History of Betty Boop [Archive] - Betty Boop's Community

The Moocher

07-26-2005, 05:29 AM

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

07-27-2005, 12:19 AM

The Moocher

07-27-2005, 10:27 AM

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

08-01-2005, 06:23 PM

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

08-01-2005, 06:33 PM

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

Mooch

The Moocher

08-01-2005, 06:42 PM

Try again.

Mooch

boopsiegirl

08-02-2005, 02:19 AM

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

08-04-2005, 03:27 AM

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

08-04-2005, 05:56 AM

bettyboopfan

08-05-2005, 03:21 AM

Mooch? Do you know?

BBooper

08-05-2005, 11:13 AM

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

08-05-2005, 02:44 PM

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

Where did you hear about it?

Interesting.

PeterHale

08-05-2005, 05:53 PM

bettyboopfan

08-06-2005, 10:45 PM

Oh ok, thanks for the info Peter! :D

bboop480

08-07-2005, 12:53 AM

Hey Peterhale...welcome!

boopsiegirl

08-07-2005, 04:26 AM

Welcome peterhale!

bettyboopfan

08-08-2005, 02:09 AM

Welcome Peter to the forum!!

The Moocher

08-08-2005, 08:56 AM

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

08-08-2005, 09:03 AM

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

08-08-2005, 09:20 AM

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

08-11-2005, 01:38 AM

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

The Moocher

08-11-2005, 05:48 AM

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

08-11-2005, 05:51 AM

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

08-11-2005, 09:20 AM

The Moocher

08-11-2005, 09:28 AM

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

08-11-2005, 11:42 AM

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

08-11-2005, 01:22 PM

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

bettyboopfan

08-11-2005, 02:46 PM

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

The Moocher

08-12-2005, 05:54 AM

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

08-12-2005, 07:44 AM

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

08-12-2005, 10:46 AM

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

08-12-2005, 11:24 AM

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

08-12-2005, 11:26 AM

Thanks Again, Mooch!

The Moocher

08-12-2005, 12:41 PM

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

Mooch

The Moocher

08-12-2005, 01:49 PM

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

08-12-2005, 02:37 PM

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

mgchan

08-12-2005, 03:22 PM

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

bboop480

08-12-2005, 05:13 PM

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

The Moocher

08-15-2005, 08:15 AM

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

08-15-2005, 08:22 AM

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

08-15-2005, 10:19 AM

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

08-16-2005, 07:05 AM

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

08-16-2005, 06:34 PM

The Moocher

08-17-2005, 05:15 AM

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

08-17-2005, 08:49 AM

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

08-17-2005, 12:10 PM

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

08-17-2005, 01:11 PM

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

08-18-2005, 05:44 AM

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

08-18-2005, 05:50 AM

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 endear her to the political right! The image of “tough guys,” in this case prisoners, being “feminised” under Betty’s gentle influence is used in several cartoons. Her critics accused her of promoting homo******ity.

This cartoon is the first in which Grampy appears, though he isn’t called Grampy and isn’t Betty’s grandfather. He improves the weather by raising a huge umbrella over the city.

Betty becomes President. There is a victory parade and finally a shot of a mug of beer. Prohibition was still in force but Roosevelt had promised to repeal it – so this (presumably) represents the Roosevelt victory.

Although obviously dated this remains one of the best Betty Boop cartoons, if possibly just outside the top ten. The image of Mr Nobody is an enduring one, and a similar “faceless” character has been used in many subsequent cartoons. Mocking politician’s promises always provides popular entertainment, and it has seldom been done with more gusto and imagination than it is in this animation.

I’ll be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Ralph Somerville. The Executive Producer was Adolph Zukor.

This has been put forward as the “best” Betty Boop cartoon. In my opinion it is not, although it is possibly the cartoon with the best jazz. What makes this short remarkable is that it contains some of the earliest live footage of the great Louis Armstrong.

In the opening sequence, Sachmo performs "The High Society Rag, and then the animation begins with Bimbo and Koko carrying Betty through an African jungle on a litter. Betty, to the ire of the bigots, is again dark skinned. She looks very good in her safari suit (picture 2) - who else would wear a frilly garter on safari?

The Africans attack and kidnap Betty. Bimbo and Koko try to follow their tracks, but the footprints keep reversing. In the next scene Bimbo and Koko are in a cooking pot. They escape by climbing some palm trees that morph into stilts. A spear-carrying African pursues them, and morphs into Armstrong’s floating head (picture 3), which sings the title song. Koko runs so fast he leaves his clothes behind. The head morphs back into the African. Bimbo hits him and he turns into a number of ash cans (weird). Bimbo and Koko escape from a couple of crocodiles, both voiced by Louis Armstrong.

The scene switches to Betty, who is tied to a tree. An African tries to kiss her but she pulls down his nose-ring like a window shade. Bimbo and Koko throw porcupine quills at the Africans (a good trick in Africa) and rescue Betty. The three escape as a volcano blows up the Africans but leaves them untouched. The cartoon ends with Sachmo singing the last two lines of the theme song.

This is one of the best Betty Boop cartoons, mainly because of the footage of the young Louis Armstrong and his participation in the vocalization. The action is exciting and the jokes are funny. However, you don’t see a great deal of Betty Boop, which is what the audience came for, and the short is undoubtedly racist, with Africans being portrayed as savages and cannibals. On the other hand it was no worse (and probably considerably better) than most of the films of the time portraying less developed lands, and Armstrong and his fellow black musicians seemed to have no problems with it.

Betty Boop’s Museum was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by William Henning and Reuben Timinsky (or Timmins). The Executive Producer was Adolph Zukor.

Betty joins a 50-cent sightseeing trip to a museum organized by Koko, and ends up being Koko’s only customer. The soft-hearted girl is so busy feeding the “Hunger” exhibit that she gets locked in. Koko’s ability to lose his one and only customer is a bit strange, but not nearly as strange as the rest of the cartoon. Poor Betty doesn’t even have a handkerchief to dry her tears but copes in her own unique way (picture 4). She really was the ultimate tease!

There then follows possibly the most surreal, spooky, scary scenes of any Betty Boop cartoon as Betty spends the night in the museum. She goes from room to room through a series of doors, pursued by various ghosts, skeletons and other apparitions. The atmosphere is similar to Bimbo’s Initiation, but is if anything even spookier. Betty is forced to sing with a row of skeletons. Although there isn’t much of a plot, the cartoon has its own weird logic that draws the audience in.

There are several spooky and surreal Betty Boop animations. Mostly, they feature Cab Calloway’s singing and vocalisation, but Cab doesn’t feature in this cartoon. The music is by Samuel Lerner and Sammy Timberg, and is listed as “unaccredited,” which probably meant that Max Fleischer avoided paying royalties.

In the morning Bimbo appears and rescues Betty, who is suitably grateful. The cartoon ends (probably fortunately) before she can show just how grateful she is.

This is an unusual and atmospheric cartoon, but not in the top ten. It is possibly too surreal and has insufficient plot, and a modern audience would get bored with yet another door and another spooky room. On the other hand, a less demanding 1932 audience would be happy to sit back in their seats and get scared out of their skins. It was also good to see that Betty had again remembered how to make the panty shot erotic.

Betty Boop ended 1932 an even bigger star than she had begun it. !933 was to be another vintage year.

Mooch

The Moocher

08-18-2005, 09:02 AM

By 1933 Betty was well established as a major star. Betty Boop cartoons often started with a short ‘live’ sequence, sometimes featuring high quality jazz from performers such as Cab Calloway or Louis Armstrong. The animation featured a cute, sexy Betty, who never lost her “little girl” charm in spite of her curvy woman’s body and penchant for revealing dresses. Betty would get into zany, sometimes scary situations, usually in the company of Bimbo and Koko, and would escape usually by virtue of her own efforts, with sometimes a little help from her friends. She was resourceful, independent and sassy. If she displayed rather too much leg or cleavage, or sometimes had problems keeping her dress on, it was all an innocent tease and good clean fun that would only upset the truly puritanical. Unfortunately, there were a lot of prudes about.

Some of the surrealistic sequences, and some of the songs, seem a bit long to modern audiences, who expect a strong story line. In the 1930s there was no television and people went to the movie theatre to escape their often-grim existences. They were happy to hear a funny song, or see inanimate objects burst into sudden, peculiar life. They were unsophisticated, and still fascinated by the relatively new concept of sound cartoons. They had a much higher boredom threshold and were not as blasé as today’s TV-fed viewers. This is not to describe a five-minute Boop short as “boring,” but possibly it explains why feature-length Betty Boop compilations (such as Hurrah for Betty Boop in 1985) never caught on. I intend to discuss the future of Betty Boop cartoons in a future post.

In early 1933 Betty Boop was on the crest of a wave. Things were to get even better. Betty Boop cartoons released from January through March 1933 were:

Betty Boop's Ker-Choo
Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions
Is My Palm Read
Betty Boop's Penthouse

Betty Boop’s Ker-Choo was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Bernard Wolf. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Poor Betty has a very bad cold, but bravely decides to take part in an automobile race (along with Bimbo and Koko). Cue in a series of motor racing jokes that preceded the Wacky Races cartoon series (Hanna-Barbera 1968) by over 30 years. Betty holds her own against her macho, male opponents, although some of her tactics are a bit over the top (picture 1). Penelope Pitstop would have been proud of her! There is an enormous pile-up at the finish, but Betty wins, powered by an enormous sneeze. Picture 2 shows Betty in her leathers after the race. Winning speeches weren’t Betty’s style, so she sings a song instead.

This cartoon is great fun, although its lack of storyline keeps it out of the top ten. On the other hand, there weren’t many plots in the Wacky Races cartoons either. Once more, Betty Boop holds her own in a male-dominated world. Interestingly, she has an animated talking car with a strong Yiddish accent.

Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard Bowsky and Ugo D'Orsi. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty, Bimbo and Koko visit a show of crazy inventions and then demonstrate some of these inventions at a carnival. Betty plays a carnival organ (technically a calliope) in her usual uninhibited, extrovert style as Koko demonstrates various inventions, including a record player that you sing into and it sings back at you (picture 3 - colourised), a soup silencer, a sweet corn regulator and finally an animated sewing machine that automatically sews any seam that it detects (don’t look too close or it will sew your lips together).

The sewing machine goes out of control and starts stitching everyone together. However, it only stitches outer clothing and Betty saves the day in her own inimitable way.

This cartoon has been described as a “classic” and probably still deserves its place as one of the Best Betty Boop cartoons. Betty’s organ playing and the imaginative inventions – especially the sewing machine – lift it out of the ordinary. However, the short has possibly too much surrealist animation of inanimate objects for the modern taste. An animated sewing machine might have astonished a 1930s audience but is unlikely to have the same effect in the 21st century.

Is My Palm Read was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by David Tendlar and William Henning. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is sometimes listed as “Is My Palm Red,” but I’ve checked the title screen and “Read” is correct. This short vies with Red Hot Mamma (1934) for the title of sexiest Betty Boop cartoon. Betty visits a fortune teller (Bimbo). She is (apparently) a very respectably dressed lady in a floor-length gown and fetching hat. However Bimbo positions some lights, demonstrating that Betty’s gown is very thin indeed, and showing her curvaceous body through it. Bimbo is a bit of a voyeur in this short.

Bimbo shows Betty his crystal ball. Betty sees that she will be shipwrecked on a haunted desert island. In the crystal ball sequence she removes her wet dress (the usual tiny flapper number) and puts it on a rock to dry. The rock turns out to be a turtle, which disappears with the dress, leaving her in some very filmy underwear. Ghosts (very early and very unfriendly prototypes for another famous Fleischer character – Caspar the Friendly Ghost) chase Betty around the island, and Bimbo appears to rescue her.

The scene cuts back to the fortune telling, where Betty is about to be grateful to her rescuer when the ghosts appear out of the crystal ball and chase both of them. Betty and Bimbo escape by hiding in a hollow log, which rolls over a cliff and into the sea. The log floats and the ghosts sink. They must be the world’s least buoyant ghosts!

This cartoon should have been better than it was. The ghosts aren’t really scary, and the island isn’t particularly spooky. The turtle joke is funny, but once Betty is in her lingerie she simply runs around in it. The joke (and the excitement) of panty shots comes when the girl tries to reunite herself with her clothes or otherwise cover up her embarrassment. Betty does neither, and might as well be running around in shorts and a top. The glimpses of her sexy shape revealed by Bimbo’s lighting effects are more erotic, but Bimbo doesn’t convince as a sleazy, voyeuristic and somewhat shady fortune teller.

There are a few screen-captures for this short available on the Net, but they’re covered in copyright notices, so I won’t post them here. Betty’s lipstick applicator is a lovely image, but I won’t spoil the surprise. Search the Net.

Betty Boop's Penthouse was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard G. Bowsky. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

In this gem of a cartoon, Bimbo and Koko are scientists. Betty owns the penthouse across the street. She showers, changes into her swimsuit, washes her smalls and hangs them on the line to dry, and waters her rooftop flower garden. Bimbo and Koko are distracted from their experiment. Picture 4 shows why. Betty’s swimsuit might not be revealing when compared to a modern thong bikini, but it was cutting edge for it’s day, and who else wears a garter with her swimsuit?

Unfortunately, a cat wanders into Bimbo and Koko’s unsupervised experiment, and is transformed into a scary, Frankenstein-type monster. The monster crosses the street and appears on Betty’s penthouse roof. In a typical Fleischer joke, Betty’s underwear unfastens itself from the clothesline and tiptoes quietly away (picture 5).

Betty, however, is made of sterner stuff. As the monster approaches, she calmly waters it, and it turns into a bunch of flowers. Rather oddly, this drew criticism from the fundamentalists on the religious right who identified it as another example of Betty encouraging homo******ity and tran******ism. As the monster started as a cat of indeterminate gender, this is one of the stranger accusations levelled at the lovely lady.

This cartoon has a good story, some very nice jokes, a surprise ending, and a particularly gorgeous heroine. It deserves its rating as one of the best Betty Boop cartoons. However, something even better yet was to come………

Mooch

The Moocher

08-18-2005, 11:03 AM

Snow White was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Roland C. Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer and the cartoon was released on the 31st March 1933.

The best cartoon ever made (my opinion and I’m sticking to it) is only five minutes long, while most Betty Boop shorts run for at least seven minutes. What seems to be missing is an introductory song from Cab Calloway, who provided the music and some of the vocalisation, and interaction between Betty and the live star. This omission is unfortunate – Betty and Cab were a great double act – and the reason for it is lost. Is it possible that the live footage of Calloway and his Missourians used to introduce Minnie the Moocher was screened without Cab’s permission and he wasn’t letting Max con him twice?

However, the five minutes of animated action and torrid jazz soundtrack are perfection. The cartoon starts with wicked stepmother queen asking her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror assures her (with considerable reluctance) that she is. The queen bears a striking resemblance to Olive Oyl, but is a lot nastier. I don’t think Popeye would have been attracted to her!

Betty arrives at the palace door (where Bimbo and Koko are standing guard), and asks to see her step-mama. Betty’s entrance with snow still falling off her head (picture 1) is truly spectacular, and she surely makes an impression (picture 2). She also makes an impression on the magic mirror, which now says that Betty is the fairest in the land. “Off with her head,” orders the queen.

Sadly, Bimbo and Koko take Betty into the woods where they tie her to a tree (picture 3). They can’t go ahead with the execution and throw away their weapons. The animated tree stump/execution block, robbed of its victim, fights with Bimbo and Koko, and they end up falling into a hole and being knocked unconscious. The tree (also animated) releases Betty, and leaves her garter on a heap of snow to simulate a grave.

However, Betty really isn’t dressed for the weather. She slips, falls down a hill and is rolled into a snowball. She then passes through a wooden frame, which shapes her snowball into a coffin. The coffin falls into a pond, where it is transformed into ice. The seven dwarves find the coffin and carry it into their cave.

The queen finds the "grave,” but the mirror assures her that Betty is still the fairest of them all. The mirror turns into a broomstick and the queen becomes a witch (no great change). She flies down into the hole where she lands on Bimbo and Koko, waking them up.

What follows is one of the most surreal and fascinating sequences in cartoon history. The Missourians start to play The Saint James Infirmary Blues. Bimbo and Koko advance toward the cave opening, and the ground rolls over to form a skull, engulfing them (picture 4). They hop out of the eyeholes and enter the cave, where they walk behind the coffin (picture 5) closely pursued by the witch/queen. Koko is rotoscoped over film footage of Cab Calloway dancing, and sings in Cab’s voice. For all its 1930s sound-track crackles, this is widely accepted as the finest rendition of The St James Infirmary Blues ever performed by Calloway (or anybody else).

The procession of Betty and the seven dwarves, Bimbo and Koko, pursued by the witch, moves through the cave on an icy conveyor belt. Just about everything happens in the background. A dead policeman directs the traffic, which consists of a skeleton in a Ford model-T. The many spooks and spectres include dead gamblers and a dead (somewhat bovine) chorus girl. You could watch this short 100 times and still see something new.

Koko morphs into a long-legged white ghost, and his head becomes a bottle, from which he pours a drink down his neck. The witch slips the magic mirror under Koko’s feet and pedestals rise up under all the figures, which freeze solid. The witch metamorphoses back into the queen, and she again asks the mirror who is the fairest. The mirror is forced to say “you,” but then explodes, melting the ice coffin and restoring everyone to normal. The queen turns into a dragon (complete with crown) and pursues everyone. Bimbo turns the dragon inside out and the cartoon ends.

Wow!

This is a good place for me to get controversial again. Let’s discuss drugs. Pre-Hays Betty Boop cartoons featured genuine, black jazz, and jazz songs were about life in the raw, including drugs. To put this in perspective, alcohol was an illegal drug at this time. Minnie the Moocher is a song about a woman who had a dream after smoking opium, The St James Infirmary Blues is about a girl who died of a cocaine overdose and “snow” is another name for cocaine. Don Redman’s Song of the Weed (I Heard – 1933) isn’t about tobacco!

So, was Betty covertly promoting drug use? No, she was promoting jazz! Most histories of the Fleischer Studios conclude that Crandall and some of the other animators were quite aware of the drug references but the Fleischers were not. The surrealism in many of the Fleischer animations (Bimbo’s Initiation, Betty Boop’s Museum, Minnie the Moocher, Snow White) has been cited as evidence of recreational drug use. However, odd visions of drug-induced alternative reality seldom translate into high-quality entertainment. Ask the Beatles!

No character in any Betty Boop cartoon uses drugs. Even cigarettes and cigars very seldom appear in Betty Boop shorts. In Judge for a Day (1935) she makes what is probably the very first recorded protest against passive smoking. That is not to say that nobody in the Fleisher Studios used mind-altering substances in their recreational hours, but drug use is not promoted in Betty Boop animations. Featuring what was the best music of the era does not imply approval of the subjects addressed in that music.

I don’t believe that Max or Dave used drugs. It would be difficult to make a modern film or documentary about the Fleischers without being accused of racism or anti-semitism. They were the ultimate stereotypes of what they actually were. Brilliant, imaginative, humorous, ruthless, down-to-earth, cynical, and as tight as drums where money was concerned, they were living caricatures of the most talented race on earth, East European Yiddish Jews. Dave and Max wouldn’t have used drugs. They were good Jewish boys, and Momma wouldn’t have liked it!

Mooch

bboop480

08-18-2005, 01:33 PM

Those Pics Again Are Fabulous! :)

The Moocher

08-18-2005, 02:21 PM

Those Pics Again Are Fabulous! :)

Thanks bboop480.

If anyone has any more relevant screen captures, please do post them here. The more I can get, the better I can make my history.

Mooch

The Moocher

08-19-2005, 09:13 AM

After Snow White, anything was bound to be an anticlimax. Nevertheless, there is enough in the four cartoons released from April through June 1933 to retain interest, and to raise some points for discussion. These cartoons were:

Betty Boop's Birthday Party
Betty Boop's May Party
Betty Boop's Big Boss
Mother Goose Land

Betty Boop’s Birthday Party was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

It’s Betty’s birthday, and her animal friends are throwing a party. However, as she prepares the food in her kitchen she makes it clear that there’s only one thing that she wants as a birthday gift – a man. The party proceeds with presents and entertainment, but alas no suitable man appears. At the end of the party, Betty disappears hand-in-hand with a statue of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Is it possible to boop-oop-a-doop with a statue? If anyone can, Betty can….

Unfortunately I don’t have any screen captures from Betty Boop’s Birthday Party.

This cartoon brings up an important point. Betty never seems to have a man in her life. Koko is only ever a friend. Even in the days of silent animation there was always some ambivalence about Koko’s ******ity. Bimbo is an aggressive, rough-and-ready character, always willing to steal a kiss or sneak a peek, but he remains a dog – however human his actions and reactions – and can’t be the “man” in Betty’s life. In all her cartoons up to this point, Betty got her man only once – in Hide and Seek (1932).

Betty was an independent character. She didn’t need a man to solve her problems, although she was sometimes grateful to Bimbo or Koko for a rescue. She was often the boss (for example, The Betty Boop Limited - 1932). In short, she was the prototype for the modern woman. This offended the traditionalists, and was one of the main reasons that things became so hard for her in 1934.

Betty Boop’s May Party was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Dave Tendlar and William Henning. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This isn’t a cartoon, it’s a balloon! An elephant punctures a rubber tree and soon the whole town, including Betty and her friends, is bouncing. In spite of its lack of storyline this short is rather fun, though it’s most definitely a pot-boiler and nowhere near the quality of Snow White.

I don’t have any screen captures for this short either. Like Betty Boop’s Birthday Party it’s rather an obscure cartoon and there may not be any good prints available. This is unfortunate for any balloon or rubber fetishists among us :D .

Betty Boop’s Big Boss was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Dave Tendlar and Bernard Wolf. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A girl is wanted (female preferred – picture 1) and Betty applies. This was before the days of political correctness. The interview is at the top of a tall tower, and the room is packed with other job applicants, but the Big Boss ogles Betty's legs and she gets the job. Betty’s office outfit may not be as revealing as her backless flapper number, but she can set temperatures rising nevertheless (picture 2). The Boss puls a lever, a large trap door opens, the other applicants fall through the floor, a bulge moves down the tower and the unlucky job-seekers empty into the street. The message here is that it is the Depression, and jobs are hard to find.

Betty can’t type – although there is a sequence with an animated typewriter. She can’t spell either. She can, however, slip out of the Boss' grasp and stand on his desk, throwing her hat on to the hatstand. Betty is provocative, and the boss is provoked. Unlike the total sleazebags she encounters in cartoons such as Boop-Oop-A-Doop (1932) and No, No, A Thousand Times No (1935), Betty’s boss is not totally unsympathetic. He may be an old lecher, but I for one feel a bit of sympathy for him. He chases her round the room, and she grabs a telephone and phones the police.

Other characters in Betty Boop cartoons were always very protective of Betty, although the police chief had another reason for taking action – “We gotta get this guy; he’s a bad actor." An entire platoon of armed police marches upon the tower. The army, navy and air-force are also called in. The overreaction of the authorities is hilarious. Two policemen (who look a bit like Bimbo) float up to the window of the Boss' office and fire machine guns at him. He fires back and bursts their balloons. Thet climb a ladder and a gun battle ensues. Betty fires a pencil sharpener like a machine gun, and hits the Boss on his buttocks. This ends the gun battle, but the policemen fall down the ladder.

The police surround the tower and demolish it by shooting at the foundations, causing the building to sink into the ground (a memorable sequence). Betty and her boss are revealed in a passionate clinch, and Betty is not pleased about being interrupted. “The noive,” she exclaims in her wonderful Brooklyn accent.

I have a fondness for this cartoon because it’s the first Betty Boop short I ever watched. It is unquestionably a good cartoon with a strong storyline and some interesting sequences. The over-reacting police army, navy and airforce are particularly entertaining.

However, I’m a bit uncomfortable about how Betty is portrayed. As I’ve said previously, she played parts (for example in Swim or Sink - 1932), but by mid 1933 she was playing Betty Boop. In this short her morals are at best dubious. She gets the job not through ability but through blatant ******ity, and obviously intends keeping it through a spot of boop-oop-a-doop with her elderly but lecherous boss. This is not the flirtatious but basically high-minded girl that her fans had learned to know and love. Then again, the realities of finding and keeping a job in the depths of the 1930s Depression is fortunately not something modern fans have ever had to deal with.

