
WOW !!!! FABULOUS MOOCHER,

thank you,

bboop480

[The Moocher]

In the 1920s Fleischer Studios was a major producer of silent cartoons, with stars such as Koko the Clown. In 1924, the Fleischers used the Lee DeForest phonofilm system to make the very first sound animations, called Song Car-tunes. These, however, failed to achieve wide distribution and the project was abandoned.

In 1928, Disney introduced Mickey Mouse in the sound cartoon Steamboat Willie, and the Fleischers decided to revisit the project that they had pioneered. They invented a type of animated short that they called a Talkartoon. Unlike a cartoon, in which the soundtrack is recorded on the same medium as the animation, Talkartoons synchronise the animation with a separate sound source.

This has a number of implications. It is a lot easier to synchronise singing than speech (although the Fleischers and their animators were meticulous in coordinating speech with lip movement). As a result, much of the dialog in these early shorts was sung rather than spoken, and there were a lot of songs. This suited audiences of the time, who were used to Vaudeville and sing-along entertainment. It also suited the Fleischers’ rather unusual methodology.

Fleischer Studios had no writers. Out Of The Inkwell Productions, which made the Talkartoons, consisted of Max, Dave and Leonard Fleischer, and a bunch of animators. Leonard Fleischer was a jazz music fan. He would buy the latest hot jazz records and bring them to the studio where Max and Dave would then listen to them and select those that were suitable for animation. They would then come up with a simple plot and a few gags, and give the record to the animators and tell them to animate to the music. This is opposite of most cartoon studios. In other studios (such as Disney) animators worked from storyboards and the music for the soundtrack is added later.

This system was what made Fleischer cartoons exceptionally surrealistic, if somewhat light on storylines. It had the additional attraction that the parsimonious Max did not need to pay for a story department. He didn’t pay royalties for the use of the music either!

This worked until the New York musician's union found out about it. Max did a deal. The musicians would come to the studio and be paid for performing, and he would then film and record them. The filmed images of the jazz performers would then appear in Fleischer animations based on their performance. As a result live performances by artists such as Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Don Redman are a feature of the early Fleischer Talkartoons and cartoons.

Out Of The Inkwell needed a new star for the Talkartoons. Following the success of Mickey Mouse and, before him, Oswald the Rabbit, animal (or half animal half human) characters were in fashion. Koko went into honourable retirement, and his dog Rex was adapted to become Bimbo. Unfortunately, the Fleischers could not decide what he should look like. At first Bimbo was tall and skinny, then he was short and round. Sometimes he was black, sometimes black with white spots and sometimes white with black spots. Bimbo would not achieve his final appearance until The Herring Murder Case (1931).

Possibly due to his changing appearance, Bimbo proved to be no rival to Mickey. However, Disney Productions had inadvertently provided what seemed to be the answer. In 1929, the Disney cartoon Plane Crazy – a remarkably racy short for the normally staid Disney – had introduced Minnie Mouse. The Fleischers reckoned that Bimbo needed a girlfriend, and they decided they would make her sexy. Nobody, except possibly Mickey, would describe Minnie as sexy.

As an aside, Plane Crazy provides a good example of the cruelty that permeated Mickey Mouse cartoons. A dachshund is twisted up like a rubber band in order to power an aeroplane. Fleischer animations may have been surreal, sometimes downright weird, but they were seldom cruel.

So an attractive female character was introduced into Bimbo Talkartoons. Accordion Joe (1929) starred “Bimbo and a woman.” Hot Dog (1930) starred “Bimbo and a pretty girl.” It would be interesting to see what this early female character looked like, but unfortunately the Talkartoons seem to be lost and I can’t obtain screenshots. It is likely that she would be at least partly canine, as a girlfriend for Bimbo wouldn’t be fully human.

In Dizzy Dishes (1930) the character is recognisably Betty (picture 1), but only just. She has a poodle head and long ears, but a curvaceous (if somewhat chubby) human body. She is wearing a short, flapper-style dress that shows the tops of her stockings, although in this screenshot the trademark garter is not in evidence. She had no name. It would be some time before she was called Betty, and even longer before she became Betty Boop.

The well-known animator Grim Natwick designed the original Betty. Natwick was noted for his ability to animate realistic human figures. In the 1930s, most animators used "rubber hose" animation where limbs like arms and legs could twist and extend and flop about without any regard to the laws of anatomy. From the beginning, Betty moved like a real person, although some “rubber hosing” was used in Barnacle Bill the Sailor (1930) in which she had an extensible neck. Max Fleisher also invented a technique called “rotoscoping” in which a human is filmed (usually dancing) and the cartoon character is drawn over the human character on the film frames. This technique was used very successfully in several shorts, most notably Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle (1932).

Natwick was quite candid in stating that the original inspiration for Betty Boop was a young female performer named Helen Kane. Kane had the same spit curls as Betty Boop and had added the phrase "boop-boop-a-doop" to the popular song "I Want To Be Loved By You". Kane later sued Max Fleischer and Paramount, claiming that Betty Boop had damaged her performing career. I’ll discuss this in detail in a later post.

Betty Boop went through a process of evolution. She is "Nancy Lee" in Barnacle Bill the Sailor (1930) and "Dangerous Nan McGrew" in B*m Bandit (1930). In one of her most famous shorts, Mysterious Mose (1930) she had no name at all! In the Screen Song Any Little Girl That’s A Nice Little Girl (1931) she was a cat, and she even had a tiny part as a fish in The Herring Murder Case (1931). Arguable she was given the name Betty in the Screen Song Betty Co-ed, based on the Rudy Vallee song, but the first time she was called Betty in a short was Silly Scandals (1931) in which the audience yells “Betty” when she appears on stage. Paramount claims that she became Betty Boop in Stopping the Show (1932) but I believe – and I shall explain why later, that she was Betty Boop in Jack and the Beanstalk (1931).

Betty’s appearance also evolved. She became less dog-like and more human in successive Talkartoons, with long ears remaining her only canine feature. I have seen claims that she became fully human in Betty Co-ed, but it is more commonly accepted that this happened in the Screen Song Kitty From Kansas City (1931). In Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931) she certainly looked human (and exceptionally pretty) but her ears were hidden under a fetching bonnet, and Any Rags (1932) is generally accepted as the first Talkartoon in which her long ears became loop earrings. Certainly by Boop-Oop-A-Doop (1932) she was fully human.

Several actresses supplied the voice for the early Betty. In 1931, Max Fleischer hired Mae Questel, a teenager who had recently won a Helen Kane look-alike contest. Mae also sounded a lot like Helen and was Betty’s “main” voice until 1938 when Fleischer Studios moved to Florida and Margie Hines became the voice of Betty Boop. Another teenager, Little Ann Little, also provided a voice for Betty, mostly in the Betty Boop stage shows.

Betty was designed to be sexy. Bimbo needed a sexy girlfriend to help him compete with Mickey Mouse. She was based on 1920s flappers (as was Helen Kane, and, indeed, Minnie Mouse). She wore a very short, backless skirt that showed her trademark garter – and occasionally other items of lingerie – and she made no secret of her liking for a kiss and a cuddle.

But somehow the character also retained an air of innocence and vulnerability. She could be simultaneously a worldly sophisticated woman and a playful little girl. In 1934, during a copyright infringement hearing 1934, the judge offered the following description of Betty: "There is a broad baby face, the large round flirting eyes, the low placed pouting mouth, the small nose, the imperceptible chin and the mature bosom. It was a unique combination of infancy and maturity, innocence and sophistication." At the time, Fleischer Studios sent out a publicity blurb quoting Max Fleisher’s statement that Betty Boop was and always will be sixteen years old.

The 1920s flappers were independent women who pushed the traditional boundaries of the roles of women especially in the areas of conduct, dress and ****** freedom. Like many of those women, Betty straddled a borderline between a worldly sophisticated woman and a playful little girl. It is as a wide-eyed girl caught in a series of weird, surreal adventures that she is remembered, but she was also in many cases the brave, competent woman who sorted out the problems she encountered, without calling on the nearest male for help.

Possibly the strangest feature about the birth of Betty Boop was how long it took for the Fleischers to realise they had a star on their hands. The perceived wisdom of the day was that successful cartoon characters were male and animal. Betty was female and (mostly) human. She was created to boost Bimbo’s popularity, but making Betty completely human would demote Bimbo from a boyfriend to a companion or even a pet (nobody seems to have told Bimbo this). Could a human female cartoon character really support a series and become a star?

Couldn’t she just!

Mooch

[The Moocher]

I haven't posted for a few days. I have a good excuse, my daughter was married on Saturday.

I'm working on the next episode. Watch this space.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

A picture of the bride and groom - my lovely daughter Bryony and her husband, James.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

Try again.

Mooch

[boopsiegirl]

Hi Moocher, Congrats good luck to the bride & groom they make a great couple. Your daughter is a beautiful girl. Good luck may they have many years of health & happiness, God bless Gina :)

[bettyboopfan]

I am glad you have your own little space now to post about the history of Betty and her cartoons!

Easily accessible for anyone to look something up!

Great job, Mooch!

Oh, I am not sure if you saw my other post but congrats on your daughters marriage!!

[PeterHale]

There's a debate going on on another site about whether this is a "Betty" film - the problem seems to be the release date. Many sites (and the filmography in Cabarga's book) say 13 December 1930 - a full year later than 1929 and well after Betty's debut. You have Accordion Joe as a "maybe" - is this because of the date? Which date is correct?

[bettyboopfan]

Mooch? Do you know?

[BBooper]

i've never heard of this one 'Betty Boop and the Girls of Mischief' (2004). does anyone know anything about it so i can learn what it's all about?

BBooper
xxx

[bettyboopfan]

Hmmm..no, I haven't heard anything about it.

Where did you hear about it?

Interesting.

[PeterHale]

Apparently a compilation CD from Goodtimes Entertainment - presumably just a collection of Fleischer and Famous Studio cartoons: Max Fleischer's Betty Boop is joined by "the girls of mischief": Little Audry and Little Lulu for ten animated episodes.

[bettyboopfan]

Oh ok, thanks for the info Peter! :D

[bboop480]

Hey Peterhale...welcome!

[boopsiegirl]

Welcome peterhale!

[bettyboopfan]

Welcome Peter to the forum!!

[The Moocher]

There's a debate going on on another site about whether this is a "Betty" film - the problem seems to be the release date. Many sites (and the filmography in Cabarga's book) say 13 December 1930 - a full year later than 1929 and well after Betty's debut. You have Accordion Joe as a "maybe" - is this because of the date? Which date is correct?

I'm about to answer this in my next post. I'm pretty sure the release date is 12th December 1929. The short starred "Bimbo and a woman." Was the "woman" a prototype Betty? Probably.

However, it's debatable whether Accordion Joe can be classed as a "Betty" film (similarly Hot Dog). The first short in which the "attractive female character" was recognisably Betty is Dizzy Dishes.

BTW, I apologise for not posting sooner. I've been very busy with my daughter's wedding and a lot of post-wedding duties.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

In this section I have listed all the Talkartoons issued by Out of the Inkwell Productions in 1929 and 1930 that featured the “pretty female character” that was to become Betty Boop. In these early days she was not Betty Boop, or even Betty, but had a variety of names, or no name at all. She was Bimbo’s girlfriend or love interest, and often had only a very small part in the short. It would be some time before the Fleischers realized that they had a major star on their hands.