Mother Goose Land was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Roland Crandall and Seymour Kneitel. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This cartoon is sometimes referred to as Betty Boop in Mother Goose Land, but the actual title is Mother Goose Land, with Betty’s name appearing on the title screen just above it (picture 3).

Betty is reading a book of fairy tales. Mother Goose materializes from the cover and gives her a tour, introducing her to various fairy-tale characters. Miss Muffet's spider chases Betty, but it turns out that the spider is male and doesn’t want to eat her, but instead fancies a spot of boop-oop-a-doop.

This Betty Boop cartoon can truly be described as both weird and surreal. The fairy tale world is freaky at the best of times, and the Fleischers always put an odd spin on things. The scenes with the four and twenty blackbirds and with the spider, especially the aerial views of the latter, are particularly remarkable. However, too many surreal sequences and insufficient story line can make the short seem rather slow to the modern audience, and I don’t think it merits inclusion among the best of the Betty Boop animations. Other than the title screen I don’t have any captures for this cartoon.

In the meantime, Max Fleischer was working on a top-secret project. What happened next was very important in the cartoon history. Watch this space……

Mooch

The Moocher

08-22-2005, 10:07 AM

In June 1933, Max Fleischer and a number of animators – but mainly Roland (Doc) Crandal - were busy on a “secret” project. Max had been slow to recognise Betty Boop’s star potential, but he had no hesitation in identifying a character in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theatre comic strip as the next Paramount cartoon superstar. More cynically, the secrecy could also have been because Roy Disney (Walt’s brother) was luring Fleischer animators to California with promises of double the pay they were making in New York

The “Betty Boop Cartoon” format allowed Max to introduce this character in a “Betty Boop Cartoon.” So, for the first time in a Paramount cartoon, Betty had only a minor supportive role. Unlike Betty, this unlikely character was anything but pretty. So Betty Boop introduced………

Popeye the Sailor

Before describing the cartoon, it’s instructive to look at Popeye’s origins. Olive Oyl was the Thimble Theatre’s star, along with her brother Castor Oyl and her boyfriend Ham Gravy. In the Thimble Theatre strip of January 17, 1929, Ham and Castor decided to hire a crew to sail in search of the legendary Whiffle Hen. Walking up to a grizzled one-eyed mariner, Castor asked him, "Are you a sailor?" "`Ja think I'm a cowboy?" came the reply, and Popeye was born. He had a minor part at first, but ended up as the central character in the hunt for the Whiffle Hen. When the narrative came to a close Segar tried to retire the sailor, but there was a public outcry.

So the flighty Olive dumped the unfortunate Ham in favour of Popeye (picture 1) and Popeye became the main star of the strip. It was time for him to hit the silver screen.

Popeye the Sailor was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Roland Crandal, Willard Bowsky, George Germanetti, Orestes Calpini and Seymore Kneitel. Previous footage of Betty Boop from Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle was used in the cartoon, and Shamus Culhane animated this sequence. Mae Questel doesn’t seem to have been involved in this short – at least her name isn’t on the cast list – and Bonnie Poe voiced Betty. Popeye’s voice was William Sam Costello. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

The cartoon is sometimes referred to as “Betty Boop Introduces Popeye the Sailor,” but I checked the title screen, and it’s definitely called Popeye the Sailor. The short also claimed to introduce Bluto, but he had appeared previously as a very minor character in the Thimble Theatre strip. More about Bluto later…………

Unusually, the title screen also pays tribute to Elzie Segar, Popeye’s creator. In spite of his first name, Elzie was a man.

The cartoon starts with a prologue in which newspapers announce the sailor's film debut, and Popeye sings what was to become the best known of all cartoon songs, "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man." Olive Oyl is seen waiting for Popeye to disembark from his ship. Bluto disembarks behind Popeye and follows the couple to a fairground, where the two sailors compete for Olive's attentions through feats of strength.

Popeye wins and, in celebration, dances a hula onstage with the fairground’s exotic dancer (Betty Boop in her “Bamboo Isle” persona – picture 2). As in Bamboo Isle, there was controversy about this scene. Did Betty’s lei slip? Did she dance with Popeye topless? In fact, actual footage from Bamboo Isle was used, so, as in that cartoon, the answer owes more to imagination than keen eyesight. In my opinion this cartoon proves that Betty did not bare all. Olive was in the audience, and there’s no way she would have let Betty flash her boop-oop-a-boops at Popeye. Now, a fistfight between Betty Boop and Olive Oyl would really have been something! Forget Popeye and Bluto!

There then follows a standard – the standard – Popeye plot. The jealous Bluto kidnaps Olive and ties her to the railroad track. As the locomotive approaches, Popeye and Bluto fight. Popeye, on the edge of defeat, swallows some spinach, knocks out Bluto, stops the train and saves Olive. I have seen it claimed that the Fleischers (probably Max) invented the spinach gag, which hadn’t been used in the Thimble Theatre strips up to that point. If so, spinach growers throughout the world should be very grateful for the Fleischer imagination.

Popeye had no glamour and his films were invariably violent. As I’ll discuss in a later post, there’s “I bash you, you bash me” violence, which kids love, and there’s cruelty, which permeated most of Mickey Mouse’s early offerings, and unfortunately one Betty Boop cartoon, the obnoxious Be Human (1936). Popeye and Bluto were the forerunners of Tom and Jerry, Sylvester and Tweety-Pie and many other cartoon series. I have never seen evidence that such cartoons cause children to chase each other with meat cleavers.

Betty Boop cartoons are sometimes criticised for weak story lines, but Popeye cartoons really only had one story line, with minor variations. Olive provokes a fight. Popeye wins. Bluto abducts Olive. Popeye rescues her.

Whatever the magic, Popeye was to go on to be a megastar, starring in 230 cartoons, not counting the (rather poor) made-for-television cartoons of the 1960s.

There are a few interesting points. Firstly, let’s compare Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. Betty is a bouncy, forthcoming, gentle soul. She is considerate of others, especially if they are weak, injured or hungry. She’s a vain, extroverted little tease, but she pulls it off with considerable charm. Olive is plain, but she’s as vain as Betty. She’s a flirt and a troublemaker who likes nothing better than to have men fight over her. When in trouble she squeals for Popeye, where Betty tries to look after herself.

Also, who, exactly, is Swee’pea’s daddy?

In short, Betty is basically a decent girl (except maybe in Betty Boop’s Big Boss, A Hunting We Will Go and Chess Nuts – OK, so she isn’t nun of the year). Olive, in the terminology of the day, is nothing but a floozy. Yet when the entertainment industry had to clean up its act in 1934, Olive was unscathed, while Betty suffered terribly. Betty has every right to complain, in the words of Jessica Rabbit, “I’m not bad; I’m just drawn that way.”

Secondly, I’d like to post a drawing that could cause some confusion unless it’s explained (picture 3). This is by Myron Waldman (the creator of Pudgy) and is distributed as a poster. It is not a screen capture from Popeye the Sailor. In the cartoon, Betty was dark skinned and in hula gear. Also, Pudgy didn’t appear in cartoons until 1934, and Waldman wasn’t an animator (or his name isn’t on the credits) for Popeye. Of course, I’ve nothing against Paramount animators making a few bucks drawing posters, but please remember that this picture has nothing to do with the short.

Finally, the Disney organization also recognised Popeye as a major threat, and tried to stop the cartoon being shown. The case was laughed out of court. There really is very little resemblance between Bluto and Pluto!

Mooch

BettyBoopVB20

08-22-2005, 01:58 PM

yeah those pictures are great

BettyBoopVB20

08-22-2005, 01:59 PM

i love when some boopers find out information about betty and put it on here

BettyBoopVB20

08-22-2005, 02:00 PM

thanks a lot i love it and i am sure that everyone else loves it too.

The Moocher

08-23-2005, 05:17 PM

More to come tomorrow.

Mooch

The Moocher

08-24-2005, 07:48 AM

The four Betty Boop Cartoons that followed Snow White - Betty Boop's Birthday Party, Betty Boop's May Party, Betty Boop's Big Boss and Mother Goose Land, while competently made and entertaining, (especially Big Boss), were nevertheless seen as an anticlimax. After Popeye the Sailor, another anticlimax was expected. However, it didn’t happen. The next three Betty Boop cartoons were of a high standard, and two of them were among the best she ever made. 1933 was proving to be a true vintage year.

The two cartoons I’ll discuss here are:

The Old Man of the Mountain
Poor Cinderella

The Old Man of the Mountain was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Bernard Wolf and Thomas Johnson. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Cab Calloway again provides the jazz, and the cartoon starts with a live sequence in which his Cotton Club orchestra plays Minnie the Moocher. Both Cab and his orchestra are in their white uniforms and Cab is smiling at the camera and doing some light scat singing, so it looks like Cab’s differences with Fleischer Studios about performing live have been resolved. Calloway sings the title and the animation begins.

A lion skates into an animal community (with rabbits on his feet) and announces that The "Old Man" is on the prowl. Goats pound on drums and the animals stampede. Betty is visiting the mountain on vacation and she comes out of the Tourist Lodge and asks what is going on. An owl sings The Old Man of the Mountain to her (in Cab Calloway’s voice). In the original version of this song the Old Man is a harmless eccentric, but in the cartoon the words have been changed to make him more sinister.

Betty, as always, has a great deal of courage and considerably less common sense. She decides to meet the Old Man and heads up the path. On her way she encounters a weeping hippopotamus mother with a baby carriage. "What's the matter?" asks Betty. "The Old Man of the Mountain," replies the hippo, opening up the carriage to reveal triplet babies with long white beards and snaggle teeth.

Undaunted, Betty carries on. While she is looking into a cave at the top of the mountain, the Old Man appears and chases her in. Inside the cave she sings a duet with him (picture 1). Calloway, who seemed to relish scary parts, voices the Old Man. During the duet Betty pulls the Old Man’s beard in a somewhat provocative fashion, but the Old Man tells her, “You gotta kick the gong to get along with me!”

Then Betty says, "What you gonna do now?" to which the Old Man replies, "Gonna do the best I can!" This became a famous Calloway quote, most recently used in the film "Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) in which the character Oogie Boogie is a tribute to Cab Calloway. The Old Man begins to dance around in the cave. His figure is rotoscoped over footage of Calloway dancing. In the background, skeletons and skulls decorate the Old Man's cave

Suddenly the Old Man makes a grab for Betty, who runs away. He pursues her, singing the Scat Song, and bugs come out of his beard and refresh him with beer as he runs. The Old Man gets hold of Betty’s dress, which she wiggles out of. At this stage of her distinguished career Betty lost her outer clothing in just about every cartoon – maybe her knickers had an equity card :D. The dress slaps the Old Man and runs over to where Betty is hiding behind a tree. She slips into her dress and climbs the tree. The Old Man waits under the tree, still singing the Scat Song.

The mountain animals rescue Betty (who, quite frankly, has only herself to blame and doesn’t deserve to be rescued). They tie the Old Man’s arms and legs in knots and tickle his feet and the Old Man brings his song, and the cartoon, to an end.

This is an entertaining cartoon, but not among the very best. It is remarkable for Calloway’s singing, especially the Scat Song, but is not of the standard of the other two Boop/Calloway shorts Minnie the Moocher and Snow White. The eerie, spooky atmosphere was invoked much more strongly in these shorts - and in Betty Boop’s Museum and Bimbo’s Initiation. The animation in Old Man of the Mountain is also substandard.

The cartoon generates discomfort in other ways. The hippopotamus mother is shocking even by today’s standards. The Fleischers kept Betty’s dog ears throughout 1930 and 1931 because she was Bimbo’s girlfriend and Bimbo, for all he moved and acted like a human, was a cartoon dog. Here, however, we have the Old Man of the Mountain – weird but most definitely human – impregnating a hippo.

The drugs reference in this cartoon could not be more blatant. The Old Man invites Betty to “kick the gong” – that is to smoke opium – if she wants to get along with him. There is, of course, no indication that she understands him, and still less that she is inclined to accept his invitation. The Fleischers may not have understood the reference either, but somebody at Fleischer Studios did.

Finally, the bigots protested that Calloway, a black man, provided the voice for a white character – but then the bigots will always complain about something.

Poor Cinderella was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Seymour Kneitel, William Henning and Roland (Doc) Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Unusually in a Fleischer short, there was a written plot by Dan Gordon. Margie Hines (listed as Margie Heinz) joined regulars Mae Questel and Ann Rothschild to provide the voice of Betty Boop. Margie was to take over from Mae as Betty’s main “voice” when Fleischer Studios moved to Florida in 1938.

Betty Boop was popular, her cartoons were making money, and Paramount decided to make a big-budget cartoon. Not that the other cartoons were cheap to make. In these pre-computer days 24 separate drawings were required for each second of film. However, a ten-minute cartoon made in colour (as opposed to being colourised later) was a major undertaking.

There is no doubt that this short when originally made was visually stunning, although it seems almost impossible to get a decent copy nowadays. Strangely, Betty is depicted as a redhead, although her hair is very dark in all her previous and subsequent cartoons, and she is obviously a brunette. Maybe she had a makeover for her big opportunity :D.

Poor, ragged Cinderella (Betty) hears the announcement of the ball from her window. She desperately wants to go. She sings to her mirror and dances out her fantasy with her broom (picture 2). During her song, Cinderella complains that she never has any fun and she makes it plain what she means by “fun.” Betty Boop is not the usual one-dimensional, peaches-and-cream insipid Cinderella. But then, nobody ever accused the pre-Hays Betty of being insipid!

Cinderella prepares her ugly stepsisters’ clothes, dresses them, and they leave for the ball. Poor Cinderella sings to a candle. The flame turns into her fairy godmother (a Mae West caricature). Betty goes to the cellar and gets a pumpkin and a cage full of white mice. Two lizards follow her out of the cellar. The rapport between Boop/Cinderella and West/Godmother – definitely two of a kind - gives us one of the most remarkable sequences in the cartoon.

The animals are transformed into horses and footmen and the pumpkin becomes a coach. Cinderella is reclothed (from her underwear up – so fans of the panty shot get two for the price of one). Her fairy godmother warns her to be sure to return before midnight, and she sets off for the palace. Picture 3 shows Betty at the ball. Her fairy godmother’s idea of a ball gown is daring to say the least, but very much Betty Boop’s taste – that is to say that it makes a topless dancer look distinctly overdressed by comparison! Betty’s pretty strapless bra (unsurprisingly) makes guest appearances throughout the cartoon.

The Prince falls for Cinderella (literally) and they dance. The clock strikes midnight and she does a runner, leaving behind a single glass slipper. She tries to enter the coach but the twelfth bell strikes (picture 4). She is back in her old clothes, with some confused mice and lizards and a very unhappy pumpkin (who realises that he will now become a pie).

The Prince picks up the slipper and announces that he will marry whomever it fits. The slipper is put on top of a pyramid structure, the hopeful ladies (including the ugly stepsisters) ascend and then slide down the other side when the footwear does not fit. Cinderella, to the derision of the sisters, is the last to try. The slipper fits, and Cinderella and the Prince marry right away. Picture 5 shows Betty/Cinderella’s eye-popping wedding dress. Her hair seems to have gone a bit off-colour, but maybe that’s due to the poor quality of the capture.

Picture 5 also shows a nice touch of Fleischer surrealism. The Prince is drawn as two-dimensional – but then the Handsome Prince in fairy tales is always two-dimensional!

Finally the stepsisters squabble and get squashed by the closing gate. The cartoon ends.

There is a wide body of opinion that says that this was the best Betty Boop cartoon. I disagree. It was a good cartoon, beautifully made, and the pumpkin and fairy godmother were excellent. But this is the standard Cinderella story. It lacks the Fleischers’ elliptical take on storylines that was evident in Jack and the Beanstalk, Dizzy Red Riding Hood and especially Snow White. There’s too much Hans-Christian Andersen and not enough Max Fleischer.

However, Betty Boop was on the crest of a wave and riding it like a champion surfer. Her next cartoon would also be remarkable, and she was also about to meet some mean cats, and a couple of scary gorillas!

Mooch

The Moocher

08-24-2005, 09:41 AM

I discussed Is My Palm Read (1933) in a previous post, and spoke about Betty's lipstick applicator. I love this picture, but I couldn't get it without Copyright notices.

OK, I've now found a colourised version. Enjoy.

Mooch

The Moocher

08-26-2005, 11:55 AM

The Fleischers never repeated the colour cartoon experiment. Possibly the expense of Poor Cinderella was not recouped, but in my opinion the more likely reason is that Paramount, to protect its considerable investment, restrained the free-wheeling Fleisher studio and insisted on a reasonably conventional, mainstream Cinderella story. In late 1933 the Fleischers went back to what they did best - black and white, funny, risqué surreal cartoons with lots of atmosphere and torrid jazz (or sometimes classical music). 1933 ended with the following shorts:

I Heard
Morning, Noon and Night
Betty Boop's Hallowe'en Party
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

I Heard was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard Bowsky and Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Don Redman provides the jazz in this cartoon. While Don never reached the stellar heights of Louis Armstrong, he is very highly rated indeed by jazz musicians and aficionados, and in this cartoon he is at the top of his form. The cartoon begins with live footage of Don Redman and His Orchestra performing Chant of the Weed. Then the animation begins

It’s lunchtime at the Never Mine, announced by a steam whistle blast. The whistle then pulls out a lunch box and begins its own lunch. The coal miners pass through a shower to clean off before entering Betty Boop’s tavern. A waiter (voiced by Redman) tells them how wonderful the tavern singer (and owner) is.

Betty comes down a staircase and sings, with mice providing the chorus (picture 1). The song is about how everything she does, she does well. Given the ending of Betty Boop’s Busy Bee, we can only hope she doesn’t do the cooking! She then sings a duet with the waiter.

The steam whistle finishes its lunch, lights a cigar, and whistles for lunch break to end. All the miners leave the tavern and wash their dirt back on again with a soot shower, and return to the mine to the tune of I Heard.

Inside the mine Bimbo hammers through to a new section and sees something alarming. He phones Betty, who rushes to the dumb waiter (which has a dumb-looking waiter in it – picture 2), and uses it to travel down into the mine. The rope breaks and Betty lands on top of Bimbo, which results in her dress transferring itself to him, leaving Betty, yet again, in her underwear (picture3). Bimbo’s shocked expression when he finds himself wearing a dress is one of the funnier moments of the short.

Bimbo tears off the dress and puts it back on Betty. He then pushes her (by her butt) to the hole in the wall. Inside, they see a team of ghosts playing baseball with a bomb. The ghosts hurl the bomb to Betty and Bimbo. One ghost loses its sheet, revealing its skeleton.

The bomb ends up on top of the elevator that Betty and Bimbo use to escape from the mine. Bimbo sees the bomb, and sends the elevator back down into the mine. The explosion hurls coal and ghosts into the air. Betty catches the coal in coal cars, and Bimbo catches the ghosts in a series of graves. The cartoon ends with a few bars of Chant of the Weed.

This cartoon has been criticised because few of the jokes are original. The restaurant gags are similar to those used in Dizzy Dishes and Betty Boop’s Bizzy Bee. Ghosts appeared in Betty Boop’s Museum and Is My Palm Read.

However, this is a lively, rumbustuous cartoon with plenty action. The steam whistle is very funny, and Bimbo in a dress is hilarious. The music is, arguably, at least as good as in I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You and Snow White. I Heard is possibly the most typical pre-Hays Betty Boop Cartoon. Betty is at her lively, risqué best. This is a fun cartoon and, in my opinion, one of the best that Betty ever made.

Morning Noon and Night was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Thomas Johnson and David Tendlar. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This cartoon departs from Betty Boop’s usual hot jazz scores and instead features some (very good) classical music by Rubinoff and his orchestra. The cartoon starts with live footage of Rubinoff, and then the animation begins.

It’s morning, and the sun rises. He’s had a very heavy night, but he removes the ice pack from his head and shines in the sky. All the birds awaken and start their day. This is a rather long and over-cute sequence, somewhat reminiscent of Disney, but is rescued by some very funny footage of a baby bird learning to fly (with a safety rope). Betty emerges from her house and feeds the birds.

The baby bird sees a worm and chases it along the road, only to meet the booze-swilling Tom Kats Social Club driving along in the opposite direction. The cats chase the baby bird and an owl spots them coming. The birds all flee in panic, but one stops to pull the cord on an alarm box. Betty appears from behind the alarm box (the cord is tied round her waist) and organises some of the larger birds to deal with the cats.

The cats run over some birdhouses and stop at a chicken coop. Betty slaps the leading cat, but this only encourages them. A cat chops down a tree, which turns into some benches and a table. A cat grabs Betty and forces her to dance with him (picture 4). The birds alert a tough rooster, who punches the cats and rescues Betty. Other birds dive-bomb the cats with a hornets’ nest. A general battle ensues, during which the rooster punches one cat so hard it hits the sun. The sun turns into the moon, and night falls. A cat is dropped in a river and another is tied to a fence, then dropped on to the ground, where it falls over a cliff and becomes a lot of little cats.

The rooster knocks the final cat out, Betty declares him the winner, and the cartoon ends.

This is an ordinary cartoon (by Betty Boop’s high standards). The initial sequence is over-long, and over-cute. The baby bird is funny, and Betty being dragged from behind the alarm box by the pull-cord is the highlight of the short. The music is good, but the cartoon lacks the atmosphere, and the menace, of the jazz cartoons.

Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Willard Bowsky and Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This time the ghosts are on Betty’s side. It’s the spookiest evening of the year, and Betty has invited her friends to a Hallowe’en party. She sings a very lively version of Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing, with her guests joining in the chorus. However, an uninvited gorilla gatecrashes and causes trouble. The film King Kong had recently been released and gorilla villains were all the rage. However, the Fleischers could claim, with some justification, to have pioneered villainous apes. Gus the Gorilla was one of their original stars (for example, in The Herring Murder Mystery – 1931).

Betty summons help from the real spooks and spectres in her own unique way - she bends over and wiggles her frilly butt at them (three times). The ghosts sort the gorilla out and everyone can enjoy Hallowe’en.

In spite of Hallowe’en, spooks and spectres, this cartoon is a potboiler and the Fleischers realised it. The next cartoon was to recreate the scariness and excitement of King Kong, much more convincingly.

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer, and animated by Seymour Kneitel and William Henning. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Rubinoff and his orchestra provide the classical music accompaniment and the live action prelude. Then the animation begins.

A parcel leaves a toy factory (which promptly collapses) and is delivered by train and plane to a toyshop. The plane drops the package through the chimney, and two flames stand aside to let it fall on to the floor. The packet opens and a Betty Boop doll falls out.

The other toys come to life and crown Betty as their queen (picture 5). The animation of the toys to the accompaniment of classical music is very clever, but tends to go on overlong, although there is a nice sequence when two wooden rabbits go into a tunnel and emerge at the other sides with a crowd of baby rabbits in tow.

The wooden soldiers fire off rockets in honour of their queen, and one of the rockets hits a rag-doll gorilla. The gorilla stomps through the toys, breaking several of them, but decapitating his own doll in the process. He sees Betty, and wants her head for his doll. In a tribute to King Kong and its female star, Fay Wray, the ape climbs up the shelves of the toyshop (like climbing a skyscraper) and uses a toy crane to kidnap Betty. He ties her to a cutting board and starts a circular saw to cut off her head.

To the tune of the Leon Jessel classic, The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, the toy soldiers come to her rescue. They fire their guns at the ape, severing Betty’s bonds in the process and she runs off, pursued by the ape. Toy aircraft attack the ape (again a tribute to King Kong) and tie him up. All the toys end up in the damaged toys section, become inanimate toys again, and the cartoon ends.

The classical music in this cartoon takes it out of the ordinary, the parting flames and the rabbits are funny, and the fight between the ape and the soldiers is excellent. Nevertheless, the sequence when the toys come to life is overlong. This is a good cartoon, and was probably very well received in late 1933, when King Kong mania was at its peak. It is not, however, one of the best Betty Boop cartoons.

1933 was a classic year for Betty Boop. Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions, Is My Palm Read, Betty Boop's Penthouse, Betty Boop's Big Boss The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers and The Old Man of the Mountain are good cartoons and Snow White, Popeye the Sailor, Poor Cinderella and I Heard are outstanding. 1934 was to bring some more good things, and something very bad indeed….

Mooch

The Moocher

08-29-2005, 05:23 AM

I'm feeling a bit lonely here :( .