1929 Talkartoons
Accordion Joe

1930 Talkartoons
Hot Dog
Dizzy Dishes
Barnacle Bill
Mysterious Mose

Accordion Joe was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Ted Sears and Grim Natwick. The most likely release date is December 12, 1929. Some filmographies give a release date of December 1930, but by then the Betty Boop character was recognisable, if as yet unnamed.

This Talkartoon appears to be lost and I cannot locate a synopsis. It is likely that there wasn’t much of a story. The Fleischers were more interested in music, songs and gags with only the sketchiest of plots to hold them together. Nor can I locate any screen captures. It would have been interesting to see the “woman.”

Hot Dog was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. I am not able to determine who the animators were. Interestingly, Adolph Zukor is listed as the Executive Producer. Zukor was a major film mogul who founded Paramount Picture Studios in 1913. Although he was an experienced director and producer, it is unlikely that he would be involved in the detailed production of a Fleischer Talkartoon. Possibly he was there to keep an eye on things, or as a sign that Paramount was taking a serious interest in Out of the Inkwell Productions.

The Talkartoon starred "Bimbo and a “pretty girl." As with Accordion Joe, I haven't been able to find out any more about this short, but it's reasonable to assume the "pretty girl" wasn't completely human.

Dizzy Dishes was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Grim Natwick and Ted Sears. It stars Bimbo, and the Fleishers’ resident villain/tough guy Gus the Gorilla. “Betty” (she still had no name) appears in just one scene, as a cabaret entertainer. This is generally accepted as the first appearance in which she is recognisable as the girl who would become Betty Boop, although the combination of a French poodle head and a plump if curvaceous body (picture 1) is not particularly attractive. Betty’s appearance changes in a quite startling fashion during her scene. Sometimes her mouth and nose become a large muzzle. This suggests that Natwick and Sears did not have a clear idea – or possibly had differing opinions – of what the character was supposed to look like. Natwick is on record as describing the early half-canine Betty character as “ugly.”

Bimbo is both the cook and waiter in a restaurant with a cabaret. In this short he is tall and thin with a poodle head. Bimbo’s appearance went through many changes until it reached its final form in The Herring Murder Case (1931). A hungry Gus orders duck and Bimbo goes into the kitchen to prepare it, but he is continuously interrupted. Gus gets hungrier and angrier. Betty appears on the cabaret stage a sings a song that ends "Boop-oop-a-doop... Whoopee," but nothing is made of it. Although Helen Kane claimed the phrase as her own, it seems it may have been a fairly common catch phrase for "flapper-type" entertainers of the day. Betty’s voice sounds like Mae Questel, although Mae’s name doesn’t appear on the cast list.

Bimbo sees Betty and falls in love. He forgets all about Gus and dances on stage with the (headless) roast duck, which lays an egg that hatches into a headless duckling. Gus eats the tableware, then breaks a leg off the table and eats it to the bone. He makes a grab for Bimbo, who steals his pants (trousers) and escapes, and the Talkartoon ends.

This is a typical and rather ordinary Fleisher short, with a lot of visual gags, a couple of songs and not much of a story. It is mainly notable for the first recognizable appearance of the character that was to become Betty Boop.

Barnacle Bill was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Rudy Zamora. Grim Natwick wasn’t involved in animating this short and it is one of the Kneitel and Zamora used “rubber hosing” rather than Natwick’s more realistic figure animation techniques. The proportions of the characters change, in particular the “Betty” character’s neck (in this short she is called Nancy Lee) extends when she looks out of the window. Kneitel and Zamora were however, meticulous in coordinating the characters’ lip movements with their singing and speech.

Bimbo is Barnacle Bill the sailor, who defies his captain (a lion) and skips ship to visit Nancy Lee. Nancy greets Bill from her window (using her extending neck) and they sing to each other. An animated couch walks into Nancy’s parlor in anticipation of what was to happen next. Bill advances towards Nancy’s door, which shrinks from him in fear. He stomps up the stairs and through Nancy’s parlor wall (which opens like a mouth) to join a coy Nancy on the couch.

Nancy pulls down her window blind and all the neighborhood cats meet outside to speculate about what is happening inside. Only Nancy’s cat speaks English. The others know one word only – “girls.” Through the window we hear Nancy ask Bill, somewhat plaintively, when they will be wed. Then we see what they are doing on the couch. Playing checkers!

Bill sings a rollicking sailor's song in which he claims to have a girl in every port. Nancy's cat sings a line of the chorus. Bill announces that he is an inconstant lover, and he's leaving (he's a bit of a rat - a good trick for a dog - but at least he's honest). Nancy's reaction - and their subsequent quarrel - seems a bit over the top if Bimbo is merely someone she plays checkers with. I think picture 2 is Nancy and Bill arguing. Bimbo doesn't look very nautical - and not very much like the Bimbo of later productions.

However, Barnacle Bill gets his come-uppence. Escaping from Nancy’s house he meets the captain, who is also visiting Nancy Lee, presumably for a game of checkers. Bill may have a girl in every port, but Nancy has a sailor (or two) in every ship! The lion captain chases Bill, who ends up underwater dancing with a line of mermaids – one of whom looks like Mae West.

This is an interesting Talkartoon. Nancy is rather more attractive than the character in Dizzy Dishes, although still not the beautiful Betty Boop with which we are familiar. It is also notable that the Fleischers were less careful about the character’s reputation when she was a bit player in Bimbo cartoons than they were when she became a major star. Nancy Lee is a lady of dubious, and possibly negotiable, virtue. The checkers board is a gag.

Barnacle Bill is the first Talkartoon in which Betty (a.k.a. Nancy) pulls down the hem of her dress, only to have it fly back up again. The “panty shot” has a long history in animation, and its origin is lost. It has considerable comic potential, and also pleases the men in the audience. Live actresses were either too dignified or modest to flash their lingerie (until Marilyn Monroe made it iconic in The Seven Year Itch) but female animation stars had no such inhibitions. Betty wasn’t even the first non-silent animation star to display her panties. Minnie Mouse used her bloomers as a parachute in Plane Crazy (1929). However, Betty Boop was to turn the panty shot into an art form.

Mysterious Mose was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Ted Sears. Adolph Zukor is again listed as Executive Producer. Although this short is billed as a Bimbo Talkartoon, there is little doubt as to whom the real star was – and she still didn’t have a name! The Betty character still has dog-ears but is becoming increasingly human and glamorous. Interestingly, Betty seems to have been drawn differently by the two animators. There’s the curvy but canine figure of Betty from previous shorts (probably Sears) and a much taller, slimmer, more human Betty (probably Bowsky).

Betty is in her bedroom, and it’s haunted. Poltergeists pull her nightdress off, or frighten her out of it. A figure appears under her bedcover, but when she looks there’s nothing there (picture 3). Betty sings the theme song (in this short she’s voiced by Ann Little). Finally Mysterious Mose (Bimbo) appears outside, comes into Betty’s bedroom through the keyhole, and dances to Cab Calloway’s “St James Infirmary,” (a tune that was to be re-used later to great effect in Snow White).

If Mose is trying to frighten Betty he succeeds only for a little while. Betty may squeal a bit in flapper fashion, but she’s brave enough - especially when her libido is aroused - and she sees Mose as definitely cuddle-worthy. They sit on a couch and watch as other bizarre characters appear and vanish. Finally, Mose plays a tuba, disappears into it and explodes. That’s Mysterious Mose!

There’s always an arm, a leg or a strategically placed bed-sheet in the way, and there’s nothing that would lose the short its Universal certificate if it were released today, but nevertheless Betty appears naked several times. This was shocking stuff in the 1930s, some 40 years before “Last Tango in Paris.” But Betty, as I’ll discuss later, was always a pioneer.

Mysterious Mose is funny, scary, atmospheric and surreal. In spite of being a very early Talkartoon, starring a Betty that was still to develop into the beautiful Betty Boop, it remains one of the best Betty Boop animations.

Mose

[The Moocher]

Apparently a compilation CD from Goodtimes Entertainment - presumably just a collection of Fleischer and Famous Studio cartoons: Max Fleischer's Betty Boop is joined by "the girls of mischief": Little Audry and Little Lulu for ten animated episodes.

I know very little about this one myself. I've seen the video listed at Amazon, but I'm not sure if it's still available. It was only ever available in NTSC format, so I can't check it out.

However, I don't think there was a Little Lulu or a Little Audry in any Fleisher Studios cartoon, and Famous Studios didn't make Betty Boop Cartoons (Popeye, Caspar and Superman were the Famous Studios stars). So I don't think it's a compilation of Fleischer cartoons.

If anyone has seen it, could they please let us know?

Oh BTW, thanks for your contributions Peter. It's good to get some discussion going.

Mooch

[bettyboopfan]

I have seen episodes of Little LuLu and Little Audry but no Betty with them.

[The Moocher]

Of course! I just wasn't thinking straight. :o

I was considering Betty Boop, Little Lulu and Little Audry in the same cartoon. What this video probably contains is a compilation of Little Lulu cartoons, Little Audry cartoons and Betty Boop cartoons. This is exactly what Peter Hale said - my apologies Peter.

Little Lulu was a Famous Studios character from 1943 through 1945. There was a Little Audry radio series in 1946, and I think she appeared in a few cartoons. I vaguely remember Little Audry appearing with Santa Claus in an early 1950s cartoon.

Little Lulu and Little Audry were never major stars like Popeye, Caspar or Betty Boop. Their cartoons were aimed at very young children (under eight). I imagine, therefore, that the "Betty Boop" cartoons in the compilation would actually star Pudgy - for example, Little Nobody, Betty Boop's Little Pal and We Did It.

Somehow, I don't think Red Hot Mamma would be appropriate! :)

That's my theory, but I would welcome input from anyone who has actually seen the video.

Mooch

[PeterHale]

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if maybe "Goodtimes" had access to some "Little Lulu/Audrey" cartoons and added a "Betty" cartoon to the compilation so that it would sell.

Having said that I started to wonder what a cartoon featuring the three of them would be like! The mix of styles (especially Lulu with her big blank eyes ["]) would make it very strange.

[The Moocher]

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if maybe "Goodtimes" had access to some "Little Lulu/Audrey" cartoons and added a "Betty" cartoon to the compilation so that it would sell.

Having said that I started to wonder what a cartoon featuring the three of them would be like! The mix of styles (especially Lulu with her big blank eyes ["]) would make it very strange.

I think that's exactly it. Also, so the video could be included in the "ultimate" collection.

Lulu and Betty would mix like oil and water!

Mooch

[The Moocher]

1930 saw the birth of the sexy female character that was to become Betty Boop. Her appearance was canine and not particularly attractive in Dizzy Dishes and somewhat weird in Barnacle Bill. Mysterious Mose gave an indication of the beautiful woman she was to become, although she still had some doggie features. She was as yet unnamed.

In 1931 the character became Betty. Initially, she had a first name only. Most authorities (and in particular Paramount Studios) contend that she became Betty Boop in the first Betty Boop cartoon (as opposed to Talkartoon) Stopping the Show (1932). However, I intend to argue that she became Betty Boop in 1931, in the Talkartoon Jack and the Beanstalk.