I'll continue with this work, but it would be nice to know if anyone's reading it.

Mooch

The Moocher

08-30-2005, 09:35 AM

For Betty Boop, 1934 started in the same way as 1933 ended, although the storm clouds were gathering and it was becoming increasingly obvious that the entertainment industry was about to be forced to clean up its act. Apart from her risqué outfits that sometimes did not stay on for an entire cartoon, the main criticism of Betty Boop was that she had no regular boyfriend. She might end up smooching with her boss or a statue of George Washington, but in the next cartoon she was fancy free and on the lookout for a spot of boop-oop-a-doop.

In the 1930s every respectable woman had a steady man. So the stage was set for Betty to have a boyfriend – with a strong character, a sharp sense of humour and a talent that would match her own. Unfortunately, Fearless Fred met none of these criteria….

The cartoons released in January through March 1934 were:

She Wronged Him Right
Red Hot Mamma
Ha! Ha! Ha!

She Wronged Him Right was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Roland Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is starring in the melodrama She Wronged Him Right in the Tanktown Theatre. The audience is encouraged to hiss the villain and requested not to stick chewing gum under the seats.

The curtain opens to reveal Betty at the Betty Boop Farm, pacing in circles with a worried look on her face. A cat and a mouse are doing the same. Betty is holding a note that reads “Pay Mortgage Today or Else – Heeza Ratty.” A hook from offstage pulls the farmhouse to the side, revealing all the farm animals also pacing round in circles. The villain appears fro behind the scenery and the audience duly hiss. Heeza Ratty is a wonderfully sleazy villain.

Ratty enters the farmhouse and demands payment of the mortgage. Betty looks in the top of her left stocking and down the front of her dress but finds nothing there (except Betty). Ratty decides to take advantage of the situation and makes a grab for Betty (picture 1). He proposes marriage, although an aside to the audience indicates that his intentions may be rather less honourable. Betty pulls his top hat down over his head. He picks her up and she struggles, fights and screams.

The scene switches to Fred, the handsome lumberjack. He is a total ham, bowing to the audience, chopping down tress and skinning the odd ferocious bear. Fred hears Betty’s screams and rushes to her rescue. There follows some magnificently over-the-top dialog, resulting in Ratty lassoing Fred and tying him to a horse, which drags him away.

Clueless he may be, but Fred is strong. He pulls the horse back towards Betty and Ratty (picture 2). In a truly Fleischeresque sequence he sees a knife on the ground, frees a hand from his bindings, picks up the knife, puts it in his teeth, puts his hand back under the rope, then cuts the rope with the knife.

Meanwhile Ratty has tied Betty up inside a huge glass tank. He gets in a rowing boat and opens a valve, filling the tank (picture 3). With water rising round her, Betty, bizarrely, tries to wring out the hem of her dress. Ratty again asks Betty to marry him, but she says she loves Fred. She only met Fred a minute before, so this is fast work even by Betty Boop’s standards!

As the water reaches Betty’s nose, Fred arrives, leaps into the tank and fights Ratty, to the accompaniment of theatrical thunder and lightning. Fred throws Ratty through the side of the tank, and all the water pours out the resulting jagged hole. Betty is saved, and is suitably grateful. Ratty takes a bow, followed by Fred and Betty. The audience applauds. It would also be cheering, except that it is under water. The cartoon ends.

This is good fun. The show within a show format allows Ratty, Betty and Fred to go totally over the top and ham it up magnificently. The cartoon is not one of the greats, lacking the atmosphere and the music of Snow White or Minnie the Moocher. Nevertheless, Ratty is excellent and this is an entertaining cartoon.

However, Betty is out of character as the helpless little heroine, and if the purpose of the cartoon was to introduce Fred as a major character and Betty’s new boyfriend, then it signally failed. Fred is too handsome – almost to the point of being effeminate - but mainly he is boring. Even in a totally hammy play he comes across as two-dimensional. I can’t help thinking about the police chief’s line in Betty Boop’s Big Boss (1933), “We gotta get this guy; he’s a bad actor.”

Red Hot Mamma was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Dave Tendlar. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This is Betty back to her best – and most controversial.

It’s a cold winter night and Betty is freezing in her bed. It would, of course, be unkind to suggest that she should change into a less skimpy nightdress. She wakes up, closes the window as a couple of chickens fly in. She lights her fire and settles down to sleep on the rug in front of the fireplace. The temperature in the room mounts until the chickens start cooking and the candles on the mantelpiece droop and melt. An igloo in a picture on Betty's wall melts, and the Eskimo in the picture takes off his fur coat and poses in his underwear.

Finally, the fireplace turns into an entrance to Hades. Betty enters Hades to the tune of Did You Ever See a Dream Walking. A tiny flame pursues her, making a thorough nuisance of itself until she spanks it. Betty trips and seizes the rope hanging from a couple of horned bells, which start to ring. The floor disintegrates under Betty's feet, dropping her down into a lower level. The melody changes to the hot jazz numbrt H*ll's Bells.

Incoming souls emerge from a chute labeled "Freshmen." Devils dress the new souls in devil costumes and send them off to the Freshman Hall, which is set ablaze by Hell's fire department using a dragon fire hose.

Betty sings H*ll’s Bells and dances with fames and demons. The flames coalesce into Satan eating a fiery ice-cream cone. Satan turns up the heat and then, like any other villain, goes after the lovely Betty, accompanied by a posse of large demons. Betty gives the demons the cold shoulder and Satan an icy stare, and H*ll freezes over!

Betty falls through the ice and wakes up to find the fire out, the windows open, and snow blowing in. She gets back into bed and a pile of blankets descends on her as the cartoon ends.

This is an amazing cartoon. Betty is taller than usual, graceful, and exceptionally well animated. The jokes are original and funny, and there is a superb rendition of the jazz number Hell’s Bells. As far as quality, entertainment, imagination and atmosphere are concerned, this cartoon deserves its place as one of the best Betty Boop cartoons - except that hardly anyone got to see it!

Betty’s nightdress is virtually transparent and she is continually walking in front of fiery pits. There is no actual nudity in the cartoon, but the critics (not all of them prudes) complained that, for all intents and purposes, Betty Boop might as well have been naked throughout it.

Red Hot Mamma was banned in United Kingdom. Elsewhere showings were heavily restricted because the distributors were reluctant to handle it. It is now very difficult to get a good copy of the original. I was therefore surprised and delighted when I came across picture 4 while looking for something else. I won’t apologise for the poor quality. Any captures from this cartoon are pure gold.

So, what were the Fleischers playing at? They could have made this short with Betty in a slightly less transparent nightdress, giving subtle hints of her shapely body. That would have been acceptable, and probably more erotic. Instead, a wonderful cartoon was turned into ammunition for the puritanical pressure groups just as these groups were becoming powerful. Red Hot Mamma did Betty no favours.

Max and Dave were strong characters and didn’t like being told what to do. Like Betty, they had more courage than common sense. No creative artist – and few were more creative than Max Fleischer – likes being told what to do. Possibly the Fleischers believed that public opinion would be on their side, and that high quality, entertaining, artistic cartoons such as Red Hot Mamma would always be in demand. If so, they badly underestimated the strength of the opposition.

Ha! Ha! Ha! was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Roland Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This is a partial remake of the silent 1924 Out of the Inkwell animation The Cure, staring Koko the Clown.

Koko eats a candy bar and gets very bad toothache. Betty takes him to the dentist and decides to extract his tooth herself. Any sensible clown would have run for safety at this point, but Koko agrees. Betty’s dentistry is on a par with her cooking, and she releases laughing gas over the entire unsuspecting town. Soon everyone is in fits of hysterics. This cartoon doesn’t have much of a story, but is entertaining and very funny. In this respect, it is similar to Betty Boop’s May Party (1933). Badly handled, jokes such as the laughing gravestones and associated laughing ghosts could have been in very bad taste. Here they are hilarious. The lack of storyline prevents this cartoon from being rated as one of the best Betty Boop shorts, but it is certainly one of the funniest.

1934 started with three very good cartoons, with Red Hot Mamma standing out. However, criticism of Fleischer Studios was growing, and even Max couldn’t ignore it when cartoons were banned or distributors refused to show them. The next three cartoons were also of a high standard, but none were as controversial as Red Hot Mamma.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-01-2005, 10:01 AM

1934 started with some very high quality Betty Boop cartoons. In spite of the controversy surrounding Red Hot Mamma, Betty was very popular and still on the crest of the wave. However, to coin a cliché, she was riding for a fall. The next three cartoons, the last of the pre-Hays era, were:

Betty in Blunderland
Betty Boop's Rise to Fame
Betty Boop's Trial

Betty in Blunderland was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Roland Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty in is completing an Alice in Wonderland jigsaw, and is singing a rather childish if charming song about finding the jigsaw pieces for the White Rabbit. The tune (Merrily We Roll Along) is one she uses in several cartoons (for example, Snow White – 1933) and seems to indicate a very young, vulnerable Betty. Her clock tells her it’s time for bed and she falls asleep just as she completes the rabbit. The White Rabbit comes to life, and Betty follows him through a mirror into Blunderland (Wonderland with subway stations). Her hair grows long, held with an Alice-band (what else), and her dress becomes a wide skirted Alice dress (but still backless and far too short). Also, Alice never moved like Betty, nor did she flash a frilly garter. It seems Betty isn’t totally child-like and helpless after all.

To the tune of Did You Ever See a Dream Walking (played rather more upbeat than in Red Hot Mamma) Betty falls down a shaft, grabbing a clothes peg to secure her rising hemline. A pot of jam turns into the newsreel presenter Jamison (Jam) Handy. Betty crawls through a tunnel, and drinks some shrink-ola. She becomes small enough to enter the door to Blunderland, and a shower of shrink-ola shrinks her clothes to fit. She spies on the Mad Hatter through a hedge, and then, with the help of the March Hare she pulls all the other characters out of the Hatter’s hat.

In a somewhat Disneyesque sequence, Betty sings “How Do You Do" to the Blunderland inhabitants. The scene is rescued by some Fleischeresque images of the Carpenter playing a musical saw and the Walrus using a seesaw to get fish out of a goldfish bowl (picture 1). The Carpenter seems to be a caricature of the actor Ed Wynn. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are the baseball player Babe Ruth. The Duchess does an Irish jig. Some descriptions of this cartoon refer to this character as the Queen of Hearts, but Betty definitely calls her “Duchess.”

Suddenly the Jabberwocky appears out of the hat and carries Betty off. The other characters give chase. The Fleischers were especially good at chases, and this shows the full breadth of their fertile imaginations. A seal fires lobsters at the Jabberwocky. A tortoise mounts a machine gun on its back, which a smaller tortoise fires (picture 2). A lion riding a unicorn (no kidding) jabs the monster. The Jabberwocky stops at the edge of a cliff, all the other characters climb on its back, and it shrugs them off over the cliff edge, dropping Betty in the process.

Betty falls back on to her own floor, where she lies, still asleep. The Blunderland characters fall round her as parts of the jigsaw puzzle. The White Rabbit tries to tiptoe away but Betty wakes, grabs him and puts him back in the puzzle where he belongs. The cartoon ends.

This is the part that Betty was born (sorry drawn) to play. Her little-girl-in-a-woman’s-body persona is ideal for Alice, and she gets to trip girlishly about, clutching her already dangerously high hemline (picture 3). If anyone had a more surreal imagination than Max Fleischer, it had to be the truly eccentric Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Caroll. Combine the two and you would expect something really weird. Instead, this is an utterly charming cartoon. The darkness and danger of Dodgson’s Wonderland and Looking Glass worlds are not evident, nor are the weird spooky settings often found in Betty Boop cartoons. Blunderland is a beautiful, friendly place – apart from the occasional Jabberwocky.

Nevertheless there is sufficient imaginative surrealism and Fleischer humour to satisfy the dyed-in-the-wool Betty Boop fan. In short, this is a delightful cartoon, and one of the best that Betty ever made.

Betty Boop's Rise to Fame was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. No animators are credited on the title screen, but because this is a compilation, most of the Fleischer Studios’ animation tem would be involved. In the 1930s there was little concept of exploiting a star’s popularity. There was comparatively little Betty Boop marketing spin-off, and this was the only compilation. Compare this with the Simpsons!

In this cartoon the live action starts with a reporter interviewing Max Fleischer. At the reporter’s request, Max draws Betty and asks her to exhibit extracts from her cartoons. He produces scene settings from Stopping The Show, Bamboo Island and The Old Man Of The Mountain.

Betty hitches a ride on her “uncle Max’s” pen and we see an extract from Stopping the Show, where Betty impersonates Fanny Brice (I'm An Indian – picture 4) and Maurice Chevalier (Hello, Beautiful!). She also sings a few bars of That’s My Weakness Now, but as Betty Boop, not Helen Kane. Betty then walks out of the cartoon, changes into her lei and grass skirt behind the Max’s famous inkwell, and performs her dance from Bamboo Island.

Betty again comes out of the cartoon and on to Max’s desk, where she changes behind some books for her Old Man of the Mountain role. She duets with the Old Man (Cab Calloway), who then chases her right out of the cartoon. Betty hides behind the books, a desk ornament comes to life and knocks the Old Man down, Max opens the inkwell, and Betty dives in, covering the unfortunate reporter with ink in the process.

“Did you get everything Mr Reporter?” she asks coyly, and the cartoon ends.

The major criticism of Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame is that a better selection could have been made. Extracts from (for example) Snow White, Poor Cinderella and I Heard would have been a considerable improvement. I believe, however, that the point of this cartoon is to experiment with the mix of live action and animation. This was attempted briefly in I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You, when Louis Armstrong’s singing head was transposed on to a cartoon sequence, but this cartoon goes much further, and can be seen as a trailblazer for the much more technically advanced Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

The selection of cartoons is therefore dependent on the live action script rather than vice versa. Betty needed to sing or dance and exit neatly from a stage (or beach) in the first two sequences, and be chased out in the third. The major part of the animation action is from Stopping the Show. In fact, most of this cartoon is shown, with only the Helen Kane impersonation removed. Paramount seemed to have been fond of the first Betty Boop cartoon, but it wasn’t suitable for distribution in its cut form. It’s use here, with short clips from Bamboo Island and Old Man of the Mountain interspersed with live action seems a sensible option.

Whatever the reason for the selection it works well, although the Maurice Chevalier impression could possibly have been cut in favour of a longer extract from Bamboo Island. Stopping the Show was (in my opinion) a tedious cartoon when it was first released, but this treatment lends a lot more interest. Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame may not have been one of the best Betty Boop cartoons, but it is entertaining, especially the dialog between Betty and her uncle Max, and the inking of the reporter – who looks as if nobody had warned him. The mixture of animation and live action also makes the cartoon highly significant.

Betty and controversy were never far apart. The Bamboo Island dance had already been shown in Popeye the Sailor and (of course) Bamboo Isle, and it was more or less established that Betty did not allow the lei to slip too far – even for the keenest eyes. However, while she was changing for the part behind the inkwell, was too much shown? I think not. After the problems with Red Hot Mamma the Fleischers were genuinely trying to make more family friendly cartoons, and a gratuitous flash would have been over-the-top, even for Max..

Betty Boop’s Trial was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Fearless Fred rides again – this time he’s a motorcycle cop. He pursues Betty’s car (she never was the world’s slowest driver) and makes advances to her. Betty Boop was never immune to advances from a handsome man, but she likes to decide when they should be made, so Fred gets nowhere. Somewhat unchivalrously, he books her for speeding.

Betty pleads innocent and is brought to trial (picture 4). Fortunately for her the jury is all male and there’s no way they are going to convict her. In a final gesture of gratitude and defiance, Betty gives a grateful twirl, showing her shapely bottom. She then decides that now she has the choice, Fred is decidedly snoggable. It is probably fortunate that the cartoon ends at this point.

This was the last time she would be able to flash her lingerie. Betty would survive. She would even make some entertaining cartoons. But Dangerous Nan McGrew had eaten her last gun, Nancy Lee had shut up shop, and never again would Betty Boop walk up the mountain to confront the Old Man when everyone else was running down. Betty would no longer be the happy, extrovert, independent, feisty, risqué character that audiences had learned to love. What happened to that Betty has been described as victimisation and as scapegoating. I have another word.

Murder.

Mooch

bboop480

09-01-2005, 06:07 PM

Oh Yes, I Enjoy It...and Thank You!

The Moocher

09-02-2005, 05:10 AM

Thank you bboop480!

I am anything but omniscient, and I get things wrong. If anyone sees an error in any of my posts, or disagrees with either my description or my comments, then please post. This thread is for discussing Betty Boop shorts, not just for describing them.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-02-2005, 05:21 AM

It is easy to condemn the Hays Commission as a bunch of bigoted killjoys who set up a series of ridiculous rules and destroyed the fun and spontaneity of the entertainment industry. As always, the truth is a lot more complex.

There were certainly bigots and killjoys on the Commission. There was a lot of input from religious groups, particularly the Catholic Church. Anti-semitism and racism were never eradicated from the Commission’s considerations, although it was never overtly racist or anti-semitic.

However, the Hays Commission was not set up by the Religious Right, nor by anti-semitic groups such as the American Nazi Party. The heads of the major film studios set up the Commission, with particularly strong support from prominent Jewish filmmakers such as Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B Meyer. So what was going on?

Rather a lot was going on. I fear I need to abandon the subject of the lovely Betty Boop and talk about some boring old history.

In January 1933, Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Jews had been persecuted throughout history, but now Jewish persecution was the official policy of a major European country. Even in the USA – possibly the most tolerant society in the world – there were anti-semitic groups. The American Nazi party gained new members, some of them rich and influential. The political right, even if it was not anti-semitic, was non-interventionist and refused to condemn Hitler’s policies.

While America was never immune from anti-semitism, it generally welcomed immigrants and had a long and honourable tradition of Jewish immigration. Most of these Jewish immigrants were hard working and intelligent, and many became rich and successful in their new country. Unlike most pogroms, Nazi policies targeted all Jews, not just the poor and defenceless. Rich American Jews like Meyer and Goldwyn watched the rise of the American Nazi party with considerable horror.

The early 1930s was a miserable time for most Americans. The Depression bit deep. During hard times the political scene tends to swing to the right, and immigrants are treated with more hostility. Jews fleeing to the USA from Germany, Austria and Poland in the 1930s did not encounter the normal warm-hearted American welcome. Sadly, the group that welcomed them least were their established and successful co-religionists, who saw the rising tide of anti-semitism as a threat to their own position.

On the 5th December 1933, Prohibition was repealed. Most saw this as a victory for common sense, but the Religious Right saw it as a defeat. Throughout the rural American Bible Belt, zealot preachers (many of them openly anti-semitic) searched for another target. They found it.

Some commentators describe the American entertainment industry of the 1930s as violent and lurid – even as obscene. Analysis of 1930s films and stage shows does not bear this out. There were some violent gangster films, but Prohibition America was a violent place. Possibly the girls in vaudeville and stage musicals wore rather less than was wise, and pretty little cartoon characters (one in particular) liked to flash their lingerie, but by today’s standards it was all rather tame and harmless. There was no television, life was difficult, and the public flocked to whatever entertainment they could afford, often in family groups. They neither needed nor wanted obscenity to draw them in.

However, the entertainment industry was getting a bad press. The private lives of silent film stars had initially been protected from the press by the studios’ press offices, but this had changed. The unfortunate Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle was accused of raping and abusing Virginia Rappe at a drunken party on Labor Day weekend in 1921, resulting in the girl’s death. The Press trumpeted the accusations, but gave very little publicity to Fatty’s acquittal, which cleared him of all wrongdoing other than an association with a woman who, if not a professional, was certainly a lady of questionable virtue.

The Arbuckle case opened the floodgates. By the 1930s professional gossip columnists such as Dorothy Parker made a living out of dishing scandal – and making it up where it didn’t exist. There was plenty real scandal to be dished, however. The private lives of stars such as Clara Bow and Jean Harlow were a gift to the purple press.

From pulpits across the country, and especially in the Bible Belt, preachers raged against the Hollywood “Babylon.” Those with anti-semitic leanings blamed the “Godless Jews” (their words, not mine!!) who were “brainwashing the American public with their lewd films.” The influential American Nazi Party was happy to fan the flames. No wonder Sam Goldwyn was getting twitchy!

Things came to a head in April 1934 when the Catholic Church set up a committee of bishops named The Legion of Decency. These Bishops were to tell the priests what movies were proper to see, and the priests in turn would in turn tell the parishioners. This scared the Hollywood studios. The studios wanted no part of control by the Catholic Church (or by any or all of the Protestant Churches either) and still less did they want Government intervention

Hollywood had rules, but up to this point the studios had ignored them. These rules were known as the Hays Code, and had been drawn up by William Hays (picture 1), a Republican politician, in 1930. In an act of self-protection, The American movie industry set up the Hays Commission in 1934 to enforce the Hays Code.

William Hays may have been conservative, but he was no fanatic. Many of the provisions of the Hays Code, if sensibly applied, would have been perfectly reasonable. However, even though Hays headed the committee, Joe Breen, a reporter with strong religious leanings, enforced its rulings. Studios had to send finished screenplays and reels of the movies to the committee, which in turn listed all the corrections that needed to done. Without the committee’s stamp none of the distributors would touch a movie.

There were some odd rules – or interpretations of rules - and some weird restrictions. Nevertheless, the Hays Commission kept the American entertainment industry alive, if controlled. The Legion of Decency would have killed it. However, a lot of cleaning up needed to be done, and seen to be done. Or, to put it brutally, scapegoats were needed.

Clara Bow had made her last film in 1933. This was censored, but Clara was out of the limelight. Poor Jean Harlow was hit very hard. Jean played bad girls. Male villains were acceptable, provided they were totally evil and adequately punished. Bad girls had suddenly gone out of fashion. She continued to make films, but her career nosedived. Jean’s early death in 1937 was from natural causes, but it is highly probable that misery was a factor.

Mae West was reaching “a certain age” and was switching to comedy, parodying her own screen siren image. Another scapegoat was needed. The choice was obvious.

The major studios wanted to protect Hollywood. Fleischer studios, based in New York, weren’t part of the establishment. The Fleischers, especially Max, were mavericks who had pushed the cartoon genre to its limits with the adult, surreal and sexy Betty Boop. Betty was unpopular with racists. Anti-semitics seized on her role in Minnie the Moocher. Moralists (with some justification) cited Red Hot Mamma. But where Betty was really unpopular was with traditionalists who did not like a feisty, independent woman with no regular boyfriend. That shook the very foundations of their society. Had Betty been the “silly, helpless little flapper” that some analysts describe, things would not have gone so hard for her.

Also, powerful men like Goldwyn and Meyer were running scared of anti-semitism. They did not appreciate mavericks like the Fleischers giving Jewish filmmakers a bad name.

Betty’s hemline dropped and her neckline rose. Her garter went (although it was to make a comeback). Her dress stayed on. She became taller and less curvaceous. Her head and eyes became smaller. She no longer sang hot jazz duets with the major black musicians of the day.

However, it was Betty’s character change that did her the most harm. She was no longer the brave girl who went down mineshafts to confront ghosts, or faced up to Satan in his lair. Instead Betty was the responsible, even prim, voice of authority who tried to keep cute pets (such as Pudgy) out of trouble. She was the housewife or the school-marm. She scowled as frequently as she used to smile. Boyfriends, such as Fearless Fred were still around to get her out of trouble, but boop-oop-a-dooping was strictly offscreen.

Her former audience, mostly adult men, were disappointed and deserted in droves. Children, her new target audience, didn’t like this authority figure. If they wanted to be scolded, they’d stay at home with Mom.

Could the Fleischers have stopped the rot or deflected the worst of the criticism? Would it have helped if they had given her a husband or permanent boyfriend? Al Capp retained the lovely (if clueless) Daisy Mae (picture 2) in her underdressed glory by marrying her to Li’l Abner. However, Capp, a staunch Republican, was part of the establishment. The Fleischers were not. I don’t think anything they could have done would have saved Betty.

The code was uneven. Disney could do almost anything he wanted. Minnie Mouse retained her short skirts and bloomers, although (or because) she was unlikely to become a *** symbol. The Fleischers and Betty, on the other hand, were to be dealt with severely.

Boop had to go. She was tough, and hung around for a long time. Would it have been kinder to kill her off at once? Possibly, but the world would have been deprived of the cute, amusing Pudgy, and the very funny Grampy.