1931 saw Betty develop from a supporting character in Bimbo cartoons to a star in her own right. The cartoon titles said “Bimbo” (unless Bimbo’s name was in the title) until Minding the Baby, which starred Bimbo in large letters and Betty in smaller ones. In Mask-A-Raid the names are the same size although Bimbo’s comes first. In the title screen for Jack and the Beanstalk, however, the star is Betty Boop, as shown in picture 1. I rest my case.

I think it likely that Betty became the “Boop-oop-a-doop girl” in Stopping the Show, and was first introduced on stage as Betty Boop in that cartoon. However, I shall discuss Stopping the Show in a later post.

1931 Talkartoons

The B*m Bandit
Silly Scandals
The Herring Murder Case
Bimbo's Initiation
Bimbo's Express
Minding the Baby
Mask-A-Raid
Jack and the Beanstalk
Dizzy Red Riding Hood

The B*m Bandit was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster and Willard Bowsky.

Interestingly we see Bimbo as a villain. It's a role he sometimes played, although the Fleischers gave most of the villain roles to Gus the Gorilla. However, Bimbo is not a very efficient bandit. His animated, tobacco-chewing guns are a lot more fierce than he is, and he never hits what he aims at (although he always hits something). He is as an ineffective nuisance, but he unwisely decides to go for the big time and hold up a train.

In the train, we see the Betty character – although she is called Nan in this short, not Betty. She is not particularly attractive, with a large head, dog-ears and a huge jowl. She has a very deep voice (not Mae Questel) and her nose fluctuates (sometimes even flickers) between a white human nose and a black snout. She warns the engineer that there is someone on the track.

Bimbo has tied a knot in the track and points a pistol at the train, which rears up like a frightened horse. He then proceeds to rob the passengers. His haul includes a hot-water bottle, some dentures and a boot. A spider puts six of its eight legs in the air. A dog puts its hands up, and its pants fall down. Mickey Mouse puts his hands up, and his skin falls down, leaving his skeleton exposed. The Fleischers called this a “tribute,” although it is in truth a parody.

A fierce, bearded cowboy comes out of the train and eats Bimbo’s gun (no kidding). He/she pulls off her disguise and is revealed as Betty/Nan. She sings that she is Dangerous Nan McGrew, the sister of Dan McGrew, and the toughest of all her tough family. When Betty Boop was forced to become a docile little housewife in 1934, her fans would remember Dangerous Nan McGrew. She ate guns!

Bimbo (somewhat unwisely) identifies Nan as his wife (and the mother of his seventeen children). "Remember the night you left me and the kids to go after a quart of milk?" asks Nan. "Yeah," mutters Bimbo. "Well, haven't you found that cow yet?"

Nan hijacks the locomotive, throws Bimbo into it, and escapes down the track. Their underwear appears on a line attached to the smoke stack, indicating that Bimbo is forgiven and they are busy with the reconciliation.

This short is remarkable only for the portrayal of Betty (or Nan) as a tough, hard-bitten babe. It also makes nonsense of Max Fleischer’s claim that she was always sixteen! Otherwise, it’s fairly unremarkable. I can't find any screen captures from The B*m Bandit.

Silly Scandals was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. Once again Adolph Zukor is credited as Executive Producer. I can’t find out who the animators were. Some sources give Mae Questel as the voice of Betty in this Talkartoon, while others say it was Ann Little.

Bimbo has no money, and tries various dodges to sneak into a theatre, Once inside he gets stuck behind a hippopotamus and a lady with a large hat, who removes it to reveal a larger hairdo. Bimbo cuts off her hair and can see the stage. The star of the show emerges, the crowd yells “Betty” and our heroine finally has a name!

Legend has it that the name Betty was chosen from Rudy Vallee’s song “Betty Coed.” Betty appeared with Rudy in a Screen Song with that title, and it is possible that her name was chosen with this in mind. However, Betty Coed was not released until August 1st, while Silly Scandals was released on May 23rd. Silly Scandals was therefore the first short to give Betty her name.

Betty has a white, human nose and lots of curls, although she still has doggie ears (picture 2). She sings “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” and her heart sings “boop-oop-a-doop.” She is joined on stage by a line of mechanical dancing penguins. Her top falls down several times revealing a black lacy bra, and she squeals and pulls her dress up again. Betty doesn’t reveal her panties in this Talkartoon, although when she makes her final bow (picture 3) it is debatable whether she is wearing any. This was saucy stuff indeed for 1931.

The short then degenerates into a string of theatre gags, with a lion magician hypnotising Bimbo. It ends abruptly as Bimbo starts to sing “You’re Driving Me Crazy.”

This is an unremarkable Talkartoon, apart from Betty’s performance and the dancing penguins.

The Herring Murder Case was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Al Eugster. I wasn’t sure whether to mention it or not, because Betty has only a very small part, in which she appears as a fish! However, the short is significant for two reasons that I shall outline shortly.

Gus Gorilla murders a herring on a dark, cold night. As Gus leaves the scene, horrified onlookers, accompanied by Koko the Clown pop out of the inkwell and ask Bimbo the detective to solve the crime. Bimbo captures the criminal.

This short is remarkable for the return and sound debut of Koko, the Fleischer’s silent animation star who had retired from the silver screen only two years earlier. Koko was to take a major role in Betty Boop Talkartoons and Cartoons until 1934. Also, the short was the first time that Bimbo was drawn as we know him today.

Bimbo’s Initiation was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. The animator is given either as “unaccredited” or “Myron Natwick.” In fact Myron was far better known by his nickname – Grim. This was the last time Grim Natwick would animate the character he created. I have no evidence but I suspect the separation wasn’t amicable.

Bimbo falls through a manhole and Mickey Mouse locks him in. He enters a clubhouse of horrors run by the members of "Do it or die," who carry boards with nails in them, and have candles on their heads. They ask Bimbo "Wanna be a member?" He refuses.

He then is trapped in the clubhouse. Various horrific things happen to him, and every so often hooded figures of the Mystic Order of the Boom Boom a Latcha pursue him, again asking “Wanna be a member?” Bimbo continues to refuse.

He sees Betty, who beckons him through a door. Bimbo likes what he sees and follows her. He goes through several doors and runs down a hall of horror. (Steven Spielberg was later to include this scene in "Twilight Zone the movie"). Bimbo ends up in front of the leader of the order, who throws off her robes and mask. It is Betty! She does a very suggestive dance during which her buttocks elongate and she slaps them. "Wanna be a member?" she sings, and Bimbo says “yes!” All the members throw off their disguises, and they are all Betties (Picture 4). Betty and Bimbo dance, slap each other's butts, and Betty ends up in Bimbo's arms as the cartoon ends.

This is a wonderful short. It is indisputably the best animation starring Bimbo, although not the best that Bimbo appeared in. It is eerie, surreal, exciting, sexy and funny. The swipe at Mickey Mouse (it is certainly not a tribute) is wickedly amusing. Bimbo’s Initiation became very popular on College campuses in the 1970s during the Psychedelic era, where the question was posed, “What were these guys on?” There has always been debate about links between some of the more surreal Fleischer output and mind-altering substances, and I shall discuss this in a later post.

It also displays a less than innocent Betty. In later surreal cartoons such as Minnie the Moocher or Betty Boop’s Museum, she is the wide-eyed “girl in a woman’s” body around whom all the weird stuff happens. Here she is an instigator and a temptress. She is the Mystic Order of the Boom Boom a Latcha – and she’s surely not sweet sixteen!

Because of the 10,000-character restriction I’m ending this post here. The rest of 1931 will follow.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

This continues my previous post, which was running out of space. In this post I’ll discuss the following 1931 Talkartoons:

Bimbo's Express
Minding the Baby
Mask-A-Raid
Jack and the Beanstalk
Dizzy Red Riding Hood

Bimbo’s Express was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. I can’t find out who the animators were.

Bimbo is a removal man (dog) with two assistants, a cat and a hippopotamus. Betty is moving house. There’s not much of a story, just a series of moving-house jokes. There is, however, some nice dialog at the start of the short – Betty - "I can't come to the door right now; I'm in my nightie." Bimbo - "All right, I'll wait 'til you take it off."

Bimbo, the cat and the hippo, assisted by the horse that pulls the removal van, start moving Betty's things. They carry out a bathtub with someone taking a bath in it, and a stove that still has the fire lit. Bimbo sings to Betty in Maurice Chevalier’s voice telling her she’s beautiful. Surprisingly she sings back that she’s not so beautiful – modesty isn’t normally one of Betty’s qualities. When all the furniture (including the staircase) is loaded, Betty jumps into the van and asks Bimbo to drive it to the house round the corner “where there’s no rent to pay.” The Talkartoon ends.

This is a dull short, with no story and very few funny gags. It is enlivened only by the initial repartee and Bimbo’s imitation of Maurice Chevalier. I don’t have any screen captures.

Minding the Baby was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Al Eugster.

Bimbo’s mother is having an affair with the ice-delivery man (a good trick as the ice-box is electric). She goes out for an assignation and Bimbo is left in charge of his young brother. Bimbo’s brother, Aloysius is a horrific, cigar smoking child who checks out the Stock Market (or Stuck Market – 1931 was a depression year) report. Aloysius may have been the model for Baby Herman in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Like mother, like son. Bimbo also has a very shapely girlfriend (guess who) and she lures him away. He believes that Aloysius is asleep, and he doesn’t take much luring. Aloysius almost gets eaten by the player piano and then falls out the window holding onto the piano roll. He then starts to torment the cat with the vacuum cleaner. He vacuums his mother up off the street and Betty and Bimbo back from next door. Betty, Bimbo and Aloysius hide behind a big chair in Bimbo's apartment, and Aloysius starts to bawl. Bimbo zips his mouth shut and the Talkartoon ends.

This is an entertaining Talkartoon, mainly due to the obnoxious Aloysius, although it isn’t one of the best. Picture 1 shows Betty in “Minding the Baby.” She still has doggie ears, but she’s becoming more human with every appearance.

Mask-A-Raid was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Al Eugster.

Betty is the Queen of the Masquerade. Bimbo is the band leader, and Betty flashes a bared shoulder at him. She then sits beside the King of the Masquerade. The King’s beard becomes animated and pesters her, and eventually she cuts it off. Bimbo and the King sing at each other in strange Italian accents. Bimbo dons a mask, and the mask takes over the singing while Bimbo ogles Betty’s legs. Bimbo and the King both grab Betty and the resultant tug-of-war displays rather a lot of Betty’s underwear. She is definitely the Queen of the panty shot!

Betty wiggles free and announces that the King and Bimbo will have to fight for her. Bimbo loses a coin toss and gets the shorter sword. As a result he loses the fight. A knight in armour takes Bimbo to the dungeon, but turns out to be Betty in disguise. Betty rescues Bimbo, and proposes marriage to him. Bimbo sings some excited scat and morphs into a hairy individual. Whoever he was meant to be was probably famous in 1931, but I’ve no idea who it is. The short ends.

There are three significant points in Mask-A-Raid. Firstly, a flirty Betty provokes a fight for her favours. Two males fighting over a female was a common Fleischer scenario – Olive Oyl made a career out of it – but somehow it seems wrong for Betty, who was always gentle if not exactly meek. Secondly, and most importantly, here is a clever, brave, feisty Betty who cleverly rescues her chosen partner. In previous shorts she was a dizzy flapper with more heart than brain, now she is developing into a clever, independent woman.