The Hays Commission, with the entire movie industry behind it, was a wheel to crush a butterfly. Poor Betty Boop.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-02-2005, 10:19 AM

When I started this project, I intended going only as far as the implementation of the Hays Code, when Betty Boop changed and was no longer the Betty I know and love. However, even with her more outrageous traits removed she was still a lovely lady, and some of her cartoons bring up points of interest.

Many, on the other hand, were boring “potboilers.” The latter I will dismiss with just a couple of lines. Longer descriptions will be reserved for the more interesting cartoons.

The Hays Commission was set up in April 1934, but it didn’t start to enforce the Hays Code until July of that year. The first Betty Boop cartoon to conform to the Hays Code was Betty Boop’s Lifeguard, released on July13th.

The post-Hays cartoons of 1934 were:

Betty Boop's Life Guard
There's Something About a Soldier
Betty Boop's Little Pal
Betty Boop's Prize Show
Keep in Style
When My Ship Comes In

Betty Boop’s Life Guard was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Dave Tendlar. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Unusually neither Mae Questel nor Ann Rothschild appears on the cast list for this cartoon. Bonnie Poe provided Betty’s voice.

The Fleischers couldn’t show Betty in her tiny flapper dress any more, so they put her in a swimsuit instead. Silly Betty goes too far out to sea on her rubber horse, and of course the cute, helpless little girly can’t swim. (Do you recognise Betty Boop in this description, because I don’t.) The rubber horse develops a leak and Betty’s in the briny. Fearless Fred the lifeguard tries to rescue her.

Betty loses consciousness and in a dream sequence she turns into a mermaid and cavorts with the local sea life. Bimbo had a memorable underwater sequence in Barnacle Bill the Sailor (1930), but unfortunately there’s nothing memorable in this cartoon. A sea dragon chases Betty, and she wakes up in Freddy’s arms. The cartoon ends.

The Fleischers didn’t like the controls imposed by the Hays Code, and possibly they went deliberately overboard in portraying Betty Boop as the exact opposite of the feisty character she used to be. This would at least give the short some focus of interest. As it stands, it is a potboiler.

There's Something About a Soldier was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Giant mosquitoes are terrorising the community and Betty is recruiting for a war against them. Fearless Fred is appointed the officer in charge. The Betty Boop who appeared in Morning Noon and Night and organised the birds against the cats would have been a better choice, but of course women could no longer be seen in leadership roles.

This cartoon is a potboiler, except for a tiny glimpse of the old Betty that somehow made it past the Hays Commission. How’s this for a recruiting slogan? "Join the army; don't be a sissy. Step right up and get a kissy!"

Betty Boop’s Little Pal was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Edward Nolan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is Pudgy’s first cartoon! Betty is having a picnic. The dogcatcher tries to take Pudgy away. Betty rescues him. The only point of interest, apart from Pudgy’s first appearance, is that Betty solves the problem herself rather than being the weak little woman and leaving things to Fred (who, presumably, is still fighting mosquitoes). Mae Questel voiced both Pudgy and Betty, although Pudgy doesn’t say much other than “yelp!”

Pudgy, however, is significant. The character has been criticised as being over-cute, and rather wishy-washy. There’s no doubt that Pudgy is cute (picture 1). He is a very young puppy, and his sense of balance is dubious to say the least. The word “lollop” might have been coined for Pudgy. If the Hays Commission was to prevent the Fleischers from making cartoons for adults, then they had to make them for children, and Pudgy was drawn for just this purpose.

However, there’s a lot more to Pudgy than a cute character for children. He has one of the most expressive faces of any cartoon character, and he is impossibly brave, rushing into situations that would give much larger dogs pause for thought. He is loyal, and totally devoted to Betty. Betty might be looking after Pudgy, but Pudgy thinks he’s looking after Betty. Pudgy is feisty and cute – just as Betty used to be before the Hays Code clipped her wings. He would go on to do something that Betty Boop never achieved. In 1938 he won an Oscar for Riding the Rails.

Myron Waldman was arguably the best animator the Fleischers ever employed, although fans of Grim Natwick might disagree. Pudgy was his greatest creation.

Betty Boop’s Prize Show was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This short is similar to She Wronged Him Right, in that it is a play within a cartoon, set in the Slumberland Theatre. Betty is a school marm in the Wild West, and the bandit Philip the Fiend captures her. Fearless Fred the sheriff rushes to her rescue, although in picture 2 it looks as if it’s Fred that needs rescuing. Villainous though he is, Philip lacks the over-the-top sleaziness of Heeza Ratty. Comparison of the helpless little school-marm in this cartoon, and Betty’s last foray out West as Dangerous Nan McGrew would, of course, be totally invidious. This cartoon passes the time pleasantly and raises a few smiles and the odd chortle, but it is basically unremarkable.

Keep In Style was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Edward Nolan and Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty hosts "Betty Boop's Exposition", where she presents an array of "modern" contrivances. This is a similar theme to Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions (1933). The contrivances include, for example, a streamlined car (the driver lies flat on his back – this seemed ridiculous in 1934, but in modern racing cars the driver is almost in that position). Betty also demonstrates a rumble seat roadster with multiple rumble seats for several family members, a baby carriage for quintuplets that stacks the babies vertically, and a grand piano that transforms into a radio, a stove, a baby's high chair, and a walking cane all at the push of a button.

Betty then transforms her own dress, changing it into a flower, then a butterfly (picture 3), and then a high-collared one with a long train. Her final fashion item is a pair of veils worn on her calves. The veils cause a sensation across the country. Soon everyone is wearing them- women, men, and even animals.

The Fleischers liked crazy machines, and this cartoon let them exercise their fertile imaginations. Cartoons featuring Grampy were to take this concept and transform it into an art form. They also used cartoons for social comment. In this case they are satirising the fashion industry and silly clothing fads. This is a good Betty Boop cartoon, although not one of her best. It is, however, rather sad to see Betty, who used to have problems keeping her upper thighs covered, inventing clothing that covers her calves. How have the flighty fallen!

When My Ship Comes In was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty wins money on a horse race (the Irish Sweepstake). This shows the unevenness of the Hays Commissioners, who shuddered at the sight of a pretty knee but turned a blind eye to cartoons that encouraged gambling. She fantasises about good causes and picks some odd choices, with even odder results. She ends up improving the National Economy.

This cartoon is rather fun, although it’s nowhere near the standard of the pre-Hays shorts.

So ended 1934 – a sad year, in spite of some very good cartoons. 1935 would bring some good cartoons (and some not so good) and introduce the brilliant inventor Grampy. For Betty Boop, however, the long decline had begun.

Mooch

Boop-a-DoopGirl

09-02-2005, 10:45 AM

Mooch you're doing a great job and i read and check up all the time to see what else you have added!!
Fantastic job! :D

Keep booping xxx

bboop480

09-02-2005, 10:59 PM

oh my gosh moocher...that was incredible!!!! im glad u put those on because i really learn so much from you....again thanks!!!

bboop480

09-02-2005, 11:01 PM

The Moocher

09-05-2005, 08:51 AM

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

If you've seen a short I've described and can add to (or if you disagree with) my description then please do post.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-05-2005, 08:59 AM

Early 1935

In early 1935, the Hays Commission was really beginning to bite. Betty was reduced to struggling with cats, puppies and small children where once she fought ghosts and demons. The prim authority figure was gradually taking over. Some reaction from the millions of Betty Boop fans was inevitable, and public demand led to the reinstatement of her garter. The changes to her character were more insidious, and did her irretrievable damage.

Cartoons released in January through June 1935 were:

Baby Be Good
Taking the Blame
Stop That Noise
Swat The Fly
No! No! A Thousand Times No!
A Little Soap and Water

Baby Be Good was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Edward Nolan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is a mother (picture 1)! There’s no sign of a husband, but this is post-Hays so there must be one around somewhere. It is possible that she’s babysitting the child for somebody else, but this cartoon – and Betty Boop and Little Jimmy (1936) – make a lot more sense if Betty is the child’s mother.

Betty can’t get the baby to go to sleep. He squirts toothpaste over the cat, and Betty tells him a story about a little boy “just like him.” The juvenile delinquent in question ties a can to Pudgy’s tail, chops down an apple tree, smashes a greenhouse and shaves the head of a man sleeping outside a barber’s shop. Every so often a fairy Betty appears and asks him to stop.

Finally the child steals a bone from a hungry lion. The lion gets so annoyed that it breaks out of its cage. The Betty fairy promises to save the little boy if he undoes the mischief he is done. The cartoon then plays backwards, reversing everything. The child tells Betty he doesn’t believe a word of the story but he’ll be good “just for her." He persuades the toothpaste back into the tube and the cartoon ends with a wink from Betty.

This is an ordinary, if cute, “naughty child” cartoon. Betty is unconvincing as a fairy in an all-enveloping wizard’s outfit.

Taking the Blame was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty has problems with her cat and with Pudgy. Although the title screen says “A Betty Boop Cartoon” Betty’s name is no longer in lights. Instead, Max Fleischer puts his own name in large letters. Betty was starting to become marginalised. Other than that, it’s a very ordinary cartoon.

Stop That Noise was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Edward Nolan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

The noisy city is getting Betty down. Building works across the street and constantly passing trains are giving her a pounding headache. So she escapes to the country, where she is hassled by noisy ducks, bees and finally mosquitoes. To escape this last pest she hides in a haystack (picture 2) and the mosquito swarm turns into a pitchfork and removes the hay.

Eventually she gives up and returns to the city, where she decides that things aren’t so bad after all. The pursuing mosquito swarm is cleverly done, and this is an amusing cartoon. However, the premise that the cartoon is based on – a city girl with entirely the wrong idea of what the countryside is like - was an old joke, even in 1935.

Swat The Fly was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by David Tendlar and Samuel Stimson. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

The Boop garter makes a comeback! Not only that, but her dress is backless and her hemline is above her knee – if not quite at the dizzy heights of the pre-Hays era. The image is domesticated by a frilly apron, which presumably kept the Hays Commissioners happy

Betty is making some pastry. An amusing sequence in which she adds baking powder (picture 3) demonstrates just why Betty Boop is the world’s worst cook. A fly makes a nuisance of itself. It wakes Pudgy and flies into his ear. Pudgy chases the fly, and gets stuck in the pastry dough. Betty loses her temper and starts throwing dough at the fly. Normal pastry dough would simply make a sticky mess, but Betty’s is so heavy it smashes everything it hits.

Finally, the fly lands on Pudgy’s nose. Betty sneaks up, throws a handful of dough, and rolls the fly up inside the dough ball. A relieved Pudgy goes back to sleep. The fly escapes from the dough ball and flies into Pudgy’s ear. The cartoon ends.

This is straightforward slapstick and could easily have been a 1920s silent cartoon. The joke about the baking powder and the impossibly heavy dough is a good one, but the sequence where Pudgy hunts the fly is too long and too cute. Swat the Fly is amusing, but by no means a classic.

No! No! A Thousand Times No! was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Edward Nolan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty Boop, Fearless Fred and Phillip the Fiend once again appear in a stage melodrama. Betty loves Fred, and is not interested in approaches from a cad (picture 4). Wacky Races fans will recognise a very early Dick Dastardly. She even rejects the diamond he gives her though, being Betty, she tries it on first (picture 5).

The cad ties up Fred and abducts Betty in a hot air balloon. There’s a storm, Fred breaks free and rescues Betty. Considering that this was the third retread of the stage show scenario, it’s quite an entertaining cartoon. Phillip makes a rather more convincing cad than he did an outlaw in Betty Boop’s Prize Show (1934).

A Little Soap and Water was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Edward Nolan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty gives a very reluctant Pudgy a bubble bath. Soon there are bubbles everywhere. This cartoon is slapstick from beginning to end, although the Fleischers managed to sneak a rather sexy Betty past the Hays Commissioners, who presumably thought it was a nice clean film :D.

Early 1935 films were an uninspiring lot, with the only high spots being Betty’s hemline in Swat the Fly and the Dastardly villain of No, No, A Thousand Times No. Technically, the standard of the animation was improving, mainly due to Waldman’s influence, but the stories were weak (the Fleischers were never strong on storylines) and Betty’s sunny, sexy personality was becoming steadily more staid and more stern.

Mooch

bettyboopfan

09-08-2005, 12:35 AM

I don't believe I have ever seen A Little Soap and Water

The Moocher

09-09-2005, 06:20 AM

I don't believe I have ever seen A Little Soap and Water

I saw a very low quality print on a videotape a friend had. It was difficult to see the picture and the sound was almost inaudible, so maybe I got a bad impression, but it struck me as one of the Fleischers' poorer efforts.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-09-2005, 08:41 AM

By mid-1935, the popularity of Betty Boop cartoons was in serious decline. Although still pretty, she had lost her flirtatious ******ity. She had become the “meek little woman” rather than the sassy and independent girl that audiences were used to. Fleischer Studios had to react to falling audience numbers.

The cartoons released in July to December 1935 were:

A Language All My Own
Betty Boop and Grampy
Judge For A Day
Making Stars
Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American

A Language All My Own was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty was very popular in Japan, and this cartoon attempts to capitalise on this popularity. Bringing in some Japanese students as consultants ensured the authenticity of the Japanese scenes.

Betty is an international cabaret star. She flies to Japan in her own aeroplane (airplane), which she pilots herself. She sings the title song in English, then changes into a kimono and sings it again in Japanese.

As a cartoon, A Language All My Own is not particularly good. There’s no story, and the Japanese singing is tedious to non-Japanese speakers. It is, however, significant for two reasons. Firstly, Betty is not a meek, helpless little woman. She is an international star who flies her own plane. While her tiny flapper skirt is strictly forbidden, she is very shapely indeed in her pilot’s overalls (picture 1) and gorgeous in a kimono.

Secondly, while the song in English is innocuous, in Japanese the words are naughty. They’re not rude – there was no profanity or obscenity in any Betty Boop cartoon – but they translate as “Come to bed and we’ll boop-oop-a-doop.” It’s not clear whether this was a Fleischer prank, or whether the Japanese students were involved – probably both – but somebody enjoyed slipping this past the Hays Commission.

Betty Boop is a cartoon character, but it’s difficult not to think of her as a flesh-and-blood woman, and to believe that in this cartoon, for the first time in a very long while, she was having fun. Bless her.

Betty Boop and Grampy was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by David Tendlar and Charles Hastings. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

The prototype for the Grampy character had appeared before in Betty Boop for President (1932), but had not been named or given a significant part. This was common practice in Betty Boop cartoons. This cartoon officially introduces the character as Grampy and gives him a starring role. Even at this early stage Grampy was given equal billing with Betty, and would eventually become the main character in any Betty Boop Cartoon in which he appeared.

Grampy is an eccentric inventor. Whenever he appeared his inventions would take over the cartoon, often to the detriment of what little storyline there was. However, the invention sequences were often very funny, exceptionally imaginative, and beautifully animated. He was always very protective of Betty, and took over as her father figure (officially her grandfather), comforter and confidant.

In this cartoon Betty receives an invitation to visit Grampy. On the way she meets four friends and brings them along. Two of the friends are based on Laurel and Hardy, who are busy hauling a grand piano into a building – a genuine tribute to the Oscar winning short The Music Box (1932). The other friends are a fireman rescuing a woman from a burning building and a cop directing traffic. All four immediately abandon what they are doing – with hilarious consequences - in order to go with Betty.

Grampy entertains the friends with some imaginative and funny inventions. The music machine made from a kettle and steam whistle (picture 2) is particularly effective, as is the cake-slicing umbrella. Everyone dances (Stan and Ollie do a fine Cossack dance), and then they all collapse exhausted, except for Grampy who creates a fan from a Grandfather clock. The cartoon ends.

This is an entertaining cartoon and one of the best of the post-Hays offerings. Possibly the dance scene is a little long, but Betty collecting her friends to visit her Grampy is an excellent sequence.

Judge for a Day was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Unaccredited animators include Edward Nolan, Lillian Friedman, Herman Cohen, Frank Endres and Ted Vosk

Betty is a cleaner at the local courthouse. While waiting for her bus to work, passers by annoy her by slapping her on the back. During her bus ride, fellow passengers blow smoke in her face, read her newspaper, or squash her in her seat. Betty decides that the town is full of pests.

At the courtroom she puts on the judge’s robes and spectacles (picture 3 – colourised) and dreams of how she would penalize various pests (spectators are invited to view the punishments). Those punished include not only the pests Betty met on her journey, but others such as chewing gum parkers and people who use all the hot water, leaving not a drop. When she wakes up a cheering crowd proclaims her as the judge.

This cartoon is remarkable as one of the first (possibly the first) to address the problem of passive smoking. It also skirts round a dangerous topic – poetic justice. Here, the misdemeanours are relatively trivial and the retribution in general correspondingly mild. However, the hot water user in an icy bath and the chewing gum parker in a web of gum are disturbing images, and verge on serious retribution. Poetic justice would form the theme of The Impractical Joker (1937) where it was treated correctly, resulting in a very funny cartoon. However, in Be Human (1936) serious retribution for seriously bad behaviour resulted in a cartoon that, in my opinion, should never have been released.

Judge for a Day does not go as far as Be Human, but it starts down a dangerous road. What I don’t like about this cartoon, however, is that, apart from in the final scene, Betty scowls and glowers her way through it. This isn’t the Betty Boop the world had learned to love.

Making Stars was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Edward Nolan and Herman Cohen. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. Unaccredited animators include Myron Waldman, Hicks Lokey, Lillian Friedman, Frank Endres, Ted Vosk and Sam Stimson.

Betty, in a top hat and tails (picture 4 – colourised) introduces the stars of the future. This cartoon is given over to a series of baby acts, each more tedious than the last. The original cartoon contains racial stereotyping involving what in those unenlightened days would be termed a “black mama” and watermelons. However, this sequence has been cut from the re-mastered version. What remains is simply boring. I hate to say this about a Betty Boop short, but this is one of the most tedious and pointless cartoons I have ever watched.

Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Sam Stimson and Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

In an attempt to revive Betty’s flagging career, Fleischer Studios paired her with some of the strip cartoon characters popular at the time. One of these was the young, bald-headed Henry. If he really was the funniest living American, then all of my very good friends in the US have my deepest sympathy.

Betty runs a pet shop. She sings “Everybody ought to have a pet” – a bright little song, but hardly of the standard of her jazz duets in pre-Hays days. Henry wants to buy Pudgy but has only two cents. Pudgy costs two dollars. Betty takes pity on Henry, and tells him that if he minds the shop for a while she’ll give him the puppy. Henry feeds the birds and plays with Pudgy (picture 5, colourised).

Before playing with Pudgy, Henry let a flock of birds out into the shop so he could clean their cage. The birds escape out of the door just as Betty returns. Betty is upset and scolds Henry, but Henry recaptures the birds by putting birdseed on his head. Betty rewards him by giving him the puppy.

Betty needed something special to give her popularity a boost, but this cartoon wasn’t it. It is also a bit of a culture shock to see Betty Boop willing to sell Pudgy for two dollars.

1935 was not a vintage year for Betty Boop. A Language All My Own is interesting as a collector’s item, and Betty and Grampy is a good cartoon. Grampy would go on to become a popular character in his own right.

1936 started badly and got worse. There were a couple of high spots involving Grampy, and one very low spot indeed – also, surprisingly, involving Grampy.

Mooch

bettyboopfan

09-10-2005, 03:39 PM

I love Judge For A Day!!

bettyboopfan

09-10-2005, 03:40 PM

I saw a very low quality print on a videotape a friend had. It was difficult to see the picture and the sound was almost inaudible, so maybe I got a bad impression, but it struck me as one of the Fleischers' poorer efforts.

Mooch

I would like to see it. Maybe I can locate it somewhere...

The Moocher

09-11-2005, 03:17 PM

I love Judge For A Day!!

It's a funny cartoon and enjoyable to watch. I prefer cartoons where Betty smiles more. In 1935 she seemed to be scolding or scowling in every catoon.

Have you seen The Impractical Joker bettyboopfan? If you liked Judge For A Day you'll love that one!

Mooch

bettyboopfan

09-12-2005, 12:40 AM

Yes! I enjoy The Impractical Joker as well!! :D

The Moocher

09-14-2005, 05:45 AM

By 1936 Grampy and Pudgy were established characters. Betty would sometimes be the main character, but in other cartoons she was in the background, letting Grampy and Pudgy do their own thing. Pudgy cartoons (technically Betty Boop cartoons starring Pudgy) were aimed firmly at young children, while Grampy’s inventions appealed more to older children and adults.

The early 1936 Betty Boop cartoons were:

Little Nobody
Betty Boop and the Little King
Not Now
Betty Boop and Little Jimmy
We Did It
A Song A Day
More Pep

Little Nobody was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. No animator is listed. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Pudgy falls in love with a pampered pooch owned by a rich snob, and is haughtily spurned. Betty sings, "Every Little Nobody is Somebody to Someone." The pampered pooch falls into a river; Pudgy rescues her before she goes over a waterfall and becomes her hero.

This cartoon presses all the required buttons. Pudgy is cute and sad when rejected, Betty is warm and comforting, the rescue is exciting and amusing, and the moral of the story is obvious. Small children loved this cartoon, and that is the group at which it was aimed. To adults who remembered the pre-Hays Betty, it is over-sweet, over-soppy and a typical example of how Betty Boop Cartoons had changed, and not necessarily for the better. However, I’m sure the Hays Commissioners approved.

Betty Boop and the Little King was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

The Little King, like Henry the Funniest Living American, was cartoon strip character that was popular at the time. He attends the opera with his large, formidable wife, but gets bored and sneaks out. He goes into a vaudeville theatre, where Betty, dressed as a cowgirl, is doing a trick-riding act.

The King is unfamiliar with vaudeville and ends up buying all the nuts from a peanut seller and distributing them among the crowd. He then gets into Betty’s act and attempts to ride her horse. The Queen misses the King and orders the royal guard to search for him. Eventually, they locate him, and the Queen arrives to drag him away by the nose. However, he takes the cowgirl with him (picture 1).

This cartoon has its moments, especially when the King, the cowgirl and the horse get together on stage. However, I find it rather disturbing. Why would a (married) King take a vaudeville performer back to his palace other than to install her as his mistress? This is morally reprehensible. I realise that Betty Boop was an actress and played parts, but when she gets this far out of character, her loyal fans are entitled to complain, “Betty isn’t like that!”

Not Now was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A noisy cat keeps Betty awake. She tries to shoo it away, and begs it in song to be quiet. “Meow – not now” sings the cat, which looks very like Nancy Lee’s cat in Barnacle Bill (1930). Betty rages. “Meow – not now. Maybe later – not now,” sings the cat.

Pudgy wakes. He pursues the cat along the top of a fence and across tall buildings, even though the cat is far bigger than he is, and has a much better sense of balance. The cat is cornered and scratches Pudgy across the face. “He pulled a knife on me,” says Pudgy in an aside to the audience. As far as I am aware this is the only cartoon in which Pudgy speaks.

The cat and Pudgy fight, and Pudgy locks his teeth in the cats tail. The cat yells and all the neighbourhood cats appear, to Pudgy’s horror (picture 2). They chase him homewards, but he dives into a trashcan and all the cats follow. Pudgy sneaks out and puts the lid on the trashcan. He then returns home where Betty is sobbing because she thinks he is lost.

A grateful Betty tucks Pudgy into his bed. “Thank you for chasing the cats,” she says. “Now we can get some sleep.” But all the cats have escaped are outside the window. “Oh Yeah?” they chorus. “Meow – not now.”

This is Pudgy’s cartoon. He is brave and resourceful, and very funny when he slips off fences and teeters on the edge of high buildings. Betty doesn’t appear in such a good light. She is bad tempered when she shouts at the cat and sobs helplessly when she thinks Pudgy is lost. The Betty from Betty Boop’s Big Boss (1933) would have called in the army, navy and air force. Nevertheless, this is an entertaining cartoon.

Betty Boop and Little Jimmy was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

It’s not altogether clear, but little Jimmy (picture 3 – colourised) seems to be Betty’s son. Presumably the baby in Baby Be Good has grown up. There’s still no husband around.

Betty is worried about her looks. She exercises, singing "Keep Your Girlish Figure." Betty gets caught in the exercise machine, can’t switch it off, and tells Jimmy to run for an electrician. He gets confused (optician? magician? politician? beautician?). By the time the machine stops, Betty is extremely skinny.

She decides that she’s had enough of exercising, eats too much instead, and in a surreal sequence, she and Jimmy become grotesquely fat. A touch of Fleischer surrealism is always welcome, provided it doesn’t go on for too long. However an obese Betty is not what her fans want to see.

We Did It was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and George Germanetti. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is going out and attaches Pudgy’s lead to a radiator so he won’t get into mischief. However, three mischievous kittens that she thinks are asleep are only pretending. They start wrecking the room. They also get into trouble. Pudgy manages to slip his lead and rescues a kitten trapped inside a polar bear rug – by pulling the bear’s teeth out. He rescues a second kitten that’s trapped in a milk bottle.

Betty returns and blames Pudgy for the mess. She starts to spank him, but the kittens sing, "We did, we did it -- but we won't do it again." Betty gives Pudgy an ice cream, which he shares with the kittens.

This is a very cute and very amusing cartoon that would captivate any small child. It is a world away from the atmospheric, exciting and sometimes dangerous pre-Hays cartoons. But then, it was designed to be just that.

A Song A Day was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by David Tendlar and Nicholas Tafuri. Joe Oriolo, Graham Place, Eli Brucker, William Sturm, Abner Kneitel and Dick Marion were also involved in the animation but are uncredited. This cartoon had a storyboard, which was written by Bill Turner and Joe Stultz. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Grampy gets top billing, although Betty has at least as much screen time. Betty is a nurse in the Betty Boop Animal Hospital, where she treats sick giraffes, hippos and other animals (picture 4). The pickled herring and the hippo that has swallowed a piano are particularly imaginative.

The animals all start to moan and Betty phones Grampy. Grampy converts a bed, a steam radiator, a washboard and a sewing machine into musical instruments. Betty, Grampy and the animals all sing and dance, which presumably makes the animals much better, although this isn’t shown as the cartoon ends at this point.

Betty is particularly fetching in her nurse’s uniform, and Grampy’s inventions are always imaginative, but this is a disappointing cartoon. The story disappears when Grampy has finished his inventing and the subsequent dance sequence is pointless and boring. The cartoon ends very suddenly, leaving the viewer unsatisfied.

More Pep was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and David Hoffman. Harold Walker and Otto Feuer were also involved in the animation but are uncredited. The storyboard was written by Bill Turner and Joe Stultz. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This is the first cartoon in which Pudgy gets star billing to himself. On the title screen Betty is mentioned only on the standard “A Betty Boop Cartoon” logo.

Max Fleischer – or rather an animated hand with Max doing the voiceover - draws a loop and jump for Pudgy to do tricks (picture 5 – colourised). Pudgy appears out of the inkwell, but he’s too tired to perform. Betty, sitting on the edge of the inkwell and looking very cute, informs “Uncle Max” that what Pudgy needs is more pep.

Betty grabs hold of the pen and draws a machine to cook up some pep. She puts in fruit, milk and eggs and starts the machine. As usual, when Betty and cooking are combined, chaos results. The machine goes berserk. It sprays a cuckoo clock, the traffic outside, and some parading sailors, all of which speed up. Eventually, the machine sprays Pudgy, who performs his trick repeatedly at high speed.

Max thanks Betty, who disappears into the inkwell with Pudgy. Max puts the stopper firmly on the inkwell and the cartoon ends.

This is a good cartoon in parts, but it leaves the viewer feeling cheated. The scenes with the traffic and the sailors are simply live news-clips speeded up. They are not particularly funny, and go on far too long. This is a cheap way to make cartoons, and it looks it. However, the manic machine and the dozy Pudgy are funny.

Early 1936 saw Grampy and Pudgy take over from Betty as the main cartoon characters in Betty Boop cartoons. Unlike Betty, Grampy and Pudgy were “safe” as far as the Hays Committee was concerned, but they lacked what Betty Boop, had in abundance – star quality, or as Betty would put it, “poissanality.”

Mooch

PeterHale

09-20-2005, 06:24 AM

Hi, Mooch!

This is a really great thread!

"Little Jimmy" was another instance of showcasing a King Features comic strip character. "Little Jimmy" was drawn by Jimmy Swinnerton and first appeared in the New York Journal on Sunday 14th Feb. 1904. A daily strip was added to Jimmy's sunday appearances in 1920, but this stopped in the late 30s. Swinnerton continued to draw the "Little Jimmy" feature until 1958, when Swinnerton injured his hand and retired, aged 82.

"Little Jimmy" had also featured in a silent cartoon series in 1916.

Were these pairings a serious attempt to pilot new series, or just an attempt to boost a cartoon's appeal by cashing-in on the popularity of the comics?

The Moocher

09-20-2005, 11:02 AM

Thanks for the information, Peter.

There were a number of strip cartoon characters popular at the time that were drafted into Betty's cartoons (Little King, Henry, etc). I didn't realise that Jimmy was one of them. He's very similar to (if a little older than) the baby in Baby Be Good. Both cartoons make more sense if Betty is the child's mother.

Maybe the Fleischers were hoping for another Popeye.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-20-2005, 11:14 AM

By the middle of 1936, Pudgy and Grampy were the stars of Pudgy and Grampy cartoons respectively. Betty was becoming increasingly sidelined.

The following cartoons were released in late 1936:

You're Not Built That Way
Happy You and Merry Me
Training Pigeons
Grampy's Indoor Outing
Be Human
Making Friends

You're Not Built That Way was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Pudgy is tired of being small and puny. He meets a tough bulldog (picture 1 – colourised) and decides to imitate it. He sees the bulldog intimidate a cat and take a bite of the cat’s fish. Pudgy tries to do the same, but the cat slaps him with the fish.

The bulldog bursts through the door of a butcher’s shop and pulls a chicken from a hook. Pudgy tries to grab a chicken, and ends up inside it. The butcher returns. The bulldog knocks him down and escapes. Pudgy tries to do the same.

The butcher chases Pudgy, who is still inside the chicken and tries to run with the chicken’s legs while the butcher throws knives at him. Eventually, Pudgy escapes. Betty comforts her pet and tells him he’s not built that way.

The chase, and Pudgy trying to knock over the large butcher, are amusing scenes. Other than that, this is an ordinary cartoon.

Happy Me and Merry You was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and George Germanetti. Uncredited animators included Orestes Calpini, Graham Place, Dick Marion and Jack Ozark. The storyboard was written by Dave Fleischer and I. Sparber. Music was by Sammy Timberg (uncredited). Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A kitten called Myron chases a fly into Betty's house while she is playing the piano. Myron eats a box of candy and becomes ill. Betty sends Pudgy to the drugstore for a box of catnip.

In the meantime Myron’s mother wakes up and searches for her kitten. Pudgy gets the catnip and runs home with it. As he passes Myron’s mother, some catnip escapes. The cat follows the catnip. Pudgy thinks she is chasing him and runs faster, then turns to fight, but the cat is high on catnip and floats in the air instead. Pudgy races home, followed by the cat.

As Pudgy reaches Betty and the kitten the box of catnip bursts open and some falls on the kitten, curing it instantly. The cat and kitten are re-united and the cat grabs Myron and carries him off. The kitten in turn grabs the box of catnip, which spreads its contents far and wide. Soon every cat in town is following them, high on catnip.

This is a cute cartoon and the effect of the catnip on the cats is amusing. It is one of the better Pudgy cartoons although hardly a Betty Boop classic.

Training Pigeons was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is training pigeons (picture 2 – colourised). Seven of her pigeons return to the hutch when she calls them, but the eight flies away. Pudgy sees a stuffed hunting dog and decides that he will hunt the pigeon and bring it back. There follows a chase over rooftops. The pigeon flies in circles and Pudgy chases round and round on the ground, digging himself into a hole.

Eventually Pudgy becomes totally exhausted and falls asleep. The pigeon takes pity on him, picks him up, and carries him home. “I thought you were supposed to bring him back!” says Betty to her puppy. The pigeon goes into the hutch, Pudgy knocks over the hunting dog, and Betty cuddles him.

Pudgy cartoons were becoming formulaic. Pudgy would get into a chase and eventually return home to a worried Betty. Other than a clever sequence where Pudgy slides down the inside of a drainpipe, this cartoon has nothing to distinguish it from any other Pudgy cartoon.

Grampy’s Indoor Outing was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Dave Tendlar and William Sturm. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A carnival truck goes by, and Betty promises to take her nephew (unnamed) to the carnival. Betty and her nephew sing happily as they get ready, but then it starts to rain. Betty takes her disappointed nephew upstairs to see Grampy, who invents some machines that turn his entire apartment, and then his apartment block, into an indoor amusement centre.

All the Grampy cartoons were imaginative and beautifully animated, but there is nothing to distinguish this cartoon from all the others. Pudgy cartoons were for young children who would be happy watching cuddly little animals. Grampy cartoons were for older children who were looking for clever things to amuse them.

However, the next Betty Boop cartoon wasn’t suitable for children - or adults either.

Be Human was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

First, I need to say that this cartoon is exceptionally well animated, and that some of the scenes made me laugh out loud in spite of myself. Now for the downside….

When the cartoon starts, Betty is at her piano singing “Be Human,” a pretty little song that exhorts the listener to be kind to animals. She hears noises, and looks out of her window to see her farmer neighbour whipping a tied dog. Betty pleads with him to be human. The farmer laughs, and punches an unfortunate chicken that has failed to lay an egg.

Betty loses her temper and rages at the farmer. This only encourages him. He sees that a cow has failed to give milk, coaxes the obviously hungry animal towards him by offering food, and then punches it (picture 3 - colourised). “How’s that for cow-punching?” he snarls.

Betty phones Grampy, who is a Humane Society officer. Grampy turns his desk into a truck and weaves his way through traffic (a very funny sequence) and captures the farmer. He dumps the farmer into a pit that contains a whipping machine. “Be human,” says the machine, whipping the farmer as he runs on a treadmill. The treadmill powers a series of Grampy-type contraptions that make life easier for the animals.

Grampy invites Betty to watch the punishment, and they both laugh at the farmer. Eventually the exhausted farmer falls down and starts to sing, “be human,” presumably indicating that he will become a good guy and will treat his animals humanely. Betty and Grampy shake hands and Betty kisses Grampy.

The moral of this cartoon is obvious, and the wicked farmer is punished. So, what is the problem? The scenes where the farmer mistreats his animals are sickening, especially when he whips the tied dog. There is cold, nasty mistreatment of helpless creatures that wouldn’t have been out of place in an early Mickey Mouse cartoon. What is far worse is that, once the farmer had been made helpless himself, Grampy tortures him in turn, and Betty looks on with apparent approval. So, it’s OK to torture people if you’re on the side of the angels???

Why was this cartoon made? Possibly Max Fleischer, or some Paramount executive, thought that a bit of violence would revive the flagging “Betty Boop Cartoons” brand name. Kids love violent cartoons – they always have – but there’s a world of difference between Popeye and Bluto bashing each other (especially when the little guy wins) and the cold mistreatment of the helpless. Even Disney sidelined his nasty rodent in 1934 and introduced Donald Duck, who was irascible but seldom cruel.

However, I believe the Fleischers had another agenda that does them even less credit. They considered, with some justification, that rural bible-belt America with its h*ll-fire preachers and conservative senators was inhibiting their creativity and putting them out of business. In this cartoon, and also in Musical Mountaineers (1939), the Fleischers struck back, portraying the rural population as ignorant and violent. This was unwise, and like all generalisations, unfair.

So where were these proud, upright protectors of American morality, the Hays Commissioners? They were right behind this short! Two of the tenets of the Hays code were that there should be a clear delineation between good and evil and that evil should always be adequately punished. So they’d prevent Betty from flashing a thigh, but allow Be Human to be inflicted on innocent children. In my opinion, this cartoon befouls the name of gentle Betty Boop. It should never have been released.

Making Friends was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Music was by Sammy Timberg (uncredited). Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is a gentle little Pudgy cartoon. It may not be up to much, but it was a relief after Be Human. Pudgy is lonely, and Betty decides he needs some fun and recreation. She sings "Go Out and Make Friends With the World" and then settles down with a book (picture 4) while Pudgy goes out to befriend some cute (and not so cute animals) with varying degrees of success. This was a pot-boiler, but a pleasant little cartoon for all that.

The latter part of 1936 gave us some cute, sometimes funny, but rather ordinary cartoons. The only extraordinary one (and it was extraordinary) was too nasty to watch. Surely 1937 would give us something better – or would it?

Mooch

bboop480

09-20-2005, 11:35 AM

thanks again mooch!

The Moocher

09-20-2005, 03:31 PM

Thank you, Bboop480. It's nice to know my regular readers are still around.

If anyone has any comments or criticisms of my work, please post them (thanks again Peter). I would love to see a post starting "Mooch, you are talking total nonsense because............"

It's the "because" I want.

Mooch

bettyboopfan

09-22-2005, 09:34 PM

I didn't really care for Making Friends. I personally found it rather boring, but this of course is just my opinion.

The Moocher

09-23-2005, 07:48 AM

I didn't really care for Making Friends. I personally found it rather boring, but this of course is just my opinion.

I agree. As I said, a pot-boiler.

Mooch

The Moocher

09-23-2005, 11:02 AM

I'll be tied up for a few days and probably won't be able to post next week.

1937 will have to wait.

Mooch

bboop480

09-23-2005, 11:12 AM

i will be waiting!

Boop-a-DoopGirl

09-24-2005, 09:17 PM

Hey Mooch i wish i could challenge you but i'm learning so much, i didn't know much about BB's history before this!
I'm finding all the info very interesting and i really enjoy reading what you and anyone else has to say!
Thank you and i can't wait to read more!
:D

The Moocher

09-30-2005, 07:32 AM

1936 saw the emergence of cute, rather saccharine, Pudgy cartoons and inventive Grampy cartoons that relied on amusing gadgets. Betty Boop appeared in all the cartoons but she was becoming marginalised. Paramount was putting pressure on the Fleischers to make their cartoons more like the output from the Disney Studios. The Hays Commissioners still viewed the Betty Boop character with suspicion. Betty became taller, thinner, and less attractive with each successive cartoon (although she could never be described as plain).

Betty Boop Cartoons released between January and May 1937 were:

House Cleaning Blues
Whoops! I'm a Cowboy
The Hot Air Salesman
Pudgy Takes a Bow-Wow
Pudgy Picks a Fight

House Cleaning Blues was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Dave Tendlar and Eli Brucker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty’s pet bird wakes her up on the morning after her birthday party (picture 1). She has partied too well and is feeling the effects, and she is horrified to discover that her house is in a total mess. She starts to tidy up, but Betty Boop is a much better party girl than she is a housewife. She rolls up a dirty rug and carries it to a trashcan, but the trash falls out in transit. She sweeps up the trash, puts it in the trashcan, and then falls on top of a pile of plates. She loses her temper, starts throwing plates on the floor, and steps on the broom, which hits her on the head with its handle.

This sequence is exceptionally funny. All that is needed is a higher hemline and some hot jazz music in the background, and this would have been Betty at her best.

Grampy arrives in his automobile, and invites Betty to come for a drive. Betty shows him the mess, and Grampy invents some gadgets that clean the house in no time at all. The pianola (automatic piano) converted to a clothes press is especially clever. Grampy takes Betty for a drive in his car, complete with cream soda making machine.

This is a very good cartoon indeed. It is certainly one of the best post-Hays offerings, and could possibly be included in the top ten Betty Boop cartoons. Betty plays a party girl who is useless at housework, which is a different thing altogether from playing a housewife. The story vanishes (as was often the case) when Grampy arrives, but Grampy’s inventions in this cartoon are particularly entertaining.

What makes this cartoon stand out, however, is the animation. It was the first Betty Boop cartoon (and one of the very first cartoons) to use three-plane animation, giving a very professional three-dimensional effect. It is ironic that the early Betty Boop shorts that made her a star, for example The B*m Bandit (1931) and A-Hunting We Will Go (1932), were rather poorly animated, while some of the cartoons made during her decline were made very professionally indeed.

Whoops! I’m a Cowboy was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and David Hoffman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty’s new boyfriend, Wiffle Piffle, gets star billing in his very first cartoon. Betty isn’t mentioned on the title screen other than in the standard “Betty Boop Cartoon” logo. I can find no mention of Wiffle Piffle outside Betty Boop cartoons, so presumably he’s a Fleischer invention, rather than a strip cartoon character like the Little King or Henry.

Wiffle proposes marriage (picture 2 - colourised). Betty tells him she wants a sweetheart who’s a cowboy. “I’ll show her,” mutters Wiffle. That’s the last we see of Betty in the cartoon. Wiffle heads out West where he finds a Dude Ranch that claims that it can turn anyone into a cowboy. Wiffle is given a book called “What to Dude and What Not to Dude” and a half-pint hat.

Wiffle fails miserably as a cowpuncher, although his device for riding on a cow is worthy of Grampy. As a sharpshooter he hits everything except the target, and his attempts at bronco busting are ludicrous. A bruised and battered Wiffle hitches a ride with a large Native American woman, who places him in a basket on her back, in which she is carrying her daughter. However, the daughter is no papoose, but is instead a very pretty Native American girl. A grinning Wiffle introduces himself and the cartoon ends.

Wiffle Piffle’s attempts to be a tough cowboy make this an amusing cartoon, and the instructions in the book are funny. In another environment Wiffle might have become a successful cartoon character. He is, however, totally unconvincing as the new man in Betty’s life, and was not the character to rescue Betty Boop cartoons.

The Hot Air Salesman was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and David Hoffman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Wiffle Piffle again gets the starring role, although this time he isn’t Betty’s boyfriend. Instead, he’s an incompetent but pushy salesman selling a range of household gadgets. Betty feels sorry for him and lets him into her house.

Wiffle demonstrates a number of useless devices. The joke about the spot remover that removes the fabric as well as the spot was first used in Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions (1933) but was much funnier when Betty presented it. Eventually a vacuum cleaner goes manic (again a far less funny retread of the manic sewing machine in Crazy Inventions) and pulls Wiffle out of Betty’s house, knocking down a wall in the process. “Nothing today, thank you,” says Betty angrily, and the cartoon ends.

This is a very disappointing cartoon. Wiffle’s whiny voice when he is trying to gain entry to Betty’s house, and his superior tone when inside it, both grate. Other than that, the cartoon retreads some old and not very funny jokes, and Wiffle is not nearly as amusing as he was in Whoops! I’m a Cowboy.

Wiffle Piffle wasn’t the character to rescue Betty Boop Cartoons. As a gadget man he was far inferior to Grampy, and as a boyfriend he made even Fearless Fred look good. This was his last cartoon.

Pudgy Takes A Bow Wow was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is back where she belongs – on stage. However, her impressions of an Oriental lady and an Italian organ grinder (picture 3 - colourised) are somewhat insipid – possibly deliberately so to suit the plot. Pudgy, left behind in the dressing room, hears a cat outside, opens the door, and chases the cat on to the stage.

The audience think that the cat and dog are a slapstick act and laugh and applaud. Every time the audience applauds, Pudgy and the cat stop their chasing or fighting and take a bow with Betty. There is a final encore, the curtain closes, and Pudgy and the cat resume their battle. The cartoon ends.

In this cartoon Betty is exceptionally tall and thin. She’s still pretty in a willowy way, but is by no means the curvaceous, sexy little flapper that enthralled the audience in Silly Scandals (1931) or Stopping the Show (1932). Her performance, if elegant, is insipid, lacking the gusto of earlier cartoons. It is sad to see the world’s greatest cartoon showgirl upstaged by a cat and her own puppy.

This cartoon is remarkable for Betty wearing a false moustache and playing a stage Italian. Political correctness and racial stereotyping weren’t concerns in 1937. Pudgy and the cat raise a smile hamming it in front of an audience. Other than that, it’s a very ordinary cartoon.

Pudgy Picks a Fight was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty brings home a new fox fur – this was long before the era of artificial furs and political correctness. Pudgy gets jealous and picks a fight with the fur. Suddenly he realises the fur isn’t moving and is struck by remorse. He tries to coax it back to life with smelling salts. A guilt-stricken Pudgy runs round the house, imagining that all the fixtures are accusing him of murder. He ends up staring at the fur and shivering with fear.

This is a weird and macabre cartoon. The usual audience for Pudgy cartoons – very small children – might not understand that the fur was already dead, and would certainly be upset by Pudgy’s fear. Some of the sequences in this cartoon, especially the smelling salts joke, are clever and funny, but cartoon makers need to be aware of the sensibilities of their target audience. Even adults found this cartoon uncomfortable viewing, and 1930s audiences didn’t go to the movie theatre to be made uncomfortable.

Early 1937 gave us one good cartoon, House Cleaning Blues, and the brief but sometimes amusing career of Wiffle Piffle. However, it did nothing for the popularity of Betty Boop. Even Betty’s slapstick scene in House Cleaning Blues, funny as it was, had nothing of the provocative pre-Hays Boop about it. The sexy wiggle had gone, the accidental/on-purpose panty shot was strictly forbidden. Sultry, hot jazz music was out. The scene could have been played equally well by Donald Duck.

Wiffle Piffle was never a serious Betty Boop boyfriend, for all his proposals of marriage. Other than pecking Grampy on the cheek or kissing Pudgy on the forehead, Betty no longer smooched in cartoons, and boop-oop-a-dooping was definitely out!

So early 1937, in spite of one good cartoon, was not a propitious time for Betty Boop or Fleischer Studios. The remainder of 1937 would be much, much worse....

Mooch

The Moocher

09-30-2005, 11:01 AM

The second half of 1937 was a disastrous period for Fleischer Studios, and many of the problems were of the Fleischers’ own making. The brothers, especially Max, were tightwads and ran the company as a sweatshop. Fleischer Studios produced a remarkable number of Betty Boop and Popeye shorts with a relatively small team of animators, in-betweeners and inkers. Animation in these pre-computer days required a huge number of drawings, all done by hand. Max’s answer to this problem was to pay his artists very poorly (as little as $15 per week) and work them extremely hard. Even Walt Disney, not known for his generosity, paid more.

There had been trouble before. In May 1930 of several of the Fleischers’ best animators walked out - Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus leaving for Hollywood, and George Stallings and George Rufle moving to Van Buren's Studio. This had been followed in subsequent years by the leakage of top talent, for example Grim Natwick, to other studios. As a result the rewards at Fleischer Studios, such as they were, were unevenly distributed. Top animators probably earned (just) enough to make them stay put. Lesser ranks were on very low wages.

In an effort to gain a better working environment and more pay, Fleischer employees began to explore the idea of joining the Commercial Artists and Designers Union (CADU). Max and Dave were very anti-union, and were concerned about what the worker's demands would do to their company. They were also hurt because many of their employees had been with them since the studio started. The brothers saw them as family and couldn't understand why their employees had taken their problems to a third party. The employees couldn't understand why the brothers, whom they had worked hard for and been loyal to, would not give them more respect, and especially more money.

The statement - “These people are like my family. I pay them starvation wages and work them to death” - would probably not have seemed at all ironic to Max.

In March 1937 Max fired two union activists. (This was before The Wagner Act, which made it illegal to fire someone for trying to organize a union.) The CADU approached the Fleischers and asked to be recognized as the union of the employees. The Fleischers retaliated by firing 13 union member employees. On May 7th Fleischer Studios employees went on strike.

“I make millions laugh, but the real joke is my salary” - read the posters on the picket line – “We can't get much spinach on salaries as low as $15.00 a week.”

The CADU called in help from all sides. The musicians union refused to do soundtracks for the studio while union projectionists across the country refused to run Fleischer films. After five months of picketing, intense union pressure and pressure from Paramount the Fleischers recognized the union and their demands.

In the meanwhile, the Fleisher Studios output suffered terribly. They had one Betty Boop cartoon “in the can” before troubles came to a head. Even so, The Impractical Joker didn’t get the exposure it deserved because of the projectionists’ action. This is a pity – it is an excellent cartoon.

The remainder of the 1937 cartoons were anything but excellent. Unsurprisingly, given the strike, they are potboilers. These cartoons are difficult to obtain, and hardly worth the effort. I intend to dismiss them very briefly. Unfortunately I have no screendumps for these cartoons.