Finally, she asks Bimbo to marry him, so unless the Fleischers were promoting bigamy (unlikely) she is not married to the King. She thus rather neatly avoids the accusation of adultery. It is unfortunate that she didn’t take the same precaution in Chess Nuts (1932), which gave the Religious Right a rod with which to beat her.

Although the short was in black and white, the only screenshot I can obtain is in colour (picture 2). In this picture Betty appears to be fully human (and very pretty). However, look carefully at her earrings. They are not hanging the way earrings should, but more like long, floppy ears. Betty still had doggie ears in the black and white version of Mask-A-Raid and they have been converted to earrings during colourisation. She was not to become fully human until (arguably) the Screen Song Kitty From Kansas City or the Talkartoon Any Rags.

Jack and the Beanstalk was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Al Eugster.

As I have argued in my previous post, this is the first “Betty Boop” short. Bimbo gets annoyed with garbage dropping from the skies, so he climbs the beanstalk, fights the giant, and rescues the giant’s slave (a rather canine Betty Boop) who is suitably grateful. I can find out very little else about this short, and I believe Betty wasn’t very attractively drawn. I don’t have any screen captures.

Dizzy Red Riding Hood was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. I can’t find out who animated it.

The short starred Betty Boop and Bimbo, with Betty’s name first. She is now the star. She still has doggie ears, but she’s 99% human and very sexy indeed (picture 3). Little Red Riding Hood insists on going through the woods in spite of wolf reports. Our girl didn’t scare easily and knew how to handle wolves! The wolf kills Grandma and gets into Grandma’s bed so it can fool Red into coming close and getting eaten. Bimbo arrives first, kills and skins the wolf (they didn’t mess about in these early shorts), dons the wolf’s skin and gets into Grandma’s bed so it can fool Red into coming close and getting – er – kissed? This is a nice twist, if a bit risqué, although it does make the rather startling assumption that Little Red Riding Hood was in the habit of hopping into bed with wolves! This is a truly surreal short.

There’s an interesting point here. Betty’s sexy Red Riding Hood inspired Tex Avery’s 1943 Red Hot Riding Hood (picture 4), who in turn inspired (yep, you’ve got it) Jessica Rabbit. So, what comes around goes around - and 55 years later our Betty was to blow poor Jessica out of the water in Who Framed Roger Rabbit without even trying!

Betty Boop had arrived, and 1932 and 1933 were to be her truly great years.

Mooch

[bboop480]

I have seen episodes of Little LuLu and Little Audry but no Betty with them.
I HAVE TOO! AND NOT WITH BETTY

[bettyboopfan]

I think....think, my daughter has a Little Lulu DVD.
One of those dollar ones you can buy at Wal-Mart.

[The Moocher]

I think....think, my daughter has a Little Lulu DVD.
One of those dollar ones you can buy at Wal-Mart.

Little Lulu, or more correctly Little Lulu Moppet, starred in 25 Famous Studios cartoons between 1943 and 1947. All the cartoons were in colour, and some were animated by Myron Waldman, the creator of Pudgy. The target audience for Little Lulu cartoons is very young children (under eight).

It's much easier (and cheaper) to put a 1947 cartoon, made in colour. on to a DVD than it is to deal with a 1931 Talkartoon that has a seperate sound track, was made in black and white and may or may not have been crudely colourised. So it's a lot harder to put Betty on DVD than Lulu.

But Betty Boop is a bigger star than Lulu Moppet.

So the solution looks simple. Put a couple of Betty Boop shorts on a DVD then fill it up with Little Lulu.

Unfortunately Betty Boop cartoons that actually star Betty were not written for under-eights. They're not in any way obscene, they're just written for an adult audience. That's why I reckon that the "Betty Boop Cartoons" on this compilation will star Pudgy.

Even then, care is needed. Riding the Rails or The Foxy Hunter would still be too 'old' for Little Lulu's audience.

I have no objection to a childrens' DVD with Little Lulu and carefully selected Pudgy shorts. I think it's a bit cynical to market it as part of a Betty Boop collection.

Mooch

[Boop-a-DoopGirl]

Wow Mooch, i love reading all this info on BB.

Until now i never really knew BB but you are certainly bringing her to life in an exciting and informative way! :cool:
Thank you and keep up the great job you're doing!! :D

[bboop480]

Mooch Is Totally Unclueless...wow...awesome..so Knowledgeable...i Love Reading This Stuff...just Keep On Informing Us Mooch...you Are.....fabulous!!!!!!!!!!

Hugs
Bboop

[The Moocher]

I can’t take this a year, or even six months at a time now. The following Betty Boop Talkartoons were released in January and early February 1932:

Any Rags
Boop-Oop-a-Doop
The Robot

Any Rags was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard Bowsky and Thomas Bonfiglio.

In this Talkartoon Betty appears to be completely human and her doggie ears have become hoop earrings. There is some debate about in exactly which short the transition occurred. Most authorities opt for the Screen Song Kitty from Kansas City and I have also seen claims for the Talkartoon Dizzy Red Riding Hood (both late 1931). However, a fetching bonnet covers her ears in both of these shorts (picture 1 is from Kitty from Kansas City) and so it is difficult to tell. Fleischer Studios officially announced that Betty was human in Boop-Oop-a-Doop, although she was obviously so in Any Rags.

The reason for this is that she was still Bimbo’s love interest in Any Rags. This short doesn’t have much of a story (the Fleischers weren’t hot on storylines). The rag and bone man visits Betty’s neighbourhood and Betty has problems preventing the top of her dress falling down, revealing a very sexy lacy black bra. The rag and bone man’s interest in this garment isn’t entirely professional (picture 2).

I need to be frank about this, because it’s central to the understanding of what happened in 1934. Betty Boop in her early cartoons and Talkartoons was a flirt and an extrovert. She was created as Bimbo’s sexy girlfriend and had no false modesty - and not much real modesty either! She would happily flash a leg, a garter and a cleavage, and that was only standing still. Any vigorous movement resulted in her pretty lingerie getting a public airing. It wasn’t pornography, it was a harmless tease, but Betty invented the lingerie video 40 years before Kylie Minogue was born.

The other contentious issue in this short is that Koko appears to be g@y. This is a very dangerous area indeed – homo******ity was illegal in the 1930s, and for a long time afterwards. Even in his silent days Koko’s ******ity was sometimes in doubt. In his speaking career he was a gentle creature, Betty’s trusted friend, but seldom her love interest. It is not uncommon for a pretty, sexy girl to have a sincere and gentle platonic friendship with a homo****** man. Possibly Betty and Koko represent the first of these friendships to be portrayed on-screen.

Boop-Oop-A-Doop was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster. This is the black and white short, not to be confused with the Betty Boop documentary/compilation of the same name that came out in 1985. Unfortunately I don’t have any screen captures for this Talkartoon. There is a modern illustration of Betty as a circus performer, but it is not taken from this short.

Betty is a circus performer, and the short starts with a circus parade. Koko comes out of the inkwell to join the parade. Bimbo has only a very small part in this film. He is a peanut vendor and is accompanied by his nasty little brother Aloysius (from Minding the Baby). Betty has an act as a lion tamer. There is a lovely sequence when she cracks her whip at the ferocious, snarling lions, and then the fiercest comes up to her afterwards – “er, excuse me ma’am, you dropped your lace handkerchief.”

Following a high-diving act, Betty appears again as a high-wire artiste. As she performs she sings “Oh, oh, come on, please, do something! Boop-oop-a-doop!” The ringmaster takes this as a personal invitation and follows her into her dressing room. Betty slaps his face, but he is undeterred. He is all hands. Even his moustache has hands. Betty begs him in song not to take her boop-oop-a-doop away.

Koko notices what is happening and rescues Betty from his clutches. Betty ends up in Koko’s arms and assures Koko that the ringmaster “didn’t take her boop-oop-a-doop.” Although she is happy to kiss and cuddle Koko, this is for comfort and appears to have no ****** content. Koko was always a friend and very seldom a love object.

What, exactly, does she mean by her boop-oop-a-doop? It is unlikely that she was referring to her virginity. Betty uses the phrase in many cartoons, usually as a verb, to mean the exact opposite. In this short she sings, “Do something! Boop-oop-a-doop.” In her first appearance in Dizzy Dishes she sings, “I'm so blue, waiting for you to take me. Oh, I can't go on like this, give me a kiss, huh? And make me boop-boop-a-doop!” In A Language All My Own (1935) she is particularly explicit, “Come to bed and we’ll boop-oop-a-doop,” although she sings this in Japanese to escape censorship by the Hays Commission.

This is a contentious issue, and I intend to meet it head-on. In spite of her air of wide-eyed innocence and her girl-in-a-woman’s body persona, Betty Boop in her early animations was not ******ly ignorant. She may have acted surprised when her skimpy clothes and flirtatious personality attracted some over-physical male attention, but she might well decide that such attention was welcome. She is a 21st Century woman trapped in the 1930s. The important point is that she decides. She is not forced. Nor is Betty Boop’s heart, or any other part of her, for sale.

Betty’s boop-oop-a-doop is her right to choose, or to use an old fashioned word, her honour.

Max Fleischer raised the stakes by stating that Betty Boop “was and always would be sixteen.” Of course, if she is below the age of consent my argument collapses and all bets are off. This, however, implies that Betty was always sixteen in all her Talkartoons and cartoons. The notion simply doesn’t wash. She was the mother of seventeen children in The B*m Bandit (1930). She was also a mother in Baby Be Good (1935) and Betty Boop and Little Jimmy (1936). She raced a car in Betty Boop’s Ker-choo (1932) and flew her own plane in A Language All My Own (1935). She was married in Poor Cinderella and Hide and Seek (both 1932). Betty shows a distinct lack of teenage angst. She is an experienced woman. Luanne DeGroot she is not!

So, why did Max make the statement? Maybe he was simply causing trouble. It may also have had something to do with the legal action he was contesting with Helen Kane (which I’ll discuss in a later post). More likely he was speaking metaphorically, referring to the air of innocence and little-girl persona that his star character maintained even when she used her charms for her own advantage, as she was not above doing.

It is important to remember that Betty Boop is a cartoon character. She played parts. Although she was always Betty, she could play a spoilt socialite (S.O.S – 1932) or an international cabaret star (A Language All My Own - 1935). She had no existence outside the parts she played. There was no “real” Betty Boop, maidenly or otherwise. I’ll come back to this argument in another context later.

The Robot was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. I can’t find out who animated this Talkartoon and I’m not even sure about including it. It was a Bimbo short, and Betty isn’t mentioned on the title page, although she certainly takes part.

Bimbo takes Betty on a date in his robot car, but crashes into a tree, Betty then insists that Bimbo fights One-Round Mike for $5000 before they can be married. So Bimbo is a love interest! I haven’t seen this short, but I wonder if Betty has become a dog again. It feels like a Talkartoon from an earlier era, and shorts were not always released in the order they were made.

Bimbo converts his crashed robot car into a robot car suit. Presumably he wins the fight and the girl. This is an obscure Talkartoon, and I think deservedly so. The next one was to make history, and to establish Betty Boop as a superstar.

In the best Betty Boop Talkartoon , and possibly one of the top ten animated features ever made, Betty Boop actually was an innocent, virginal, confused girl of sixteen, although her dress sense didn’t improve. So my argument is in tatters. I don’t care. This one was a gem!

I’m running out of characters, and the next Talkartoon really does merit a post of its own. Watch this space….

Mooch

[bboop480]

Thanks Again, Mooch!

[The Moocher]

I forgot to insert the pictures but they're there now. That's one of the advantages of being a Moderator :)

Mooch

[The Moocher]

As you can tell from my nickname, I kinda like this Talkartoon :)

Minnie the Moocher was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. I can’t find out who animated it, but it looks as if one animator worked on the beginning of this short, while a second animator worked on the end, because Betty’s appearance changes roughly half way through. She starts as a chubby, if shapely, teenage girl and then becomes taller and more glamorous.

The Talkartoon starts with Cab Calloway and his orchestra performing the Prohibition Blues. In Mysterious Mose (1930) Cab’s “St James Infirmary Blues” was used as background music, but Max Fleisher didn’t pay royalties for the use of the recording. The chances are, given Max’s reputation, that he borrowed the record and didn’t pay for it either! However, the Musician’s Union had caught up with Max, and he now paid for artists such as Calloway to record their songs in the Fleisher studio so that they could be used in the Talkartoons.

This is possibly the earliest known recording of Cab and his orchestra. He is casually dressed and it is difficult to see his face, and the suspicion is that Max hadn’t told him that actual live footage would be used – as otherwise he’d have asked for more money. Cab Calloway and the Missourians always dressed immaculately in public performances. Cab’s singing and vocalisation is used throughout the short. He had a real talent for “eerie” vocalisation.

Calloway’s live performance was an amazing innovation. Strange as it might seem today, in 1932 white people listened to white musicians and black people listened to black musicians. Whites watched a blacked-up Al Jolson performing “Mammy” and thought they were listening to jazz. This is not to denigrate Jolson, who was a very competent singer and a first class entertainer, but he was not black and he did not sing genuine black jazz.

However, the Fleischers hit their mainly white audiences with the real thing, Calloway and later Louis Armstrong and Don Redman. The Klu-Klux-Klan was, to put it mildly, unamused, and issued death threats against Fleischer Studios employees. The Klan was not the only powerful enemy the Fleischers would make, as I shall discuss shortly.

Betty is having parent problems. Her mother and father appear to be East German Jews. The Jewish immigrant, particularly the Yiddisher, was a familiar comic figure in the 1930s, when there was a lot of Jewish immigration, especially from Germany. The Fleischers themselves were Austrian Yiddish Jews, the sons of immigrants from Vienna, and their portrayal was sympathetic and, by the standards of the day, non-racist.

Betty’s father, Otto (her mother is unnamed) is nagging her about not eating enough. This seems odd – she’s plump but decidedly underdressed and most fathers would be nagging her about not wearing enough! This is hardly the first time Betty has heard the tirade, and this is indicated by Otto’s head turning into a victrola, or old-fashioned record player (picture 1). For the benefit of younger readers a record player is what people used to play recorded music before the invention of CD players and ****s.

Betty runs away in tears. Her mother puts some German oom-pah music on to the victrola (picture 2) and dances to it. When it came to surrealism, the Fleishers, particularly Max, could leave Salvadore Dali way behind!

Poor Betty weeps and sings about how sad she is (picture 3). She decides to run away from home. In her bedroom she rolls her toothbrush up in a towel and writes a farewell note to her parents, pulling Koko the Clown out of the inkwell in the process. She then calls Bimbo on the telephone in her room, and invites him to run away with her. When he arrives, she jumps out of her window.

Suddenly the whole atmosphere of the Talkartoon changes, as does Betty’s appearance. The Missourians start playing Minnie the Moocher in an ominous mood – it’s hardly the cheeriest tune at the best of times. Betty and Bimbo run through the streets and soon reach a haunted forest. They end up at a cave.

A spooky walrus appears sings Minnie the Moocher in Calloway’s voice. The walrus’ figure is rotoscoped over Cab’s dancing figure – a technique invented by the Fleischers. Ghosts and ghouls flit through the cave. A ghostly cat with ghostly kittens is particularly weird and effective.

A wailing witch ghost appears and Betty and Bimbo run, pursued by a pack of ghosts, witches, devils, and the walrus to the tune of the Vine Street Drag. Betty and Bimbo run to Betty’s house. Betty dashes in the front door and Bimbo dives into a doghouse. He is no longer a love interest now Betty is human. In her bedroom, Betty leaps under the covers. The note she left for her parents tears into a fragment bearing the words "Home, Sweet, Home," and the Talkartoon ends.

This is a wonderful, eerie, and quite amazing short – and it’s not even a cartoon, just a humble Talkartoon. It is arguably the second best Betty Boop short ever made. I’ll give my opinion about which was the best in a later post.

Now, I need to be controversial again, because this all leads into what happened in 1934. Betty’s parents in Minnie the Moocher are obvious caricatures of East European Jews. As I said previously, the Fleischers were East European Jews themselves – the correct term is “Yiddish,” which unfortunately has been used as a term of abuse. There was considerable anti-semitism in the 1930s, and “Yiddishers” were at the bottom of the heap, looked down upon by other Jews as well as by Gentiles.

So, in one cartoon, the Fleischers managed to antagonise the Klan and the American Nazi party. Betty was obviously a young girl in this short, so her skimpy clothing particularly incensed the religious right. Sometimes one wonders if Dave and Max had a death wish.

This, of course, opens another debate. Is Betty Jewish? In her closely argued 100 page essay, "Betty Boop: Yiddish Film Star", Amelia Holberg makes a convincing case, based on Minnie the Moocher, the fact that Bimbo sometimes comforts Betty with Yiddish endearments, and the earthy Jewish approach to life in the Fleisher Talkartoons and cartoons. I have no problems whatsoever with Betty being Jewish. She has the dark good looks of a pretty Jewish girl, although her nose is wrong.

But I also have no problem with Betty not being Jewish. Religion played no part in Betty Boop animations, and she could be of any faith. Because she played the daughter of a Jewish couple, it doesn’t make her Jewish. I come back to the argument in my previous post. Betty Boop is a cartoon character with no identity other than what she was in Talkartoons and cartoons. She was a dark-skinned South Sea Islander in Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle and a spoilt society girl in S.O.S. (both 1932). She was an adolescent Jewish girl in Minnie the Moocher. The lady was an actress. She played parts.

Anyway, enough of the serious stuff, already :) I’ll cover some more of 1932 next week.

Mooch

[bboop480]

awww...I LIKE THE LAST PIC...SO EMOTIONAL...SHE NEEDS A HUG....

[mgchan]

What you're doing is absolutely amazing! Keep it up!!!

[bboop480]

Trying To....yep...yep...yep

[The Moocher]

What you're doing is absolutely amazing! Keep it up!!!

Thanks Michael.

I'm a lot more comfortable in this forum. Betty's cartoons were made for adults, and both the history of the cartoons and the cartoons themselves raise some issues that I felt shouldn't be raised in the Chit Chat Lounge. I can give the topic a much more comprehensive treatment here.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

By March 1932, Betty Boop was a bankable star. Shorts such as Dizzy Red Riding Hood, Boop-Oop-A-Doop and Minnie the Moocher had endeared her to the general public in the same proportion that they had offended the prudes. In the shorts released in March and April 1932, Betty is cute and sexy, and there is some imaginative animation. These Talkartoons were enough to make the fans happy, but they were nowhere near the quality of Minnie the Moocher (very few shorts are). There is, however, an uncomfortable feeling that the Fleischers were somewhat resting on their laurels.

Talkartoons released in March and April 1932 were:

Swim or Sink
Crazy Town
The Dancing Fool
A Hunting We Will Go

Unfortunately I have been unable to obtain screen captures for most of these shorts. As always, if anyone has any illustrations I would be very grateful if they could post them.

One more thing before I start. I’m discussing Talkartoons and Cartoons – shorts with a storyline and characters. Singatrons, or Screen Songs as they were then called, don’t appear in most filmographies and would only confuse the issue. You can’t say much about celebrity sing-alongs anyway. So, if you’re looking for Rudy Vallee Memories, Kitty from Kansas City, Only a Gigolo and so on, you won’t find them here. I’ll cover all the Screen Songs in an Appendix.

Swim or Sink was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf. This short is often called S.O.S. It was first released as Swim or Sink and was renamed S.O.S. in its colourised version.

The short opens with a sinking ship. A hippo officer shouts, “Women and children first,” and then dons a wig and jumps in a lifeboat. After a series of sinking ship jokes the vessel finally goes under.

In the next scene Betty, Koko and Bimbo are on a raft. Bimbo and Koko are asleep and Betty is bemoaning her fate in a song. In this Talkartoon, Betty plays the part of a spoilt, helpless, society girl (I can't dive, I can't swim, I don't know how to do anythin'). However, it’s noticeable that she’s fixing her make-up with one hand while failing to stop her skirt being blown up round her waist with the other, and her complaint isn’t so much about danger and privation, but rather about the lack of male company. Presumably Bimbo and Koko don’t count. When Betty became fully human Bimbo ceased to be a love interest (although nobody seems to have told Bimbo this). As I discussed in a previous post, Koko’s friendship with Betty was usually platonic.

Betty soon has rather too much male company. Koko and Bimbo wake up and spy a ship, and Koko hails it by hoisting his underwear as a flag. The ship is a pirate ship, which grows a mouth, swallows them, and spits out their raft.

The pirates are possibly not as tough as they think they are (pepper, salt, mustard, cider, we're so tough we'd crush a spider). They capture Koko and Bimbo and chain them in the hold. Then they ogle Betty, singing, “What shall we do with the dainty damsel?” However, the chains are paper chains, and Bimbo and Koko escape easily. After some more chase scenes the pirates are dumped overboard and a whale swallows them. The Talkartoon ends with the pirates carousing in the whale’s stomach.

This is an entertaining short although both the sinking-ship and chase sequences are a bit too long. It is mainly notable for Betty’s out of character performance as a spoilt society girl.

Crazy Town was directed by Dave Fleischer and James Culhane, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster, James Culhane and Dave Tendlar. James Culhane’s direction is “unaccredited.” I haven’t been able to find out the story behind this. Culhane was an animator who worked with Grim Natwick on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). He directed a number of cartoons in the 1940s. Possibly he was learning his trade by “shadowing” the experienced Dave.

Betty, Bimbo and Koko take a streetcar to Crazy Town, where fish fly, and birds swim. As was to become the pattern in Talkartoons (and some cartoons) where there was little or no storyline, they entertain the locals with songs and tricks, playing a piano, which conveniently grows out of the ground for them. Betty visits a beauty parlour where ladies trade in their whole heads for prettier ones (picture 1). A lady tries to buy Betty’s heart, but it’s not for sale.

Basically this short is a series of visual jokes and a couple of songs. It’s a bit of a potboiler, notable only for the one important statement that it makes. Betty Boop’s heart is not for sale.

The Dancing Fool was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf.

Bimbo and Koko are sign painters balancing on scaffolding round a tall building. Almost half the short is taken up with scaffolding jokes as the two of them fool around. Then Bimbo gets very interested in the view through a particular window, and he paints “Betty Boop’s Dancing School” on the glass. Just what he uses as a paintbrush is debatable. My recommendation is to watch the Talkartoon (if you can get a decent quality copy) and judge for yourself.