Betty Boop cartoons released From June through December 1937 were:

The Impractical Joker
Ding Dong Doggie
The Candid Candidate
Service With a Smile
The New Deal Show
The Foxy Hunter
Zula Hula

The Impractical Joker was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Frank Endres. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is icing a cake that she has baked for Grampy’s birthday when her friend (not a boyfriend) Irving pays her a visit. Irving is fond of practical jokes and keeps springing them on Betty. Betty gets squirted by a rubber glove and scared by a gift wrapped Jack-in-the-box and a trick snake. She gets more and more annoyed (picture 1), because Irving refuses to stop. Betty goes upstairs and tells Grampy about her problem. Grampy transforms his entire apartment into a practical joker trap

Downstairs, in the meanwhile, Betty finishes icing the cake and sticks a candle in it. She asks Irving to take the cake upstairs to Grampy. Irving replaces the candle in the cake with a firework and carries the cake up to Grampy’s apartment, where he can’t resist trying out his practical jokes on Grampy – which is very unwise of him. Grampy and his gadgets turn all Irvings’s jokes back on himself.

Irving ends up bouncing from gadget to gadget, frantically trying to escape. Betty comes up the stairs to watch the fun. Eventually, Irvine exits rather quickly (assisted by a boot on a spring) through a garbage chute.

Grampy and Betty laugh at Irving, and then light the firework on the cake. The cake explodes, and Irving, looking in through the window, had the last laugh. A boat in a picture on the wall squirts water in his face, and the cartoon ends.

This is a wonderfully funny cartoon. It follows the theme of poetic justice, but avoids the nastiness of Be Human. Irving brings all his tribulations upon himself. This “hoist with his own petard” scenario formed the basis for Chuck Jones’ hilarious Roadrunner cartoons of the 1960s.

Ding Dong Doggie was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Frank Endres. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Pudgy tries to join the fire service. I can’t find a print of this cartoon and would welcome any further information. I vaguely recall watching it a very long time ago and I remember that a dalmatian was involved. It’s a pity he didn’t bring along 100 of his friends. :D

The Candid Candidate was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. No animators are credited. Given the industrial relations situation, the animators were probably wise to remain *********.

Grampy gets elected as mayor, with Betty providing a lot of vocal support during his campaign. Grampy then needs all his inventiveness to deal with a host of citizen complaints. All Grampy cartoons contain clever ideas, but some cartoons are better than others. This is one of the others. Also, it’s sad to see Betty Boop reduced to a minor role as a political cheerleader.

Service With a Smile was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by David Tendlar and William Sturm. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty runs a hotel, and Grampy uses his ingenuity to deal with the guests’ complaints. This is a retread of the Candid Candidate in another setting. All cartoon makers retread plots, but it’s not a good idea to do so in consecutive cartoons.

The New Deal Show was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Hicks Lokey and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty presents a series of cute pets, who use devices to do what they normally do naturally. (Are these the first woofers and tweeters?) This is a retread of Making Stars (1935) with animals rather than babies, and is every bit as boring as the earlier cartoon. Also Betty in 1937 isn’t as pretty as she was in 1935.

The Foxy Hunter was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Harold Walker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This short features “Junior.” It’s not clear if Junior is Betty Boop’s child. Pudgy and Junior go into the woods to play at being hunters. The woodland creatures don't like hunters and chase them back to Betty’s house. A duck follows them in and Betty holds them down while the duck spanks them.

Corporal punishment was the norm in those days and naughty children in cartoons got spanked. It is, however, sad to see Betty as a stern authority figure. Although this is not a very good cartoon, it makes the serious point that children and puppies playing at hunters can cause a lot of distress to the animals they are hunting. However, this is an anti-hunting message, and could be seen to be attacking one of America’s most revered institutions. It is probably just as well that distribution of this cartoon was severely limited.

Zula Hula was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Frank Endres. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty and Grampy crash-land their plane on an apparently deserted island in the South Pacific. Grampy invents all sorts of interesting gadgets to make life on the island easier. South Sea islanders show up and want to eat Betty and Grampy. Grampy builds a calliope (theatre organ) from parts of the wrecked plane, and Betty and Grampy dance and sing with the islanders. The pair manage to fix their plane and escape.

There’s a fair amount of racial stereotyping in this short. In Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle (1932) South Sea Islanders were shown as fierce when provoked, but here they are savage cannibals. However, in defence, it must be said that 1937 was a long time ago. In those days some of the more remote South Sea islands were still home to cannibal tribes.

In 1937, Betty faded even further into the background – and got steadily taller, thinner and less attractive in the process. Grampy and Pudgy are the stars and Betty Boop is merely a bit player. It was no longer a question of whether she would fade away. Simply when.

Mooch

Boop-a-DoopGirl

10-01-2005, 04:24 AM

Hey Mooch, can you get all these BB cartoons on DVD or VHS?

The Moocher

10-03-2005, 05:02 AM

Hey Mooch, can you get all these BB cartoons on DVD or VHS?

You can't get all of them. Some are lost.

If you live in North America you can get most, although some are very poor quality or have been heavily edited. It's more difficult for those of us in the rest of the world - we can get the tapes or DVDs but can't play them.

There's more discussion of this in the thread "Videos and DVDs" on this forum.

Mooch

Boop-a-DoopGirl

10-04-2005, 09:41 AM

:cool: Thanks Mooch! The info is greatly appreciated! :)

The Moocher

10-20-2005, 05:37 AM

1937 was not a good year for Betty Boop, with House Cleaning Blues and The Impractical Joker as the only memorable cartoons. The damaging industrial dispute in the second half of 1937 resulted in the release of a series of poor quality potboilers. By 1938 the strike had ended, but industrial relations problems had not. 1938 started well, and then degenerated into chaos.

Max Fleischer’s anti-union views did not make for a strife-free workplace, and the Fleischers decided to move their entire operation to Florida to take advantage of tax breaks and (presumably) because they thought the workforce would be less militant. Moves are always disruptive, and several 1938 shorts are lost, with even colourised screen captures are impossible to come by. This episode doesn’t have any pictures attached – sorry about that.

Betty Boop cartoons released in January through June 1938 were:

Riding the Rails
Be Up to Date
Honest Love and True
Out of the Ink Well
Swing School
Pudgy and the Lost Kitten

Riding the Rails was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is an Oscar-nominated Pudgy cartoon! Betty is an employee at the Trample 'Em R.R. Company, and Pudgy decides to follow her to work. Along the way, he gets lost in the subway. There then follows some truly exciting, funny and surreal sequences as Pudgy is chased through the dark, otherworldly subway tunnels by some scary subway cars.

This is Fleischer cartoon making at its very best. The only pity is that Betty didn’t have a bigger part in it.

Be Up To Date was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Harold Walker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty takes her travelling department store into the backwoods. When she arrives in Hillbillyville, the mountain folks don't know what the items that she is selling are for, and find different uses for the gadgets: An outboard motor is used as a plough, and a trombone as a pogo stick. Betty tries to advise, but then a sale is a sale.

This is a funny cartoon, although a modern viewer might find the stereotyping of the Hillbillies uncomfortable, condescending and not quite politically correct. The Fleischers disliked conservative, rural, bible-belt America (the feeling was mutual), but the stereotyping here was not as derogatory as it was in Be Human (1936) or Musical Mountaineers (1939). It is good to see Betty back as an independent woman, coping on her own without having to call on Grampy. This short was remade in 1956 as the Popeye cartoon Hillbilling And Cooing.

Honest Love and True was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Pudgy finds a girlfriend. This cartoon seems to be lost and I can’t find any details. This is a pity, because some authorities give this as the first short where Betty was voiced by Margie Hines, who was to take over from Mae Questel as the voice of Betty Boop.

Out of the Ink Well was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Otto Feuer. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A janitor at the Fleischer studios is learning hypnosis. He conjures Betty out of the inkwell, and tries to hypnotise her. Betty, however, is a much tougher cookie than she looks, and isn’t about to follow any suggestions she doesn’t approve of. She turns the tables on the janitor. The janitor is black, and there could be accusations of racial stereotyping if the short were released today. By 1939 standards, however, this is quite mild.

This cartoon is a nice combination of animation and live action – a formula pioneered in Betty Boop cartoons and used with great success in Who Framed Rodger Rabbit. Mae Questel definitely voiced this one.

The Swing School was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Frank Endres. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is a Pudgy cartoon, although Betty has a reasonably large part in it. She is running the Betty Boop music school for animals. Pudgy arrives late but is forgiven when he hands Betty a flower. He gives the rest of the flowers to a female puppy. Pudgy messes the lesson up and is sent to stand in the corner, but the female puppy comforts him. The ending is feel-good, if a bit soppy. This cartoon is not outstanding, but it passes a few minutes pleasantly enough.

Pudgy and the Lost Kitten was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. A little black kitten chases a fly into the kitchen. Betty leaves, and the kitten makes a mess of the kitchen. Pudgy gets the blame until Betty finds the kitten inside the turkey. This cartoon appears to be lost, which may be just as well because it would certainly put me off eating turkey!

With the notable exception of Riding the Rails, Pudgy cartoons were becoming very formulaic. Some cute but mischievous creature would get into Betty’s house and start trashing the place. Pudgy would try to fulfil his duties as a watchdog, with little success. Betty would blame Pudgy at first but then find out she was wrong, and give him a cuddle. Cartoons that follow a formula can be very successful (Popeye cartoons are an excellent example) but they can also restrict the creativity of the cartoon studio – and one of the main attractions of Betty Boop cartoons was (or had been) their creativity.

1938 started well, but quickly deteriorated. With the exception of one reasonable cartoon, the rest of the year would be no better.

Mooch

The Moocher

10-26-2005, 06:43 AM

If anyone visits, please say hello.

Mooch

The Moocher

10-26-2005, 06:48 AM

By mid-1938, as the result of labour troubles and the disruption caused by the Florida move, Fleischer Studios was having a lot of problems. The latter half of 1938 would produce one funny (and groundbreaking) Pudgy cartoon, one passable Betty Boop cartoon and a handful of potboilers. Betty Boop cartoons from July through December 1938 were:

Buzzy Boop
Pudgy the Watchman
Buzzy Boop at the Concert
Sally Swing
On with the New
Pudgy in Thrills and Chills

Buzzy Boop was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Dave Tendlar and William Sturm. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Rather than try to address Betty’s waning popularity – giving her a few decent parts would have helped - the Fleishers tried to revive the series by introducing a younger and sparkier version. Buzzy (picture 1) is Betty’s young, tomboyish cousin. She visits Betty, causes trouble, and then meets the local tearaways and becomes “one of the lads.” This cartoon is lost, but apparently it was the very last short to feature Mae Questel as the voice of Betty Boop. Mae refused to move to Florida, and would not provide Betty’s voice again until her triumphant return fifty years later in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Pudgy the Watchman was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Harold Walker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Pudgy isn’t doing his job, which is to get rid of the mice, so Betty hires Al E. Katz. Tom and Jerry were not to appear until 1940, although MGM were already gathering a team of animators directed by the strange and humourless Fred Quimby. This cartoon is therefore a forerunner, although Tom is a lot more sympathetic than the mean Al E.

In a typically surreal Fleisher sequence the cat shellacs the tails of the mice, and throws them like darts at a beach umbrella. However, Al E isn’t the world’s most reliable worker. He finds a cask of cider and gets drunk. The mice then lead the inebriated cat in a merry chase through Betty’s living quarters, much to her annoyance. Pudgy throws the disgraced cat out of the window.

We’re all used to cat vs mice cartoons, but in its day this was a trailblazer. It’s also a very funny cartoon, although Betty takes only a minor part.

Buzzy Boop at the Concert was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Lillian Friedman, Thomas Johnson, Myron Waldman and Harold Walker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer. This cartoon is so badly lost that I cannot even find a summary. It was Buzzy Boop’s last cartoon.

Sally Swing was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Willard Bowsky and Gordon Sheehan. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This cartoon introduces yet another new character and gives her instant star billing. It must have been clear that the public wanted to see Betty Boop back at her best (as far as Hays would allow) but instead Paramount insisted that “new” characters were the answer, Possibly they were hoping for another Popeye the Sailor.

This cartoon was intended to bring the jazz-loving Betty into the swing era. Betty is organizing a talent show at her local college. She comes across a young college cleaner who looks a bit like Betty Grable, and sings a mean bit of swing. Sally did not become popular, and this was her first and last cartoon.

On with the New was directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer. No animators are credited. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is working as a cook and dishwasher at Ye Olde Quainte Coffee Potte (picture 2 – colourised). She doesn’t like the job, and is delighted to receive a note inviting her to become a children’s nurse at the Bundle of Joy nursery. The babies go along a conveyor belt where they are undressed, Betty washes them, and they are then dried, powdered and put in nighttime clothes. “The little angels,” coos Betty as she tucks them all into bed.

Little they may be, but angels they are not! As soon as Betty is out the door they escape from their cots and start to trash the nursery. Betty rushes back in and tries to stop their antics, but the babies hit her with pillows and water jets. Betty ends up with a pile of babies jumping on top of her. She extricates herself and runs back to her old job so quickly that her figure blurs. The cartoon ends with Betty happily dishing out food and washing plates.

This is an entertaining cartoon, and the nursery conveyor belt is very clever. However, as a fan of Betty in her earlier days, it leaves me feeling a bit sad. Betty Boop faced up to Satan on his home patch and the Old Man of the Mountain in his cave. Now she can’t cope with a few naughty children. Remember Dangerous Nan McGrew? She ate guns.

Pudgy in Thrills and Chills was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Roland Crandall. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty and Pudgy go on a winter holiday. They try some snow sports, but fall into a river and are swept away over a waterfall. A goofy character rescues them, and then tries to get amorous with Betty. Unfortunately for him, Betty Boop stopped cuddling her rescuers in 1934.

Betty is cute (as always) in her winter sports gear, but otherwise this is an unexceptional cartoon.

The obvious reasons for the continuing deterioration in the quality of Betty Boop cartoons were the labour troubles and the move to Florida. However, I believe that another reason was that the Fleischers, particularly Max, were getting bored with Betty Boop.

Cartoons in the 1930s, before the days of computer animation, were very difficult, expensive and tedious to make. A seven-minute animation required almost 11,000 perfect, hand-drawn illustrations. Even the immensely popular Popeye cartoons were scarcely breaking even. Why bother to put this sort of effort into the dying Betty Boop Cartoon brand name? Also, Popeye cartoons usually went past the Hays Commission without a problem, while anything featuring the notorious Boop would be subjected to severe scrutiny, and require extensive editing.

The game was almost over. 1939 would end an era.

Mooch

The Moocher

10-27-2005, 07:55 AM

By 1939, Fleischer Studios had settled into its new Florida home and Max and Dave Fleisher could get back to cartoon making. While they concentrated on Popeye, who was paying the rent, they would make a few more Betty Boop cartoons, some of which were bright and tuneful, if somewhat light on storylines.

Betty Boop cartoons released in 1939 were:

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

My Friend the Monkey was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Frank Endres. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

This is a Pudgy cartoon, although Betty’s singing skills are well utilised. An organ grinder and his monkey stop below Betty's window. The monkey sings in scat style and Betty duets with it. She lets the monkey into the house to play with Pudgy while she speaks to the organ grinder. The cartoon then conforms to the Pudgy cartoon format as the monkey steals food and messes the house while Pudgy tries to stop it.

Pudgy battles with the monkey, who attacks him from under a protective saucepan and generally gives him a very hard time. Finally Pudgy chases the monkey from the house, only to find that Betty has purchased it, and it is now her second house pet.

This is a formulaic cartoon, but is amusing for all that. Betty’s scat duet with the monkey and the business with the saucepan stand out. It is a passable cartoon but not one of Betty’s best.

So Does an Automobile was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Roland Crandall and Frank Kelling. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

In this cartoon Betty is an auto mechanic repairing some very human-looking animated autos. She is once more a liberated woman doing what in those days was regarded as a “man’s” job. She is tall and slim, with her once lovely, curvy body subdued into almost an Olive Oyl shape. Nevertheless, there she is, looking cute in overalls and coping all by her sassy self without a man to fall back on. Presumably the “real” Betty was allowed to emerge on condition that she didn’t appear too sexy.

When Betty Boop for President was remade as a compilation in 1985, the colourised version of So Does an Automobile was included to indicate that Betty could do a “real” job and was presidential material.

Musical Mountaineers was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Thomas Johnson and Harold Walker. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

In this cartoon Betty is a dancer. She’s driving through hillbilly country (picture 1) and runs out of gas (petrol). Seeking help from the locals she finds that they’re suspicious of strangers, and they hold her at gunpoint. She proves her identity by demonstrating her dancing, and the hillbillies join in with some genuine bluegrass music (played by the Hatfields). They give Betty a jug of sour mash to fuel her car.

Once more Betty is an independent capable woman. Paramount and the Fleischers seemed suddenly to have discovered the secret of her success – alas too late. However, the most noticeable feature of this cartoon is the portrayal of the American rustic bible-belt community as violent and backward. The hillbillies befriend Betty at the end of the cartoon, but they wave guns at each other and at all strangers. The Fleischers (with some justification) blamed rural America for stifling their creativity and damaging their business. This was their response.

The Scared Crows was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Dave Tendlar and William Sturm. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty is a keen gardener but the crows are ruining her efforts. She gets inside a scarecrow and scares them off. Then one of the birds gets hurt, and Betty’s attitude changes completely. Betty Boop was always the friend of the weak and helpless. She brings the bird into her house and nurses it better.

The crow, however, repays her kindness by letting its companions into her house. The crows steal food and break dishes (picture 2 – colourised). Betty and Pudgy battle with the pests and Pudgy (as usual) gets a hard time. The crows work as a team in scenes reminiscent of Morning Noon and Night (1933) but Betty and Pudgy finally get rid of them. The final group of crows are captured in a box and Betty gets Pudgy to throw them out.

The crows working as a team and Betty as a scarecrow are amusing, but otherwise this is an ordinary cartoon.

Rhythm on the Reservation was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Myron Waldman. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

Betty drives the Betty Boop Swing Band truck, loaded with musical instruments to a reservation to meet some cartoon Indians (today, they would be Native Americans, but in 1939 they were Red Indians). She wants to buy a tom-tom. An Indian brave (a male Native American – remember this was 1939) finds Betty attractive and gives her a tom-tom (picture 3 – colourised) but his wife snatches it back.

In a retread of Be Up To Date (1938), the Indians find alternative uses for the musical instruments. A kettledrum is used as a kettle, and a cello for firing arrows. Betty doesn’t seem to worry about her instruments being trashed, and instead sings and dances with the Indians, proving that she can sing “swing” perfectly well, without the assistance of the ill-fated Sally. She drives off in her empty truck. The amorous Indian tries to follow her, but his wife captures him.

This is an uncomfortable cartoon, in spite of some very tuneful singing. The Native Americans are patronised and come across as rather dumb. Racial stereotyping of the “Red Indian” was common in those days, and they were commonly portrayed as vicious savages in “Westerns.” This cartoon is gentle by comparison, but still grates on modern sensibilities.

However, where the cartoon really disappoints is in Betty Boop. She is tall (taller than most of the Native Americans), painfully thin and awkward. She moves more like a clumsy teenage boy than like the lovely girl she used to be. She is wearing a very unflattering headscarf and rather strange and sexless shorts. Just how much she had changed in five years is painfully evident. The Hays Commissioners had done their worst to Betty, although in this cartoon they allowed her to show a little bit of thigh. Were they finally growing soft?

Or did they know she wouldn’t trouble them again….

Yip Yip Yippy was directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer and animated by Roland Crandall and Robert Bemiller. Adolph Zukor was the Executive Producer.

A drug store cowboy reads dime novels and dreams about being in the Wild West. This was billed as a Betty Boop cartoon, but Betty wasn’t even in it! She did not end with a bang and was not even given her last whimper. It was the final insult.

The Fleischers would never make another Betty Boop cartoon. The end was inevitable. It was 1939. War was breaking out in Europe, and without European revenue the already shaky Betty Boop Cartoon brand could not survive. Japan, a major Betty Boop market, was no longer a friendly power.

Fleischer studios stayed in Florida until 1942, but with no international revenue even the successful Popeye cartoons made a loss. Dave and Max, never the best of friends, stopped talking to each other altogether. In 1941 Paramount bought the brothers out, and then fired them in 1942. The operation moved back to New York, became Famous Studios, and continued to make Popeye cartoons, along with Caspar the Friendly Ghost and Superman animations.

Max became head of Handy’s animation department in the 1940s, and then faded into obscurity. He died in 1972. He could be an abrasive character and he made a lot of enemies. He was, however, a cartoon genius whose ideas, patents, and surreal imagination added hugely to the animation genre. He was Disney’s only significant rival for over ten years. Max Fleischer died penniless. He didn’t deserve that.

Dave became a special effects expert, working on films such as Thoroughly Modern Millie. He died in 1979. Near the end of his life he started to speak of some dark secret that would be revealed when he died. No secret was ever revealed. Probably it was all in the imagination of an old and embittered man.

The Fleischer brothers’ greatest rival, Walter Elias Disney, died in 1966. Uncle Walt was loved by millions who didn’t know him and by almost nobody who did. Arguably he contributed more to animation than did Max Fleischer, but it’s a close run thing.

Betty Boop, on the other hand, wasn’t finished yet…..

Mooch

bettyboopfan

10-27-2005, 04:14 PM

I received another DVD this weekend.
On it was Making Stars. This was the first time that I had seen this cartoon.
I was completely shocked at the "watermelon" scene!
I could not believe it.

bettyboopfan

10-27-2005, 04:14 PM

BTW: Hello Mooch!! Wonderful job as always! :D

The Moocher

10-28-2005, 04:58 AM

I received another DVD this weekend.
On it was Making Stars. This was the first time that I had seen this cartoon.
I was completely shocked at the "watermelon" scene!
I could not believe it.

I have this cartoon on "The Ultimate Collection." The watermelon scene has been removed from my version. I found this cartoon both pointless and boring - nowhere near the standard I expect from Betty Boop Cartoons.

There are lot of cuts on The Ultimate Collection. The turtle scene is cut from Is My Palm Read and Poor Cinderella is eight minutes instead of ten. All the cartoons are in black and white including Poor Cinderella (which was shot in colour). I suspect most of the cartoons are the colourised (and butchered) versions, put back into monochrome to make them look authentic.

Mooch

The Moocher

10-28-2005, 06:58 AM

Betty Boop faded into obscurity in the 1940s, although some of her less controversial cartoons (espescially those starring Pudgy) continued to be shown in cinemas during children’s matinees.

On December 7th 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked an American fleet at Pearl Harbour, and America was at war. There were many heroic and tragic consequences, but here I am considering only the film industry, and specifically cartoons. Strip cartoons and animations were made especially for American soldiers serving their country. Cartoons made for the military included Frank Capra’s Private Snafu (situation normal, all fouled up – except the second last word isn’t “fouled”) and Tex Avery’s Red Hot Riding Hood. The Hays Commisioners were still active and tried to clean these films up, but it was considered that the men fighting and dying for their country abroad deserved something a bit more exciting than Donald Duck – and quite right too!

So there suddenly was a market for cartoons featuring pretty women who wore skimpy clothes, and tended to lose their outer garments and run around in their lingerie. Now, who does that remind you of? But surprisingly, the early Betty Boop cartoons – ready and waiting – were not used in the war effort.

It’s not clear why this was. One possibility is that the troops themselves had the wrong idea about Betty Boop. As children in the 1930s they probably saw only the sanitised post-Hays output. Having sat through Little Nobody or We Did It, they weren’t in the market for Betty Boop cartoons. A more likely scenario is that the Hays Commision and the religious right were still so strongly opposed to Betty that they would not budge on allowing her more risque cartoons to be shown.

Had I been an American general I would have shown the troops Red Hot Mamma. That would have changed their minds, and boosted morale no end. If any Hays Commisioners objected I would have had them shot for treason!

No Betty Boop cartoons were made in the 1950s, but her old cartoons – or those deemed suitable for family viewing in that most prim and paranoid decade – were syndicated for television. In the 1960s colour (I should say color) television was introduced in the US, National Television Associates (NTA) bought the rights to Betty’s cartoons, colourised them and broadcasted them on The Betty Boop Show. That should have been good news. It wasn’t.

Computer animation existed in the 1960s and early 1970s, but computers were relatively primitive and very expensive. Instead NTA had the shorts colourised in Korea in sweatshop conditions that made the old Fleischer Studios operation seem like a workers’ paradise. The careful, painstaking work of animators such as Crandall and Waldman was transformed into crude, limited animation. Live sequences were cut altogether, and the careful, detailed backgrounds were washed out. Any scenes deemed “unsuitable” for daytime TV were also cut, sometimes leaving obvious gaps in the action.

The result was dreadful, and ruined the reputation of Betty Boop cartoons in the most public manner. Even worse, the original black and white nitrates were sometimes lost or damaged. The Betty Boop Show unsurprisingly flopped.

Fortunately the Betty Boop “character” – that is her image to be used on posters, illustrations and strip cartoons - fared rather better. In 1934 King Features negotiated with Max Fleischer for Betty Boop character rights so it could produce a newspaper strip drawn by Bud Counihan, which ran until 1936. The comic strip wasn’t particularly successful, but King Features to this day has protected the integrity of Betty Boop illustrations.

There’s an interesting story about this. Fleischer was a notorious tightwad and King Features executives initially couldn’t do a deal with him – so they approached Helen Kane! Helen put her name to a strip called “The Boop-Oop-A-Doop Girl” (picture 1). Of course the cartoon image of Helen Kane looked almost identical to Betty Boop, which was exactly the basis of Helen’s legal battle with Paramount. Fleischer, nicely hoist by his own petard, agreed to the deal offered by King. It’s probably the best bit of business King Features ever did.

The 1960s gave us one final irony. The Hays Commission was still active, although it was to be replaced in 1969 with a ratings system similar to that used in the UK. One strip cartoon that fell foul of Hays was a Beetle Bailey episode in which Miss Buxley was replaced by a scantily clad blonde “temp.” The Hays commissioner thought the blonde was too provocative, so she was in turn replaced by a scantily clad, big-eyed brunette (picture 2). The Hays Commissioners accepted that Betty Boop was a “safe and well accepted image.”

I would comment, but I can’t get my chin off the floor!

In the 1970s, Ivy Films put together a 72 minute black and white compilation movie called The Betty Boop Scandals of 1974. This contained some of the better shorts, including Snow White and Minnie the Moocher, but had only limited success. It is possible that the quality old cartoons had degraded, but I believe there’s a more fundimental reason, which I’ll discuss in a later post.

NTA released a compilation of colourised cartoons in 1980 with the title Hurrah for Betty Boop. The colourised cartoons are poor quality, for reasons already discussed, and the selection was poor. This project was a dismal failure.

Also in 1980, the colourised version of Betty Boop for President was updated and released prior to the Carter-Reagan election. Clips from other cartoons such as So Does an Automobile were included. This was regarded as a compilation rather than a new release and I cannot find the names of the Director, Producer or animators. This release enjoyed limited success and some television air-time, but the compilation used the NTA colourised versions of the cartoons, which did nothing to boost Betty’s popularity.

Betty appeared in a newspaper strip that ran from1984 to 1988, in which she co-starred with Felix the Cat. An unsuccessful television special, The Romance of Betty Boop, was broadcast in 1985.

So Betty Boop appeared sporadically, and usually unsuccesfully, between 1939 and 1988. Her popularity started to wane in 1934 and continued to decline for the next fifty four years. It looked like poor Betty was doomed to fade quietly away, of interest only to historians and a few die-hard fans.

And then the miracle happened……..

Mooch

The Moocher

10-28-2005, 07:59 AM

It wasn’t much of a part, but a jobbing actress down on her luck couldn’t afford to be fussy – even if she had once been a star. Betty was never one to stand upon her dignity. The part wasn’t even in character. She’d always been known for her sunny optimism, but this called for a bit of pathos. Still, she was the ultimate professional – she could handle that.

Almost every major cartoon character would be there, so she’d be a bit lost in the crowd – especially as she’d be in plain, old black-and-white. She never quite made it into the colour era. She wasn’t even getting to sing, and who else on the cast had sung duets with Cab Calloway and Don Redman?

Altogether it was an unlikely vehicle back to super-stardom. What was the film? I might have mentioned it before – a little thing made in 1988.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was produced by a consortium that included Touchstone Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and Silver Screen Partners III, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. The directors were Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg and the producers Frank Marshall and Robert Watts. Animation was by Richard Williams and many others, and the writers were Jeffery Price and Peter Seaman.

The film starts with three minutes of utterly brilliant full-colour animation, hand-drawn, 24 frames per second. Most of the audience, having been brought up in the computer era of limited animation, had probably not seen a genuine animated cartoon before. Richard Williams, an exceptionally talented animator with a real feel for and love of genuine cartooning, was initially reluctant to take this film on, because he didn’t think the budget would be sufficient to do it properly. The film’s joint directors, Robert Zemeckis of the Disney Corporation and Steven Spielberg, shared the same doubt.

Genuine animation is incredibly expensive. It was expensive in the 1930s when labour was cheap – it is an order of magnitude more expensive now. Eighty-two thousand frames of animation were created, each on a blow-up of a single frame of live-action. The animation crew numbered 326 artists, 254 directly supervised by Williams in London, another 72 in California. Also in California, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), George Lucas’ special effects house, was hired to add the final layer of dimensional reality-shadows, skin tones, even the flashing sequins on Jessica Rabbit's costume.

Max Fleischer (who else) had pioneered the combination of live humans and cartoon characters in Betty Boop cartoons such as Out of the Inkwell. Here it is taken to its ultimate. In Roger Rabbit, both human and cartoon characters (known as toons) are fully-dimensional characters, coexisting in the same space

Another feature of the film is that cartoon characters from every major studio appear in it. Lawyers worked for years behind the scenes to make this happen. So Mickey could hang about with Bugs, Donald and Daffy could duet, and Betty Boop could appear in a Disney film (Max Fleischer is still spinning in his grave).

Spielberg reckons that it’s the best film he ever made.

OK- I’ll get to Betty’s part soon, but first a word about the plot. The film is set in 1940s Los Angeles, a city divided into L.A. where humans live, and Toontown. Roger Rabbit, a prominent toon actor (picture 1), is suspected of the murder of Marvin Acme, because Acme had been seen playing patty cake with Roger's shapely wife, Jessica. Roger asks Eddie Valiant, a down-on-his-luck gumshoe played by the talented English actor Bob Hoskins (seen in picture 2 with Jessica), to find the real killer.

Valiant doesn’t like toons. A toon killed his brother. He’s also initially suspicious of Jessica. Eventually he proves that Roger is innocent, Jessica is not bad, she’s just drawn that way, and the real villain is Judge Doom, who wants to privatise the L.A. transport system (and was, this being a film, the evil toon who killed Eddie’s brother).

As part of his investigation, Valiant visits the nightclub where Jessica is a cabaret singer (she’s voiced by Kathleen Turner). He is shocked to find that Betty Boop is a waitress there (picture 3). “But Betty,” Eddie exclaims, “you were the greatest!” Betty explains gently, with no rancour and only a little tristesse, that she never made it into the colour era and that parts weren’t available for a black and white toon. “But,” she says, with a flash of the old Betty spirit, “I’ve still got it - boop-oop-a-doop.” It’s a quiet, gentle moment in an all-action film. Eddie assures Betty that she’s still the greatest and she watches as he goes on his investigating way.

Betty appears again in the film’s finale, where all the toons leap about with joy because Roger has been found innocent. She dances quietly, part of the general scene, with a subdued but very sexy wiggle.

One fact was never in doubt. The girl can act!

The film opened to rave reviews. Donald and Daffy’s duet stood out, as did Roger’s brilliant animated sequence with which the film opened. The praise for Jessica was more muted. She was too overpoweringly sexy; too much a vamp, and she had played patty-cake with Acme, albeit under duress. But mainly, she had been acted off the screen by a genuine “great.”

It wasn’t immediate, but the groundswell built. Betty Boop’s appearances had been very few in the preceding fifty years. To most of the audience, she was new, and a revelation. Just who was this lovely, brave, sad girl that had made a tiny corner of the film her very own? Why wasn’t she in colour? Also Betty is very much a woman. Jessica, voluptuous though she is, is a rabbit.

Betty didn’t make any new films, although a major project was planned. As I’ve promised before, I’ll discuss this in a later post. Her old stuff was re-released, first on videotape and more recently on DVD. It sells, but is never at the top of the best-seller lists. Betty wasn’t back as a film star; she had a brand new career.

The Marketing industry is always fast to recognise and exploit a trend and to use a popular image. Betty Boop is just perfect. From the neck up she is cute and pretty, and any child would love her on clothing or even a lunchbox. From the feet up she can wear revealing clothes like the champion she is, but still retain an air of fragility (fragile she ain’t) and innocence. Even in her leathers and fishnets, Biker Betty (picture 4) is as cuddly and wholesome as they come. And now she’s in glorious colour!

Betty’s image may be exploited, but it is seldom abused. King Features always kept a tight control, and licensed Betty Boop images are of the highest technical quality. There will always be rogue images, even obscene ones, but these are fortunately few and far between. If there is a hentai Betty Boop then I haven’t seen her, nor would I want to.

Now that Betty is popular and famous, she is increasingly seen for what she is. A groundbreaking pioneer, a true national treasure. In 1994, Betty Boop’s Snow White, lovingly restored was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the US Library of Congress. God bless America. God bless Betty Boop.

So why aren’t we seeing Betty Boop cartoons on prime time TV? Why are there no new Betty Boop movies being released? Initially I wrongly blamed King Features, but they do not hold the rights to Betty Boop cartoons. Artisan Entertainment held these rights from 1998, and hasn’t done much with them. It would be easy to blame Artisan. I think there’s a more basic reason………….

Mooch

The Moocher

10-31-2005, 09:10 AM

Ivy Films released “The Betty Boop Scandals of 1974,” including some of Betty’s best cartoons, such as Snow White and Minnie the Moocher. This release had only limited success, to the disapointment and surprise of loyal fans who believed that if the pre-Hays classics were re-released, the world would flock to see them.

In 1980 Dan Dalton produced a ninety minute film, Betty Boop for President: The Movie. It’s not clear whether this was intended for release as a movie feature, and I can find no evidence that it was. Parts of the film were given some television airtime and it was released on video. The animation consisted of the 1932 cartoon Betty Boop for President updated for the Carter-Reagan presidential election, interspersed with excerpts from other Betty Boop Cartoons such as Snow White and So Does an Automobile.

There is a theory that this movie, released at the very nadir of Betty’s popularity, was a cynical attempt to kick-start her marketing potential. Whether this is true or not, the film bombed, proving only that the Fleischer mix of songs, surreal animation, and a very sketchy story-line cannot support a ninety minute feature.

In 1985 a television spectacular, Hurray for Betty Boop, flopped. This was again a compilation of her previous cartoons.

In 1988, following the surge in Betty’s popularity that resulted from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a consortium consisting of by Collosal Pictures, Hearst Entertainment and King Features Entertainment started to make Betty Boop’s Hollywood Mystery. This was to be the all-new, fully animated Betty Boop feature film that was to re-launch our popular heroine’s film career.

Betty Boop’s Hollywood Mystery was directed by George Evelyn, produced by Heather Selick and animated by Wang Film Productions and Cuckoos Nest Productions. The scriptwriter was Ali Marie Matheson. Richard Fleischer (Max’s son) was a creative consultant

The film opens with flashbacks showing famous sequences from Betty’s old cartoons. It cuts to Betty serving patrons in a diner, while she awaits her big break in Hollywood. Betty, Bimbo and Koko get fired, and a shady character pretending to be a detective hires them as musicians - of course he is a crook. Betty is framed for robbery and locked up in prison. She escapes, and with the help of Bimbo and Koko (picture 1) solves the mystery and clears her name. The movie promised its potential audience full animation, surrealism, songs, laughter and a real storyline. It was to put Betty back at the top, where she belongs.

The eagerly awaited launch did not happen. A few cels became collectors items, but these seemed to be unfinished and unedited. Excerpts and tasters were released on CBS in 1989, but still no movie was released.

The unconfirmed story is that a senior executive at Collosal was driving the project. He or she was transferred to another project, or became ill, or retired, or moved on, and nobody picked up the baton. Other senior executives were sceptical. Cartoon features are very expensive – would this one make a profit? Betty Boop became popular by being sexy, fiesty and independent. This was unusual in the 1930s, but today almost every film heroine is fiesty, sexy and independent. Would the Fleischer style, to which the filmakers were committed, hold audiences for a full length feature film?

The releases on CBS were not particularly well animated and looked unfinished. The whole project appeared to be abandoned in mid-production, which perhaps it was. Eventually the Disney Cartoon Channel bought the rights, but excerpts are seldom aired. A videotape was released and flopped. Excerpts were released on a DVD that also featured Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey.

Betty’s new bid for movie stardom was not to be.

A number of videotapes and DVDs have been released containing Betty Boop shorts. Of these, The Definitive Collection is the most complete. Many of the cartoons are of poor quality, or are the crudely colourised offerings from the 1960s and 70s. Betty Boop cartoons are also combined with shorts featuring other artists, most notably Betty Boop and the Girls of Mischief in which “Betty joins Little Audry and Little Lulu for some mischevous escapades” (my quotes).

Betty Boop videotapes and DVDs do sell, although they are seldom in the best seller list. Some are out of print. Others are released in a format that can be played only in North America.

In general, the public will not accept low quality cartoons, even if the lovely and popular Betty Boop is in them. Surreal Fleischer-type animation can be fascinating in thirty second bursts. Ninety minutes of it is mind-numbingly tedious. The original Betty Boop cartoons, even the post-Hays output, were beautifully made and skillfully animated. Cartoons of the standard of the dreadful 1960s and 70s colourisations (or worse) are not Betty Boop cartoons. They won’t do!

Betty Boop’s Hollywood Mystery was perhaps a missed opportuntity. On the other hand, had it been properly made and released on schedule, would it have been a success? That is, at best, debatable.

What about 1974? The very best cartoons were re-released and flopped. Betty wasn’t popular at the time and the quality of some of the shorts had degraded, but I don’t believe this is the real reason for the failure. The world had moved on.

Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons were ground-breaking and pioneering. Audiences in the 1930s were fascinated. That doesn’t mean audiences today will be. We migh hail Thomas Eddison as the inventor of the light bulb, but that doesn’t mean we’d use Mr Eddison’s original bulbs to light a modern home.

Audiences, and audience expectations, have changed. 1930s audiences had no television. Entertainment was occasional and communal. Audiences, brought up on vaudeville, expected songs, and would sing along whenever possible. An animated sewing machine, a talking car and other surreal animations would surprise and delight such an audience. Today such effects old hat. 1930s audiences wanted fantasy, an escape from the harsh world of the Depression. If they were given a feast of song and animation, the story didn’t matter all that much.

The structure of film shows in the 1930s encouraged five minute shorts. There was a B-movie, a short, and then the main feature. Today, there is only the main feature, and everything is feature length.

Modern audiences are used to continuous action, and strong storylines. You might get a song, and even surrealism, in a Simpsons cartoon (Crusty does a mean version of Bring on the Clowns), but not in every episode, and certainly not several times per cartoon. To modern audiences, songs and surrealism are acceptable in small doses but shouldn’t get in the way of the action and the comedy.

Modern audiences are used to colour. Even truly classic films such as Psycho or Casablanca attract cult rather than general audiences if shown on TV, because viewers require colour. The exception, Schindler’s List, was shot in black and white for a reason. Apart from Poor Cinderella, Betty Boop cartoons, or those worthy of the name, are in black and white.

Betty was very daring in her time. She combined skimpy clothing with a coyness (almost an innocence) that caught the interest of males in the audience without antagonising the females. That was by 1930s standards. Today, almost every woman at a film awards ceremony is wearing sexy, skimpy, see-through clothing. Betty, even when stripped to her 1930s lingerie, is still wearing far more than you’d see on girls on the beach, and sometimes on the high street. Mainstream films feature nudity or near-nudity “as the plot dictates.” Girl singers flash new and unexpected portions of their anatomies in the hope that nobody will notice the odd duff note.

Betty isn’t shocking any more.

So, what’s the future for Betty Boop? If she is to become a cartoon star again, then there need to be modern cartoons, made in half-hour episodes to suit TV schedules. They will need strong storylines and good jokes. They would be in full colour – nobody makes black and white – and have a reasonable standard of animation. This requires huge investment and I don’t think it will happen. New cartoon series feature new characters (usually families). Re-introducing a character from seventy years ago would be a high-risk strategy.

In my opinion, this strategy wouldn’t work. “Betty Boop Cartoons” is a trademark, and represents risqué, cheeky shorts with lots of torrid jazz and surrealism. They are made using full, 24 frames per second animation (far too expensive nowadays) in black and white. If this makes me a snob and an elitist, then so be it. Any other format won’t be “Betty Boop Cartoons.”

In short, I don’t think there will be a new series of Betty Boop cartoons.

I hope the work being done in UCLA will revitalise and recover the old black and white shorts so that they can again be viewed with pleasure rather than irritation. I hope these will be released in multiple formats so they can be played from DVD or VHS on televisions all over the world, not just in the US.

I think it’s unlikely the revitalised shorts will be shown on peak viewing-time TV, but maybe there’s a place for them in late-night slots or specialist channels – possibly even in art and culture programmes.

Betty Boop as art and culture – now I wonder what she’d think about that!

Mooch

lowellahoward

10-31-2005, 11:31 AM

Just wanted to say THANKS FOR THIS VALUABLE INFORMATION on the History of B. B. I don't think anyone has added more value to the Forum than you, Moocher. I have learned an incredible amount on the history of the cartoons (thanks strictly to you). I am sure you spent many hours writing all of these posts and just wanted to let you know it is appreciated!

Lowell

bboop480

10-31-2005, 10:43 PM

see, told ya mooch...we love all your work!!!!

YOU ARE FABULOUS!!!

The Moocher

11-01-2005, 05:58 AM

Thank you Lowell and bboop480. I'm glad that my posts are being read and enjoyed.

Welcome to the forum Lowell.

Mooch

The Moocher

11-03-2005, 08:43 AM

Screen songs were sing-along cartoons during which the audience joined in with the performer, singing lyrics that ran across the screen with a cue (usually a bouncing ball). In the 1930s, where audiences, brought up on Vaudeville, were used to active participation in their own entertainment, Screen Songs were popular. Sometimes live stars led the singing, sometimes animated characters, and often, especially in Betty Boop shorts, a mixture of the two.

Max Fleischer (who else) invented the bouncing ball cue.

Because of the lack of storylines, even their creators gave Screen Songs scant respect and many are lost. Sometimes the animated characters (even well known ones like Betty Boop) were not mentioned in the cast list. Therefore, I may have missed out Screen Songs in which Betty appeared. If anyone is aware of any omissions, then please let me know.

For example, I haven’t included Dinah (The Mills Brothers – 1933) because I’m not sure if Betty was in it or not. I have read somewhere that Betty appeared in a short called Dinah, but the evidence is not conclusive

I have, however, included Boilesk, although Betty doesn’t appear on the cast list. I’ve seen this Screen Song mentioned on a number of sites as “a Betty Boop cartoon” and even as “one of the better Betty Boop cartoons.” The short is an old-fashioned burlesque featuring the Watson Sisters who dance, perform a comedy routine and sing "I'm Playing With Fire" with the bouncing ball. It culminates in some garter snapping. It would have been strange if Fleischer Studios had released a garter-snapping sequence without including the Boop garter – then the most famous lingerie item in the known universe. Nevertheless, I don’t have absolute proof that Betty appeared. If anyone has seen the short, please let me know. Boilesk was banned in Philadelphia. Why Philly and nowhere else?

The first Screen Song in which the as yet unnamed “Betty” character appeared was Any Little Girl That’s A Nice Little Girl. The character had previously appeared in Talkartoons such as Dizzy Dishes, drawn as a dog. Here she is drawn as a cat. and is being courted by a would-be feline Lothario. She sees him off and sings the title song. This is an unremarkable short even for a Screen Song, and the song isn’t energetic enough for a sing-along.

Some authorities give Betty Coed as the first short in which Betty was fully human, while others claim she still had dog-ears. It’s more likely that Kitty From Kansas City featured the first fully human Betty. Her nose is definitely white and there’s no evidence of dog-ears, although her rather fetching bonnet makes it difficult to tell (picture 1).

Any Rags was the first Talkartoon to feature a fully human Betty. Kitty From Kansas City preceded it by three months.

I’ve listed the other Screen Songs without going into plots (there usually weren’t any) or other details. Screen captures for Screen Songs are hard to come by, as are the shorts themselves.

The following list of Betty Boop Screen Shots may not be inclusive, but it’s the best I can come up with:

1931
Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl
Betty Coed With Rudy Vallee.
Kitty From Kansas City With Rudy Vallee.

1932
Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie With the Round Towners Quartet.
Just One More Chance With Arthur Jarrett.
Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning With Reis and Dunn.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart With Ethel Merman.
You Try Somebody Else With Ethel Merman.
Rudy Vallee Melodies With Rudy Vallee.
Just A Gigolo With Irene Bordoni.
Romantic Melodies With Arthur Tracy.
Time On My Hands With Ethel Merman.

1933
Popular Melodies With Arthur Jarrett.
Boilesk With the Watson Sisters.

Betty didn’t make any more Screen Songs after Boilesk (as far as I’m aware). Popeye and Olive Oyl took over. Popeye was very popular, and his gravelley voice was ideal for sing-along. Olive’s singing voice was as good as Betty’s. In fact, it was exactly as good as Betty’s – Mae Questel voiced them both. It was, however, odd to see Olive take the lead in Did You Ever See A Dream Walking, a tune Betty had made her own in Red Hot Mamma.

If I found myself dreaming of Olive Oyl, I’d cut down on the cheese :D .

Screen Songs were released up to 1936, but the genre faded quietly away as audiences became sophisticated, and demanded rather more from their entertainment than to sing along with popular songs.

***********************

That’s me finished with this project. It was a lot more difficult than I expected, and there was a lot of conflicting information. I probably (certainly) haven’t got everything right and I’m going back to double-check my facts. Any errors are all mine.

It was fun, and I know a lot more about Betty Boop cartoons than I used to. I hope others have found it informative.

I really would welcome discussion, queries and criticisms of anything I posted.

Mooch

lowellahoward

11-03-2005, 11:51 AM

MOOCHER
(Once again) MANY KUDOS for your so very informative 'history lesson'. As I said before, your hard work is so appreciated by yours truly.

A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR MOOCHER!

Lowell

bboop480

11-06-2005, 07:34 PM

****claps****

The Moocher

11-14-2005, 06:22 AM

Thank you.

What's your favourite Betty Boop cartoon?

Mooch

Ken

11-16-2005, 01:23 AM

Betty Boop for President
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.
Mooch

I joined this forum this evening looking for the question you answered above, Mooch. Thanks! That's service!!

I just acquired a 16mm print of this cartoon (I collect film), and my question was going to be whether or not my print of "Betty Boop for President" was missing the scene of Betty morphing into FDR. There does seem to be an abrupt edit after the Hoover bit and, although there are no splices in my print, I thought my print might be an edited version. But from your post it seems that FDR was never in this film.

My guess is that there wasn't enough time to animate the Democratic candidate before the release of this film (generally presumed to have been released on November 4). Back in those days nobody really knew who the candidate would be until after the convention. Roosevelt was in the lead for the nomination going into the convention but he didn't have it sewn up. His opponent was Al Smith, (who had lost to Hoover in 1928), and Smith also had considerable support before California switched support to FDR after 2 votes had failed to nominate a candidate. The conventionen ended on July 2 and maybe that didn't leave enough time to add FDR to the cartoon. So either the Fleischers were betting that Smith would win the nomination, or they just went with the previous candidate because he was recognizable.

Whatever the reason for FDR's absence from this toon, I agree that its a very good entry in the Betty Boop filmography. I also like "Betty in Mother Goose Land," and "I Heard" very much.

The Moocher

11-16-2005, 10:01 AM

Hi Ken

I can't claim that FDR was never in the animation. In those days cutting was just that, and possibly FDR ended up on the editing room floor. As far as I am aware (please, please, someone tell me if I'm wrong) Betty didn't morph into FDR in the released version of the short.

The theory that, when the short was made, the Fleischers thought that Al Smith would be the Democratic candidate is a convincing one. Why else would Smith be included?

Could it be that the Fleischers put both Smith and FDR in the short, and then cut out the wrong one?!

Alas, without recourse to a time machine I fear there's no way of finding out!

It's amazing that the original Betty Boop for President still entertains after all this time, when very few people remember the FDR/Hoover election. It shows just how good these old animations are!