Betty sings “Dancing to Save Your Sole” as she teaches a weird group of animal students to dance. The Dancing gets wilder. Betty sings “Come On Baby” and Bimbo and Koko join in. The building sways. The students stamp their feet (and hooves) in unison. The building falls down and the Talkartoon ends.

Koko and Bimbo fool around on the scaffolding for far too long, but the scenes in the dancing school - and Betty’s rendition of the songs - are entertaining. Bimbo’s sign painting is startling and very funny. As with many Fleischer animations, this short would have benefited from more of a story and less repetitive gags. It is remarkable because it is the first in which Betty Boop is running her own business – rather than merely being a showgirl or an entertainer.

A Hunting We Will Go was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster and Rudolf Eggeman

In this short, Betty is a gold-digger - she’s not on the lookout for a rich husband, she’s digging for gold. In her cabin in the woods, she is bewailing her lack of a fur coat to keep her warm in the winter. A moose head on the wall joins in the song, and we get a glimpse of the outside of the cabin - and the rest of the moose, which has its head stuck through the wall (a joke the Fleischers liked).

Bimbo and Koko arrive, and the moose runs away. They hear Betty and their hearts go out to her (literally). Koko’s heart kisses Bimbo’s heart, which does not appreciate the attention. They go into the cabin and caress Betty, stroking her upper thighs. Koko promises to “fix her up.” Hopefully he means with a fur coat.

A series of animal jokes follows. An unspotted leopard tries to get into the “leopard colony” but is denied entry by a spotted leopard doorkeeper. Bimbo and Koko each fights a mob of animals and emerges with a pile of furs. No animal is killed in the making of this short – they are merely de-furred. Betty sees the mob of poor shivering animals and gets very annoyed with Bimbo and Koko. She puts the furs back on the animals at random. A bear gets a leopard skin and so on. The cartoon ends with Betty wearing an enormous spotted fur, marching in a parade with all the animals, next to a grinning naked animal that has voluntarily donated the fur.

This short has a story, and some nice piano. However, the animation is crude to the point of being amateur, which is strange because Eugster in particular was an experienced animator. Possibly Eugster and Eggeman were city boys who had never seen a bear, leopard or moose. It certainly looks that way.

More disturbingly, this is one of the very few shorts that wouldn’t get a Universal certificate today. Bimbo and Koko stroke Betty’s upper thighs, and not only does she not mind, she doesn’t even seem to notice, as if it was something everyone did. Normally, Betty likes to flirt, flaunt and giggle, but this sort of behaviour is jarringly out of character.

Koko’s ******ity is also in question in this short. His heart kisses Bimbo’s, hinting at homo****** tendencies. However, he happily strokes Betty’s thighs. But then, doesn’t everyone?

Betty Boop was becoming more popular and more bankable with each release, and Paramount was beginning to take a lot more interest in Out of the Inkwell Productions (which had until then been loosely under the Paramount umbrella but in practice was an independent organization). This was to have serious consequences.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

A noticeable dip in the quality of Betty Boop Talkartoons occurred between May and early July 1932. This is speculation, but there could be two main reasons. When Betty, Bimbo and Koko were simply cartoon characters, Inkwell retained a great deal of independence under the Paramount umbrella. But now Betty was worth a fortune, and Paramount wanted a bigger slice of the action. There is no indication that the takeover was friendly. It can’t be easy to fight a hostile takeover and create shorts of the highest possible standard.

The other reason was a lot more direct. The Disney Corporation was expanding, and tempting animators to sunny California with promises of big pay rises. (Disney wasn’t famous for paying top rates, so the pay at Inkwell must have been abysmal.) Inkwell’s top animator, Grim Natwick, has already gone, and others were to follow.

Shorts released between May and July 1932 – the last of the Talkartoons – were:

Chess-Nuts
Hide and Seek
Admission Free
The Betty Boop Limited

Chess-Nuts was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by James Culhane and William Henning. It is basically a remake of Mask-A-Raid, this time on a chessboard, and the Black King (old King Cole) is the same character as the King of the Masquerade, although he’s a lot nastier in this short and Betty is much less tolerant of him.

The Talkartoon starts with two old men playing chess. Cigar ash falls on the black queen, who changes into Betty Boop. Bimbo is the white king (picture 1). Koko is a white chess-piece, and looks thoroughly uncomfortable in the part.

The action starts jauntily enough with a fight between Bimbo and King Cole, who are obviously old adversaries. In other Betty Boop Talkartoons this would have been the cue for a comic song, but in this one we get some pointless chanting from the chess-pieces. The chess mach becomes a game of football played on the chessboard, with more chanting in support of Bimbo, who appears to be the star player.

Betty watches from a tower. In spite of her being the Black Queen, her support for Bimbo and the white side is obvious. Enraged, the Black King goes after her and ropes her (picture 2). She clings on to her hem, but the gesture is useless. The King pulls the rope and Betty’s skirt flies up round her waist, where it remains for most of the remainder of the short (picture 3).

King Cole ties Betty up and torments her. Finally he throws her over his shoulder and carries her off to a bedroom. The bed comes running out, pawing with its back legs like a dog burying something distasteful. Bimbo crawls into the tower. There is some more pointless chanting from the chess-pieces as Bimbo’s crown pummels Cole into submission and Bimbo rescues Betty. Betty joins a parade with the white chess-pieces, and the Talkartoon ends with a shot of the two old men playing chess.

There are some rather distasteful aspects to this short. Betty is the Black Queen, and as such is the wife of the Black King, who demands his conjugal rights. The business with the bed is very funny – until you realise what it implies. Mistreatment of a wife by her husband behind closed doors is a serious topic, and not one that is normally addressed in a short animated film.

Bimbo is Betty’s rescuer, but almost certainly rather more. He is again a love interest. Just to make the point clear, the short also provides a cameo involving some partner-swapping mice. The Religious Right immediately condemned Betty as an adulteress, and it’s a difficult accusation to deny.

Chess-Nuts addressed some serious topics, but was not a particularly good Talkartoon. The pointless chanting is annoying, the single song (sung by Betty in the tower) is poor, and the fight scenes are repetitive and boring. Even the panty-shots, for which La Boop was famous, don’t really work. Panty shots are meant to be a tease and work best in quick glimpses. When lingerie is on almost continuous display it quickly ceases to be erotic.

Hide and Seek was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Roland Crandall. Adolph Zukor is again named as Executive Producer – possibly an indication that Paramount was taking a close interest in the Fleischer output.

Bimbo reprises his part as a villain. He sees Betty make a withdrawal from the bank and kidnaps her. A handsome motorcycle cop (the prototype for Fearless Freddie) follows them into a hideout called Hell's Kitchen in a volcano shaped like Koko. A volcano monster bakes Bimbo in a pie, and then grabs Betty and the cop. However, they escape down a hole to China where a Chinaman marries them.

In this short Betty not only gets a human boyfriend, but she marries him. Very few Betty shorts actually show her being married, rather than disappearing into the sunset for a spot of boop-oop-a-doop. Bimbo pie is an interesting notion, and the volcano monster probably gave the children in the audience an enjoyable scare. Taken as a whole (no pun intended) this was, however, a rather ordinary Talkartoon.

Admission Free was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Thomas Johnson and Rudolph Eggman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

In this short Betty owns a penny arcade (once more she is in business for herself). Bimbo and Koko play the machines. Bimbo flirts with Betty. The Fleischer nervousness about having Bimbo as a love interest when Betty is fully human seemed to be fading. Bimbo then visits the shooting gallery where his game turns into a hunt. It’s not much of a story and, to be honest, not much of a short.

The Betty Boop Limited was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard Bowsky and Thomas Bonfiglio. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty's show troupe rehearses on the Betty Boop show-train. They take their grand finale atop the train cars while travelling along. Betty sings, Koko does a soft-shoe shuffle Bimbo juggles and the train itself does tricks. The audience falls asleep (sorry, I made that part up :) ).

The only significant aspect of this extremely ordinary short is that Betty is now very much the boss. Bimbo and Koko work for her. It is the Betty Boop troupe and the Betty Boop show-train. Traditionalists who believed that the woman’s place was in the home were no fans of Betty Boop.

By May 1932, the Fleischers seemed to believe it was sufficient to put Betty, Bimbo and Koko in different situations where they could entertain with their party pieces. Betty would look pretty, wear very little, flash her garter and, if things got really boring, her panties. Bimbo would dance and Koko juggle. A piano would be found somewhere and Betty would sing. Things had to improve.

They did, but maybe not immediately…..

Mooch

[The Moocher]

Betty Boop was popular, and Paramount wanted a bigger slice of the action. The Fleischers were still producing the shorts, but now they were working for Paramount rather than Inkwell Productions. Betty Boop shorts became “Betty Boop Cartoons.” There wasn’t much difference (at least not initially) except that the legend “A Betty Boop Cartoon” appeared on the title screen. There is a technical difference – in cartoons the soundtrack is on the film, whereas in Talkartoons the pictures are synchronised with a separate soundtrack. However, this distinction is not evident to the ordinary viewer.

Because of Betty’s popularity, any cartoon in which she appeared (even if she wasn’t the main character) became a “Betty Boop Cartoon.” This did not become significant until almost a year later.

Paramount could have kick-started Betty Boop Cartoons with a strong storyline, lots of action, a touch of surrealism and some funny gags. However, the first Betty Boop cartoon had none of these things. On August 12th 1932, Paramount released Stopping the Show.

Stopping the Show was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Al Eugster. There is no plot - in fact the short is little more than a Screen Song in which Betty sings in the style of Fanny Brice (I'm An Indian), Maurice Chevalier (Hello, Beautiful!), and, significantly, Helen Kane (That's My Weakness Now). Betty didn’t make a convincing Maurice Chevalier. Bimbo - or rather whoever voiced Bimbo in Bimbo’s Express - gave a much better impression.

However, Betty’s impersonation of Helen Kane was excellent. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see it, even if you obtain a good print of the cartoon.

So why did Paramount start the series with Stopping the Show, and what was the significance of the Helen Kane impersonation?

Helen Kane was born Helen Schroder in 1904. She was short and curvaceous, with a squeaky but melodious voice and a distinct Brooklyn accent. On stage she wore flapper-type dresses. I don’t know whether she wore a frilly garter on her left leg, but it seems likely.

Helen rose to fame in the mid 1920s when she sang in the Paramount Theatre in New York. Her show-stopping number was – significantly - That’s My Weakness Now, which she ended with the phrase “Boop-oop-a-doop…Oooh.” She became famous as the Boop-oop-a-doop girl.

Helen’s photograph (picture 1) clinches the argument (in my opinion). When the Fleischers were looking for a model for Bimbo’s love interest, there is very little doubt that they found it in Helen Kane, and it seems certain that they didn’t ask her permission. Grim Natwick freely admitted that he based the character that was to become Betty Boop on Helen Kane, but this wouldn’t be a decision Grim took on his own. Max Fleischer always maintained very tight control over Fleischer Studios’ output, and the characterisation would have been done with his approval, and probably at his suggestion.

When Betty was a doggie character with long ears and heavy jowls, Helen chose to ignore her. Even when Betty became prettier and more human in shorts such as Mask-A-Raid and Dizzy Red Riding Hood, there is no record of a protest from Helen. However, when Betty became human, was called Betty Boop, and started to rake in big bucks, Helen took notice.

Paramount had hired Helen Kane in 1928 to do a series of musicals, and she had been a solid earner for them, if not a major superstar. However, by 1932 Helen was 28 years old and her popularity was declining. Did Paramount deliberately provoke her in order to bring matters to a head? They released “Stopping the Show” in a blaze of publicity, announced that Betty was now Betty Boop (she had been Betty Boop for the previous eight months) and was the new Boop-oop-a-doop girl. Max Fleischer weighed in with the statement that Betty Boop was and always would be sixteen years old.

Helen promptly filed a $250,000 suit against Max Fleisher and Paramount. She argued that, because Betty Boop animations were so popular, audiences though that she was imitating Betty, rather than vice-versa. Betty – or so Helen claimed – had stolen her audience and her act.

The trial dragged on for two years, Judge McGoldrick (no jury was called) ruled against Helen in 1934, claiming that Kane's testimony could not prove that her singing style was unique or not itself an imitation. There had been other artists who had previously used the “Boop-oop-a-doop” phrase and called themselves Boop-oop-a-doop girls. It could also be argued that both Helen Kane and Betty Boop owed much of their personas to the film star Clara Bow, known as the “It girl.”

The Helen Kane imitation was removed from the original negative during the lawsuit in order to avoid evidence of a deliberate attempt at imitating Miss Kane. Today, all prints of the cartoon have the Helen Kane sequence removed, and an audible click can be heard where the footage was cut and spliced back together.

There may also have been an out-of-court settlement. Helen continued to perform in the 1930s, but was never a big star. Her life story was told in the 1950 film Three Little Words.

I’ll add a couple of opinions of my own. Firstly I have very little doubt that Max Fleischer ripped off Betty Kane’s act. Being a fan of Betty Boop doesn’t mean you have to like Max. He seems to have been a rather nasty man.

Secondly, Helen Kane was on the way out in 1932. In my opinion she saw an opportunity to make a bit of money, or at least get some publicity, from Betty Boop’s success. If it had not been for Betty Boop, I doubt if anyone today would remember Helen Kane.

Mooch

[bboop480]

By March 1932, Betty Boop was a bankable star. Shorts such as Dizzy Red Riding Hood, Boop-Oop-A-Doop and Minnie the Moocher had endeared her to the general public in the same proportion that they had offended the prudes. In the shorts released in March and April 1932, Betty is cute and sexy, and there is some imaginative animation. These Talkartoons were enough to make the fans happy, but they were nowhere near the quality of Minnie the Moocher (very few shorts are). There is, however, an uncomfortable feeling that the Fleischers were somewhat resting on their laurels.

Talkartoons released in March and April 1932 were:

Swim or Sink
Crazy Town
The Dancing Fool
A Hunting We Will Go

Unfortunately I have been unable to obtain screen captures for most of these shorts. As always, if anyone has any illustrations I would be very grateful if they could post them.

One more thing before I start. I’m discussing Talkartoons and Cartoons – shorts with a storyline and characters. Singatrons, or Screen Songs as they were then called, don’t appear in most filmographies and would only confuse the issue. You can’t say much about celebrity sing-alongs anyway. So, if you’re looking for Rudy Vallee Memories, Kitty from Kansas City, Only a Gigolo and so on, you won’t find them here. I’ll cover all the Screen Songs in an Appendix.

Swim or Sink was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf. This short is often called S.O.S. It was first released as Swim or Sink and was renamed S.O.S. in its colourised version.

The short opens with a sinking ship. A hippo officer shouts, “Women and children first,” and then dons a wig and jumps in a lifeboat. After a series of sinking ship jokes the vessel finally goes under.

In the next scene Betty, Koko and Bimbo are on a raft. Bimbo and Koko are asleep and Betty is bemoaning her fate in a song. In this Talkartoon, Betty plays the part of a spoilt, helpless, society girl (I can't dive, I can't swim, I don't know how to do anythin'). However, it’s noticeable that she’s fixing her make-up with one hand while failing to stop her skirt being blown up round her waist with the other, and her complaint isn’t so much about danger and privation, but rather about the lack of male company. Presumably Bimbo and Koko don’t count. When Betty became fully human Bimbo ceased to be a love interest (although nobody seems to have told Bimbo this). As I discussed in a previous post, Koko’s friendship with Betty was usually platonic.

Betty soon has rather too much male company. Koko and Bimbo wake up and spy a ship, and Koko hails it by hoisting his underwear as a flag. The ship is a pirate ship, which grows a mouth, swallows them, and spits out their raft.

The pirates are possibly not as tough as they think they are (pepper, salt, mustard, cider, we're so tough we'd crush a spider). They capture Koko and Bimbo and chain them in the hold. Then they ogle Betty, singing, “What shall we do with the dainty damsel?” However, the chains are paper chains, and Bimbo and Koko escape easily. After some more chase scenes the pirates are dumped overboard and a whale swallows them. The Talkartoon ends with the pirates carousing in the whale’s stomach.

This is an entertaining short although both the sinking-ship and chase sequences are a bit too long. It is mainly notable for Betty’s out of character performance as a spoilt society girl.

Crazy Town was directed by Dave Fleischer and James Culhane, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster, James Culhane and Dave Tendlar. James Culhane’s direction is “unaccredited.” I haven’t been able to find out the story behind this. Culhane was an animator who worked with Grim Natwick on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). He directed a number of cartoons in the 1940s. Possibly he was learning his trade by “shadowing” the experienced Dave.

Betty, Bimbo and Koko take a streetcar to Crazy Town, where fish fly, and birds swim. As was to become the pattern in Talkartoons (and some cartoons) where there was little or no storyline, they entertain the locals with songs and tricks, playing a piano, which conveniently grows out of the ground for them. Betty visits a beauty parlour where ladies trade in their whole heads for prettier ones (picture 1). A lady tries to buy Betty’s heart, but it’s not for sale.

Basically this short is a series of visual jokes and a couple of songs. It’s a bit of a potboiler, notable only for the one important statement that it makes. Betty Boop’s heart is not for sale.

The Dancing Fool was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf.

Bimbo and Koko are sign painters balancing on scaffolding round a tall building. Almost half the short is taken up with scaffolding jokes as the two of them fool around. Then Bimbo gets very interested in the view through a particular window, and he paints “Betty Boop’s Dancing School” on the glass. Just what he uses as a paintbrush is debatable. My recommendation is to watch the Talkartoon (if you can get a decent quality copy) and judge for yourself.

Betty sings “Dancing to Save Your Sole” as she teaches a weird group of animal students to dance. The Dancing gets wilder. Betty sings “Come On Baby” and Bimbo and Koko join in. The building sways. The students stamp their feet (and hooves) in unison. The building falls down and the Talkartoon ends.

Koko and Bimbo fool around on the scaffolding for far too long, but the scenes in the dancing school - and Betty’s rendition of the songs - are entertaining. Bimbo’s sign painting is startling and very funny. As with many Fleischer animations, this short would have benefited from more of a story and less repetitive gags. It is remarkable because it is the first in which Betty Boop is running her own business – rather than merely being a showgirl or an entertainer.

A Hunting We Will Go was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Al Eugster and Rudolf Eggeman

In this short, Betty is a gold-digger - she’s not on the lookout for a rich husband, she’s digging for gold. In her cabin in the woods, she is bewailing her lack of a fur coat to keep her warm in the winter. A moose head on the wall joins in the song, and we get a glimpse of the outside of the cabin - and the rest of the moose, which has its head stuck through the wall (a joke the Fleischers liked).

Bimbo and Koko arrive, and the moose runs away. They hear Betty and their hearts go out to her (literally). Koko’s heart kisses Bimbo’s heart, which does not appreciate the attention. They go into the cabin and caress Betty, stroking her upper thighs. Koko promises to “fix her up.” Hopefully he means with a fur coat.

A series of animal jokes follows. An unspotted leopard tries to get into the “leopard colony” but is denied entry by a spotted leopard doorkeeper. Bimbo and Koko each fights a mob of animals and emerges with a pile of furs. No animal is killed in the making of this short – they are merely de-furred. Betty sees the mob of poor shivering animals and gets very annoyed with Bimbo and Koko. She puts the furs back on the animals at random. A bear gets a leopard skin and so on. The cartoon ends with Betty wearing an enormous spotted fur, marching in a parade with all the animals, next to a grinning naked animal that has voluntarily donated the fur.

This short has a story, and some nice piano. However, the animation is crude to the point of being amateur, which is strange because Eugster in particular was an experienced animator. Possibly Eugster and Eggeman were city boys who had never seen a bear, leopard or moose. It certainly looks that way.

More disturbingly, this is one of the very few shorts that wouldn’t get a Universal certificate today. Bimbo and Koko stroke Betty’s upper thighs, and not only does she not mind, she doesn’t even seem to notice, as if it was something everyone did. Normally, Betty likes to flirt, flaunt and giggle, but this sort of behaviour is jarringly out of character.

Koko’s ******ity is also in question in this short. His heart kisses Bimbo’s, hinting at homo****** tendencies. However, he happily strokes Betty’s thighs. But then, doesn’t everyone?

Betty Boop was becoming more popular and more bankable with each release, and Paramount was beginning to take a lot more interest in Out of the Inkwell Productions (which had until then been loosely under the Paramount umbrella but in practice was an independent organization). This was to have serious consequences.

Mooch
WOW...MOOCH...THATS A GREAT PIC!

[The Moocher]

Paramount was now producing Betty Boop cartoons. The first cartoon, Stopping the Show, had no plot. Neither had there had been much plot in the rather mundane Betty Boop Talkartoons released in May through July of 1932. If Betty Boop animations were to get back on the rails, improvement was needed. It was to come eventually, but the next cartoon was to be another pot-boiler.

The following Betty Boop cartoons were released in August and September 1932:

Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee
Betty Boop M.D.
Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle

Betty Boop’s Bizzy Bee was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf.

This cartoon is a retread of “Dizzy Dishes” except that Betty rather than Bimbo now owns a restaurant (or rather lunchwagon) that sells only wheatcakes. Bimbo is Betty’s love interest (her heart flies out when she sees him, and he gives her a flower). The Fleischers seem now to be ignoring the fact that Bimbo is a dog and Betty is human. This is strange, because the problem caused so much angst in 1930 and 1931.

The cartoon is a rather poor remake. Gus the Gorilla is missing, and his slow burn and appetite for tableware and table is sadly missed. There are the usual restaurant jokes (a sign reads “Eat” and a giraffe eats it), and some rather dull chants from the customers. Sometimes only wheatcakes are available, while at other times the customers are passing round other dishes, and Koko is complaining that his soup is cold.

A very large hippo with remarkable fangs sits down and (somewhat unwisely) demands wheatcakes. Soon wheatcakes are flying everywhere, even out of the lunchwagon chimney, where the moon gulps them down.

The only real chuckle in this run of the mill cartoon is at the end when all the diners, the lunchwagon, and even the moon are all doubled over with indigestion. Betty has many talents, but she’s a disaster as a cook!

Betty Boop M.D. was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Thomas Goodson (previously known as Thomas Bonfiglio).

This is a much better cartoon! Animations weren’t widely used for social comment and satire in the 1930s, so this is a trailblazing cartoon that pre-dates the Simpsons by 65 years. The target is patent medicines and the excessive claims that were (and still are) made for them.

The cartoon begins with a wagon arriving in a small town where an enthusiastic crowd greets it. The wagon contains a group of itinerant patent medicine hawkers, selling a product called Jippo later revealed to be tap water). A talking frog introduces Koko, who performs a contortionist act. Koko's act does not convince the crowd to buy Jippo, so Koko summons Betty, who comes out of the wagon, wiggles her rear end, and proves that *** sells.

Betty sings about Jippo and she gives a brief anatomy lesson. The crowd begins to buy Jippo. A skinny man drinks Jippo and gets fat; an old man drinks Jippo and turns into a giant baby, and the baby accompanying him drinks Jippo and turns into a miniature old man; a bearded bald man rubs on some Jippo on his head, and his beard is absorbed to reappear on the top of his head. However, these remarkable results are due to Betty rather than to Jippo.

Bimbo tries his own product and his voice changes. From this point on in the cartoon, Bimbo is voiced by Cliff Edwards, otherwise known as Ukulele Ike, which certainly improves the quality of his singing. Edwards was later to voice Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio (1940). In Betty Boop MD he sings in a remarkable scat style known as “effin.”

There are more Jippo jokes. A man pours Jippo on his wooden leg, and it turns into a hand holding a cane. An old man with gout leaps up. dances, and then crawls into his grave. Finally a baby takes a swig of Jippo and changes into Mr. Hyde, and the cartoon ends.

This is an excellent cartoon, made even better by Edwards’ vocalization (which later inspired Popeye the Sailor’s voice). Unfortunately I don’t have any screen captures – a pity, I would like to see Betty as a snake oil saleswoman!

Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle was directed by Dave Fleischer; and Shamus Culhane (unaccredited). It was produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Shamus Culhane, Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf. It would be charitable to assume that Dave Fleischer took promising animators under his wing and gave them a few tips in directing. However, given the often murky politics at Paramount and Fleischer Studios, it is more likely that Dave was being marginalised.

Now things were really looking up – this really is an excellent cartoon! The short starts with a clip of the Royal Samoans performing a song (many Betty Boop cartoons began with live action). A dancer called Meri (sometimes confused with Ethel Merman, but this was a Samoan lady) dances in the foreground.

Bimbo is playing the ukulele in a boat that lands on Bamboo Isle. The boat turns into a kennel and the outboard motor runs into it like a dog. Bimbo ends up in Betty’s canoe. Betty is a dark skinned Pacific Islander in this cartoon. Bimbo sings to her (in a weird and indecipherable mixture of English and Samoan) and they end up in a clearing surrounded by singing trees.

When the other Samoans arrive, Bimbo is scared and disguises himself as a Samoan, using dirt to “black up” his face. He hits himself on the head with a bone to raise a lump, and then sticks the bone in the lump. He then sings in Samoan.

Betty dances. The Fleischers used a technique called “rotoscoping” where a cartoon character is transposed on to a human and follows the movement. Betty is rotoscoped on to Meri, to remarkable effect. Betty is wearing much less than Meri, especially above the waist (picture 1). Was a nipple exposed? That depends more upon the viewer’s imagination than eyesight, but in my opinion the answer is no. Nowadays, with topless beauties on every other beach and displaying their charms in daily newspapers, Betty’s dance wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. It caused no end of a ruckus in 1932!

It starts to rain and Bimbo’s disguise washes off. This deception angers the Samoans, and Betty and Bimbo escape in Bimbo’s boat. They are seen kissing through a hole in a sun umbrella as the cartoon ends.

This may not be the best Betty Boop cartoon (some would disagree) but the Samoan music and Betty’s remarkable dance lift it way above the ordinary. Betty appears as a dark skinned woman, and this further angered the Klu-Klux-Klan. Apparently it’s OK to black up, but a normally white character shouldn’t appear as genuinely black.

In these more enlightened, or possibly more politically correct, days there could be some controversy over Bimbo’s blacking up and his fear of the South Sea Islanders. His bone through the head sequence would definitely jar. However, by the standards of the day this cartoon was not racist, and the Royal Samoans in particular were treated with considerable respect.

Paramount’s Betty Boop Cartoons were now established, with two excellent shorts being released back to back. Even better was to come.

Mooch

[PeterHale]

Shamus (in the 30s just "James" or "J.H.") Culhane says that Dave Fleischer's regular screen credit as Director was inaccurate - he should more precisely be credited as producer and dialogue director: he directed the dialogue recording (at which no animators were present) and strolled around the desks suggesting gags for each animators scene, but responsibility for overseeing the design, layout, and progress of the pictures tended to devolve onto the shoulders of the lead animator.

This is not to belittle Dave's involvement in the filmmaking process but to underline that Fleischer cartoons were very loosely planned affairs, where the animators had greater input than became standard post-Disney.

I don't think at this point in time the Fleischers were suffering much negative interference from Paramount - the distribution deal gave the Fleischers use of Paramount's recordings and their sound studio and access to artists such as Cab Calloway. (The only downside to this was that all the soundtrack recordings were musically directed by Paramount's Orchestra leader Manny Baer, who had no rapport with the Fleischers and their requirements. One time Dave sent an out-of-tune piano to the studio because he wanted that effect for a honky-tonk sequence - when he turned up for the session he found Baer had had it retuned.)

I think the interference started a year or two after the Hay's Code (1930), when Paramount began to worry about Betty risking infringement. (Prior to that they were happy to let the Fleischers continue to make popular, successful cartoons!) Once they started advising the Fleischers on policy they began to feel more involved with production: it became the thin end of the wedge!

[The Moocher]

Thanks Peter. That's excellent information.

I was aware that Dave became less powerful as time went on. Max was the dominant brother, and there wasn't much brotherly love. Senior animators did have a lot of say - for example in Minnie the Moocher there were two animators and Betty's appearance changed half way through the short as the second animator took over. That wouldn't have happened under a powerful, hands-on director.

Zukor kept an eye on things, and I'm not convinced that Stopping the Show would have been the first Betty Boop cartoon if the choice was up to Max and Dave. However, while the cartoons were successful and Hays Commission approval wasn't essential for their distribution, Paramount didn't interfere too much.

I don't think Paramount forced the Fleischers to accept the Hays code. If shorts couldn't be distributed they couldn't earn money, and Max wasn't stupid.

I have mid-1943 for when the Hays Commision came into effect. It's possible that Hays drew up his code in 1930. Do you have any further information?

Mooch

[PeterHale]

According to Wikipedia the Motion Picture Assosciation of America adopted the Hays Code in 1930, began effectively enforcing it in 1934, and abandoned it in 1967.

I agree that Max would have been concerned about the saleability of his cartoons, but I do think the studio generally had a style based on what they all thought funny, and sexy, and entertaining - and no creatives actually like being toned down by corporate worrywarts. As it was, I don't think the inventive Fleischer spirit was finally extinguished until Paramount dumped the Fleischers themselves and renamed the studio Famous.

What did affect the studio was the defection in May 1930 of several of their best animators - Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus leaving for Hollywood, and George Stallings and George Rufle moving to Van Buren's Studio. This left just Grim Natwick and Teddy Sears as animators, with a bunch of fledgling in-betweeners (many of whom had graduated from inking) to carry the burdon of the studio's workload. Dave promptly promoted these to animator status, leaving Natwick and Sears to help them learn the ropes in a hurry!

[The Moocher]

Thanks Peter.

Fleischer Studios continued to lose animators after 1930. Natwick left in 1931 - Bimbo's Initiation was the last short he animated for the Fleischers. It's not clear whether he was offered more money or whether there were disagreements with the Fleischers (particularly Dave). Probably a bit of both.

The appearance of Betty Boop and Bimbo changed a great deal in 1930 and 1931, sometimes in the same cartoon. This could be due both to inexperienced animators and weak direction on the part of Dave Fleischer. There were still animation problems in 1932. The animation in A Hunting We Will Go, for example, is less than professional.

The problem continued into 1933 when Roy Disney (Walt’s brother) was luring Fleischer animators to California with promises of double the pay they were making in New York. Disney hardly paid top rates, so the pay at Fleisher Studios must have been abysmal!

There was a voluntary Entertainment Industry code drawn up in 1930, but ignored by the industry. I wasn't sure if this was the same as the Hays Code enforced by the Hays Commission from 1934, but it makes sense that they would use an existing code rather than drawing up a new one. I'll discuss the effect of Hays in a future post.

Max Fleischer didn't like anyone telling him what to do, but he knuckled under fairly spectacularly in 1934. Betty Boop was probably more affected by the Hays Code than any other star - human or animated.

Mooch

[The Moocher]

After Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle and Betty Boop MD, audiences looked forward to Betty Boop Cartoons with considerable anticipation. They were not to be disappointed. In late 1932 four cartoons were released - each remarkable in its own way, although none (arguably) quite of the exceptionally high standard of Bamboo Isle.

Cartoons released in October through December 1932 were:

Betty Boop's Ups and Downs
Betty Boop for President
I'll Be Glad When Your Dead, You Rascal You
Betty Boop's Museum

Betty Boop’s Ups and Downs was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard G. Bowsky and Ugo D'Orsi. The Executive Producer was Adolph Zukor.

It’s the Depression, and poor Betty is forced to sell her house. In fact the whole town is for sale, the whole country is for sale, and the whole world is for sale. The Moon gathers all the planets around to auction off the Earth. The planet Saturn outbids Mars and Venus to buy it. In the most bizarre sequence of this truly surreal short, the Moon makes it obvious that he considers Saturn a bit of a shyster and demands cash up-front.

Saturn decides to see what happens if he removes the Earth’s gravity using a large magnet. Betty, all her friends, the houses, and a grating on which Betty is standing, all fly upwards. Saturn removes the magnet, and everything falls back to Earth.

This is a strange cartoon. Audiences went to the theatre to escape the Depression, and it’s a very odd subject for a cartoon. The plot is surreal, but there’s not much of it, and it would be easy to dismiss the cartoon as a pot-boiler (if a particularly weird one) except for one enduring image. As Betty falls to earth the wind whistles through the grating, blowing her long dress up round her ears.

Of course it’s the Marilyn Monroe scene in the Seven Year Itch (1955) that everyone remembers. Marilyn was an icon, and an exceptionally beautiful one at that. She deserves all credit for immortalising the image, and proving that a live actress in a major film can get away with a panty shot! Very few people are aware of the fact, and even fewer remember the rather odd and obscure Betty Boop cartoon that it came from, but there’s a statue in the lobby of King Features’ Offices in Manhattan (picture 1) that’s there to remind us.

Boop did it first – 22 years before Monroe!

Betty Boop for President was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Hicks Lokey and Myron Waldman. The Executive Producer was Adolph Zukor. Waldman was to animate many later Betty Boop cartoons and was the creator of Pudgy.

This is the 1932 cartoon, not the colour feature/compilation that was released in 1980. Nothing dates quicker than political satire, and it is remarkable that this short, which lampooned the Roosevelt/Hoover election of 1932, still retains interest. The cartoon mocks the excessive promises and claims made by the candidates, with Betty morphing into Roosevelt’s opponents Herbert Hoover and Al Smith (Roosevelt’s opponent for the Democratic nomination), but not into Roosevelt himself.

Betty is standing against Mr Nobody, and paints a rosy picture of the changes she will make when she gets elected. Street cleaners are taken to their jobs in chauffeur-driven limousines; carpets are laid over potholes so that horses can wear high-heeled shoes. Her ideas on prison reform in this cartoon did nothing to endea