I'm very fond of I Heard. I think that "this is done brilliantly" should override "this was done before." The last comment forms the only basis for criticism of this excellent cartoon.

I was reluctant to wax too lyrical over Mother Goose Land. I think this is one for the true afficiando who's steeped in Fleischer surrealism. If it were the very first Betty Boop cartoon you ever saw, you might be forgiven for thinking "weird, weird, weird" rather than "good, good, good." The arial views of the amorous spider are brilliant!

Mooch

papermoon

11-21-2005, 02:10 AM

To The Moocher: I registered on this forum after reading your history of Betty just so I could say Thank You! Ever since I saw my first Betty Boop cartoons (House Cleaning Blues and Betty in Blunderland) when I was 15 years old, I have been smitten. I have since aquired a modest DVD collection, and I was even more enchanted when I got the chance to see Snow White and some of the other older, jazzier, and more risque cartoons. Your history was so well researched and interesting, I really enjoyed reading it. I am expecting all 8 videos of The Definitive Collection to arrive for me from my local library in the next few days, and I am really looking forward to watching them with my new, enhanced knowledge! Thanks again, I will probably return with more questions and comments.

The Moocher

11-21-2005, 05:51 AM

Hi papermoon - welcome to the forum.

Is the full Definitive Collection available on DVD? Up until now I could get it only on videotapes that won't play in the UK. Hopefully, if I can get it on DVD I can play the shorts on my computer.

In the meanwhile I would welcome comments on the quality and content of the collection. I believe some of the shorts have been remastered and the quality improved.

Mooch

Ken

11-26-2005, 12:20 AM

Hi Ken

I can't claim that FDR was never in the animation ...
(snip)
Mooch
Hi Mooch.

I have contacted a friend who works in the animation industry and is also a fan of vintage films. He's going to do some research about this question and also ask others in the business. If he learns anything I'll tell about it here.

-- Ken

Ken

11-26-2005, 12:41 AM

In my opinion, this strategy wouldn’t work. “Betty Boop Cartoons” is a trademark, and represents risqué, cheeky shorts with lots of torrid jazz and surrealism. They are made using full, 24 frames per second animation (far too expensive nowadays) in black and white. If this makes me a snob and an elitist, then so be it. Any other format won’t be “Betty Boop Cartoons.”
In short, I don’t think there will be a new series of Betty Boop cartoons.

Sadly, I agree with you. Betty in color and computer animation just wouldn't be Betty. It would be like Harpo Marx talking - just not the same.

I hope the work being done in UCLA will revitalise and recover the old black and white shorts so that they can again be viewed with pleasure rather than irritation. I hope these will be released in multiple formats so they can be played from DVD or VHS on televisions all over the world, not just in the US.
Mooch
Yes! About the only way to see Betty today is through the versions released for TV in the 50s. Many of those versions were "dupes" with bad contrast and image loss around the edge. The original opens and closes are often missing, too. Betty deserves better and so do we!

The Moocher

11-29-2005, 09:42 AM

Yes! About the only way to see Betty today is through the versions released for TV in the 50s. Many of those versions were "dupes" with bad contrast and image loss around the edge. The original opens and closes are often missing, too. Betty deserves better and so do we!

Actually, it's a lot worse in many cases. A significant amount of footage was cut out altogether or crudely amended. I have a version of Poor Cinderella with about two minutes cut out, and a totally butchered version of Is My Palm Read where Bimbo's light positioning is cut out altogether and a banana-leaf skirt has been drawn very clumsily on to Betty's image so that the delicate viewer doesn't see her in her underwear. Dreadful.

Mooch

The Moocher

11-29-2005, 09:49 AM

I've just found a nice set of screen captures from Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931). Betty is running through the woods when her garter slips off and she pulls it back on again. This is interesting because (unless the pictures have been reversed) it's the only short in which her garter is on her right leg.

Enjoy.

Mooch

The Moocher

12-12-2005, 08:26 AM

I managed to see a copy of the Talkartoon. She's wearing garters on both legs, and both of them fall down!

A couple of things struck me about the very early Talkartoons. Firstly, Betty was really very pretty by the end of 1931. The perceived wisdom is that she was still part-dog and the combination was rather ugly. This was true in (for example) Dizzy Dishes (1930) but by the time Dizzy Red Riding Hood was made she was 99% human and her ears were hidden in a bonnet. She looks lovely.

Secondly, it's amazing how dumb she was at first. The later capable, self confident Betty was still to develop. In 1931 she was the pretty dumbelle that Marilyn Monroe was later to turn into an artform. When the Big Bad Wolf is helping her to plant flowers while simultaneously sharpening his knife and fork, you'd think she'd take the hint :eek:

Mooch

bettyboopfan

12-12-2005, 12:26 PM

She was only 99% human in Dizzy Red Riding Hood? Why would they leave her ears? That is interesting. I have not had the chance to find Dizzy Red Riding Hood yet so I can watch it. Hopefully soon!

Thanks Mooch for this info! :D

Double-B

01-07-2006, 01:49 PM

wow lots of info there :D

betty_boop14

01-07-2006, 01:56 PM

cheers 4 the info

The Moocher

01-09-2006, 08:57 AM

She was only 99% human in Dizzy Red Riding Hood? Why would they leave her ears?

The gradual transformation of Betty Boop from a French poodle (from the neck up - the rest of her was all woman) to fully human is a long story. I discuss this in my history posts.

There is some debate about just when Betty became fully human. She had definite doggie ears in Jack and the Beanstalk, but a month later, in Dizzy Red Riding Hood, it's impossible to tell. The next short was the Screen Song Kitty from Kansas City. She looks fully human to me in that, although again she was wearing a bonnet. In Any Rags her long ears have definitely become earings. However, Fleischer Studios did not announce that she was human until Boop-oop-a-Doop.

Mooch

bettyboopfan

01-10-2006, 08:05 PM

Yes I remember reading about it now in your posts.
I must have had an airhead moment at the time I was posting!

asifaarchive

01-26-2006, 02:32 AM

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.”

Accordian Joe is indeed a Betty Boop cartoon, and the later date is the correct one. It came in production order between Barnacle Bill and The Bum Bandit. The next cartoon in production order was Mysterious Mose.

At the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive in Burbank, CA, we currently have an exhibit of animation drawings from the Fleischer Studios that includes Grim Natwick's character designs for the first four Betty Boop cartoons. Dizzy Dishes is a Helen Kane caricature. Barnacle Bill is definitely the Betty Boop we all know, but still a bit thick in the hips and legs. By the third cartoon, Accordian Joe, Betty's design is spot on. She is an Indian in this cartoon. It has been said that Grim's design for Betty Boop was crude compared to the model that followed, but this isn't true. Grim changed Betty's hair a few times and dressed her in different clothes, but the basic proportions and face were the same as the model with the earrings.

I have identified Grim Natwick scenes in Dizzy Dishes (pretty much all of the girl scenes), Barnacle Bill (the scenes at the window and in the parlor with Bimbo), Bum Bandit (the scene where she is on top of the train), Mysterious Mose (just about all of the girl scenes), Silly Scandals (the song sequence with the marching penguins in the background), and Bimbo's Initiation (all the girl scenes). Grim left Fleischer in 1931 to travel west to join Ub Iwerks at his new studio. Grim's incidental girl designs in the Iwerks Flip the Frog cartoons, "Room Runners" and "Funny Face" are almost identical to Betty Boop.

You can identify Grim's scenes because he was the only animator who ever gave Betty a real range of facial expressions. After Grim left, the other artists focused more on Bimbo and kept the Betty animation very basic... just tracing heads and mouth positions off of model sheets.

Grim Natwick was arguably the greatest animator who ever lived. He started in animation on silent Mutt & Jeff and Krazy Kat cartoons at Hearst Studios, he went to Fleischer where he created Betty Boop, then to Iwerks where he became a director and basically ran the whole studio, then he went to Disney and animated the lion's share of scenes featuring the title character in Snow White. He returned to Fleischer for a short period to work on Gulliver's Travels (and also "Musical Mountaineers"). He returned to Los Angeles where he animated the greatest Woody Woodpecker cartoons. At an age where most of his contemporaries had already retired, Grim joined UPA and completely reinvented the way he animated in the stylized Mr Magoo cartoons and Rooty Toot Toot. He worked in TV on the very first animated TV show, Crusader Rabbit, as well as the Peanuts specials and George of the Jungle. He ended his career working for the director of Roger Rabbit, Richard Williams, animating on the Theif & The Cobbler". That is one person whose life and career spanned the entire history of animation.

Hope this helps
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
www.animationarchive.org (http://www.animationarchive.org)

asifaarchive

01-26-2006, 02:57 AM

OK... one more quick story about the creation of Betty Boop...

Dave Fleischer came to Grim Natwick one day with a photo of Helen Kane clipped out of a magazine. He told Grim that they had found a girl who could do a great impression of Kane, and they wanted to use her in a cartoon. Grim designed the girl in Dizzy Dishes as a caricature of Kane, not as Betty Boop.

Grim wasn't totally satisfied with Dizzy Dishes. The assisting department had messed up his drawings, and the character wasn't nearly as cute as he had intended. But he liked the idea of animating a pretty girl.

You need to keep in mind that at this point in animation, no one had animated a pretty girl before, except in stiff short scenes. Most animators had very little life drawing training, and could only construct simple cats and mice from circles. Drawing something as complex as a sexy girl was beyond their abilities. Grim, however had been an illustrator before he was an animator, and had studied art in Vienna right after WW1. He was unquestionably the best draftsman in the business at the time.

After Dizzy Dishes was completed, Dave came to Grim and told him that he had been thinking... He wanted to do a cartoon that used the song "Barnacle Bill the Sailor". Every other verse of the song was sung by the "fair young maiden", so they needed a girl character. Dave reasoned that Mickey Mouse had Minnie, so Bimbo needed a girl counterpart. Grim agreed to design a sweetheart for Bimbo and Dave said he would check back later in the day.

At this point, Willard Bowsky hadn't finalized the Bimbo character design. Every cartoon featured a different Bimbo. So Grim wasn't tied to the Minnie Mouse concept of "putting a bow on the character and calling it a girl" like most other studios. He thought that the Helen Kane character in Dizzy Dishes had potential, so he drew up some ideas of her leaning out the window alluringly to sing "Who's that knocking at my door?"

A little later, Dave Fleischer came back to Grim's desk to see what he had come up with. He looked at Grim's sketches and said that he liked the girl in Dizzy Dishes, but... "Bimbo's a dog, and that's a girl... Shouldn't she have a dog's body?" Grim quickly sketched a perfect Betty Boop head on a four legged dog body. "What do you want?" said Grim pointing at the dog Betty, "...a dog?" and pointing at the alluring, buxom Betty leaning out the window, "...or a pretty girl?". Dave laughed and said, "I see your point, Grim. We'll go with the pretty girl."

If Betty Boop was ever a dog, she was a half-hearted one at best. Her creator, Grim Natwick always saw her as an innocent, pretty girl. That drawing of Betty leaning out the window with the canine Betty in the margin is currently on display as part of the exhibit at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive in Burbank.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
www.animationarchive.org (http://www.animationarchive.org)

The Moocher

01-30-2006, 06:55 AM

Thank you! Thank you!

This is invaluable information. Please keep posting Stephen.

Mooch

bettyboopfan

01-30-2006, 10:31 AM

Great information, Stephen!!
Thanks!!

bettyboop0398

02-12-2006, 05:27 PM

I love reading info on Betty!

ACDCGRL15

02-12-2006, 05:33 PM

yeah me to i love it.

ACDC

DDD

03-17-2006, 05:01 PM

By the way, I own "Hot Dog " and the pretty girl is in no way a proto-version of Betty.

Could someone post pictures from Hide and Seek ? It's one of the very few Betty Boop that i've never seen.

Can someone also post pictures of Betty on the bed with Bimbo in " Dizzy Red Riding Hood"? That is one of the most risquè sequences in a cartoon I've evr seen!

Thanks in advance!

bettyboop0398

03-17-2006, 06:06 PM

Welcome to the forum;DDD!:D

DDD

03-17-2006, 06:22 PM

Welcome to the forum;DDD!:D

Thanks! Got them screenshots?^

bettyboop0398

03-17-2006, 06:29 PM

Thanks! Got them screenshots?^

No;I'm sorry!I bet the Moocher can help!

bettyboopfan

03-17-2006, 09:28 PM

Hi DDD, welcome to the forum!

DDD

03-18-2006, 03:25 PM

No;I'm sorry!I bet the Moocher can help!

HHHmmm...ok !

Here's again the question for Moocher :

By the way, I own "Hot Dog " and the pretty girl is in no way a proto-version of Betty.

Could someone post pictures from Hide and Seek ? It's one of the very few Betty Boop that i've never seen.

Can someone also post pictures of Betty on the bed with Bimbo in " Dizzy Red Riding Hood"? That is one of the most risquè sequences in a cartoon I've evr seen!

Thanks in advance!

The Moocher

03-20-2006, 05:55 AM

Thanks for the information re Hot Dog DDD. I don't have this one. I don't have Hide and Seek either.

Dizzy Red Riding Hood is a remarkable short. Betty is exceptionally dumb (or dizzy) in it. There are some very risque moments - the intorductory song (Did she or didn't she) warns in advance. However, this is a family forum and not the place to discuss this in detail.

I do have the short. However, I don't post screen captures from shorts - I'm not sure of the ethics or legality of this. Anything I post is public domain and readily available on the Internet. I regret that I don't have any such pictures from Dizzy Red Riding Hood.

Sorry to disappoint.

Mooch

DDD

03-20-2006, 04:08 PM

The Moocher

03-21-2006, 04:45 PM

I'm actually taking legal advice on that right now. My ambition is to write a book on Betty Boop cartoons and I'd like to use screenshots (unless I can find a source of original cels).

Betty Boop is a difficult one. King Features (or the Hearst Corporation) owns the Betty Boop image (purchased so they could produce newspaper cartoons). The ownership of the early cartoons is debatable, with Paramount and Fleischer two of several claimants. The Disney Cartoon Channel owns the rights to The Betty Boop Hollywood Mystery that included a number of earlier shorts. Do they therefore own the shorts as part of the entire feature?

Lawyers argued for years to enable Who Framed Roger Rabbit to be made with characters from several studios.

It's probably OK to post screenshots from early shorts on a not-for-profit Website, but I'm not about to test this out.

Just a coward, I reckon.

Mooch

lowellahoward

03-21-2006, 06:19 PM

Mooch, in legal areas it pays to play it safe. There can be enough problems even when you know you are OK.

DDD

03-24-2006, 06:08 PM

Hide and Seek

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.

Mooch

I've finally see pictures from this cartoon and there is no handsome motorcycle cop. He is our Bimbo , looking as horrible as he looks in HOT DOG, chasing a villain that looks a bit ( but not much) like the latter version of Bimbo himself ( amazing, isn't it?).
Also, the girl does not look at all like our Betty. I think this cartoon was made in 1930 and then realised later....

The Moocher

03-27-2006, 05:17 AM

Thanks DDD.

I don't have the short and had to base my description on reviews and second-hand research. It's great to get hard information.

Shorts weren't always released in order. The Robot starred a very strange looking Bimbo and a hardly recognisable Betty with doggie ears under her knitted hat, even though it was released after Boop-oop-a-Doop (where Betty was officially declared human) and The Herring Murder Case (where Bimbo's appearance became as we know it today).

More critiques of my posts would be most welcome. I did the history in a tearing hurry and sometimes with inadequate information, because I felt that I needed to show that Betty was (and is) a cartoon star as well as a marketing icon.

Mooch

DDD

03-27-2006, 05:48 PM

Thanks DDD.

More critiques of my posts would be most welcome. I did the history in a tearing hurry and sometimes with inadequate information, because I felt that I needed to show that Betty was (and is) a cartoon star as well as a marketing icon.

Mooch

Did not want to critique. I was only meaning to help you. Another thing: THE HERRING MURDER CASE stars a fish, a simple fish, with Betty Boop's voice. So, it is not correct to consider it as a special Betty Boop role. It is jut her voice actress doing a different voice job.

Again, I only want to help you, not to critique you. I liked your posts very much.

The Moocher

03-28-2006, 04:22 AM

DDD, the very best help I can have is for someone like yourself to point out anything I said that wasn't quite right (or downright wrong), and to add to anything I got right. I write for a living and most certainly am not precious about criticism - I rely on it.

It's a long time since I saw the Herring Murder Case, so I'm going with vague memories. As I recall, the fish had Betty's eyes - and most definitely her wiggle - as well as her voice. (I think it was voiced by Mae Questal, but I can't get definite information).

Whether "Betty" (she wasn't Betty Boop at that time) was in the short playing a fish is debatable. The Talkartoon is significant however as Koko's first talking part, and the for introduction of the "standard" Bimbo image (up until then Bimbo looked different in every cartoon).

Have you seen the Screen Song Every Little Girl that's a Nice Little Girl? Does Betty "play" a cat, or is there simply a cat character with Betty's voice?

Mooch

DDD

03-28-2006, 07:35 AM

Have you seen the Screen Song Every Little Girl that's a Nice Little Girl? Does Betty "play" a cat, or is there simply a cat character with Betty's voice?

Mooch

I'll watch again the short and will let you know.
By the way, the real Betty ( with canine ears) also appeared in the Screen Song " My Wife's Gone to the Country".

The Moocher

03-28-2006, 11:02 AM

Other than it was released in June 1931 I have no information whatsoever about My Wife's Gone to the Country. I don't know the identity of the singer or singers or the theme of the animation. I'm delighted to learn Betty was in it.

Betty Co-ed was released a month later. Some claim it was the first short with a fully human Betty, but I think the doggie ears were there, if not obvious. In Kitty from Kansas City, Betty wore a bonnet, so her ears were hidden. In Any Rags (1932) Betty's long ears had become earings, although the Fleischers didn't announce she was fully human until Boop-oop-a-doop.

Have you seen Boilesk (1933 - The Watson Sisters)? I was fairly sure Betty was in it, but she's not credited.

Mooch

DDD

03-28-2006, 12:45 PM

Have you seen Boilesk (1933 - The Watson Sisters)? I was fairly sure Betty was in it, but she's not credited.

Mooch

Nope! Too bad! Can't help you about it.....

The Moocher

03-30-2006, 05:35 AM

This is my list of Betty Boop Screen Songs. There may be others that I don't know about. She's not credited in Boilesk, but I think she was in it. Aparently there was a lot of garter snapping and it was banned in Philidelphia. Sounds like our Betty :)

1931
Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl
My Wife’s Gone to the Country
Betty Coed With Rudy Vallee.
Kitty From Kansas City With Rudy Vallee.

1932
Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie With the Round Towners Quartet.
Just One More Chance With Arthur Jarrett.
Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning With Reis and Dunn.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart With Ethel Merman.
You Try Somebody Else With Ethel Merman.
Rudy Vallee Melodies With Rudy Vallee.
Just A Gigolo With Irene Bordoni.
Romantic Melodies With Arthur Tracy.
Time On My Hands With Ethel Merman.

1933
Popular Melodies With Arthur Jarrett.
Boilesk With the Watson Sisters.

DDD

04-03-2006, 02:22 PM

Have you seen the Screen Song Every Little Girl that's a Nice Little Girl? Does Betty "play" a cat, or is there simply a cat character with Betty's voice?

Mooch

The feline lady is called Lulu Belle and she is a sort of feline adaptation of Betty Boop, not in the voice but in the physical aspect.
He looks more like the proto-version of Betty that the real one.

The Moocher

04-04-2006, 08:32 AM

Thanks DDD.

Mooch

DDD

04-12-2006, 03:35 PM

Thanks DDD.

Mooch

If you got other questions, feel free to ask.

4eva_boop_luva

04-13-2006, 07:39 PM

New To Site Thnks For All The Info! And I Thought I Knew Them All!! And Congrats A Lil Late But Better Then Never Right! Best Of Luck To The Happy Couple!

The Moocher

04-18-2006, 04:53 PM

Hi 4eva_boop_luva. I'm glad you found your way to this forum. If you have seen a few BB shorts and my description of any is not quite right, or you have information to add, please do post this.

Mooch

chess nut

05-07-2006, 09:14 PM

The Moocher

05-08-2006, 10:52 AM

Thanks to The Moocher for the synopsis. I believe you use an asterisk incorrectly for The Bum Bandit. That word means something totally different in the states. Basically it means a hobo. Also, I understand the Fleishers took the name Betty from Betty Co-ed, but her appearence isn't very Betty-like.

Hi chess nut
I'm aware of how the word is used in the short, and in the US in general. However, this site has strict posting rules and I was doing my best to follow them.

The appearance of the character that was to become Betty Boop developed from her introduction (nameless) in Silly Scandals right up to the Betty we know today. She wasn't even particulary pretty in shorts like Barnacle Bill or the Bum (OK?) Bandit.

Mooch

The Moocher

05-08-2006, 05:49 PM

Sorry, I didn't mean Silly Scandals, I meant Dizzy Dishes.

Mooch

Ken

06-20-2006, 11:56 PM

Hi Mooch.

I have contacted a friend who works in the animation industry and is also a fan of vintage films. He's going to do some research about this question and also ask others in the business. If he learns anything I'll tell about it here.

-- Ken

Long time since I first posted this question. Unfortnately, I have nothing to report. Never heard back from my friend or anybody else. So the mystery continues. Anybody else have some thoughts on this?

The original question relates to "Betty Boop for President." This toon was released on November 4, 1932 which I *think* was election day. If that was not election day then it was only a few days from the election. Curiously, Franklin Roosevelt is not in the cartoon - at least not in my 16mm print of it. President Hoover is there (the incumbant who lost the 1932 election) and so is Al Smith who was Democratic candidate in 1928. It is curious to me that FDR is missing, but there is a spot in the toon that seems to be edited so I'm wondering if the FDR bit was removed at some point. -- If anybody knows anything about this please let me know!

The Moocher

06-26-2006, 10:17 AM

There's a lot of speculation about this. It revolves round when the cartoon was actually made.

In the run-up to the 1932 election the front-runner for the Democrat candidate was Al Smith. FDR got his nose in front at the last minute. So was the cartoon made before the Democrat candidate was announced, and did the Fleischers assume he would be Al Smith?

Or, and I like this story better, did they hedge their bets? Did both FDR and Al Smith appear in the cartoon, so that one of them could be cut out? The glass of beer at the end of the cartoon could be a clue. FDR had pledged to end prohibition. The rest of the cartoon could have been made beforehand and the beer added at the last moment when the result of the election was known.

So why no FDR? Did some unfortunate film editor make a silly mistake and cut out the wrong bit? Did Mr President end up on the cutting room floor?

Mooch

Ken

06-26-2006, 01:46 PM

Or, and I like this story better, did they hedge their bets? Did both FDR and Al Smith appear in the cartoon, so that one of them could be cut out? The glass of beer at the end of the cartoon could be a clue. FDR had pledged to end prohibition. The rest of the cartoon could have been made beforehand and the beer added at the last moment when the result of the election was known.

So why no FDR? Did some unfortunate film editor make a silly mistake and cut out the wrong bit? Did Mr President end up on the cutting room floor?

Mooch
Anything is possible, Mooch, and that's an interesting theory. But there are so many people involved in the making of cartoons and it would have taken everybody involved at Fleischer to not notice that the wrong one had been cut out.

This film was released on election day, November 4 , 1932. The 1932 Democratic Convention, where FDR was nominated, ended on July 2. Making cartoons is a slow process, but the caricatures of Hoover and Al Smith in this film last only a few seconds. The Fleischers did not produce "rush jobs," but it didn't take them a year to create each cartoon either, and four months would seem plenty of time to animate these brief moments of candidate caricatures and to include the correct candidate. So, was there ever an FDR caricature in this film? My guess is that there was, but that's only a guess.

As mentioned in my post about this cartoon last November, there is also what seems to be an edit in this film - the action and music seem to change too abruptly at one point and I'm guess that is where FDR was shown.

So here's another theory --

Most of the versions we see of Betty cartoons today are from prints made for television in the 1950s. FDR was an extremely popular president and became a martyr of sorts when he died in 1945 before the war ended. Might his caricature have been removed for television in the 1950s because of concerns that making fun of this much loved and dead man would be in bad taste?

I am aware of at least one other example of television editing that has left us with missing footage in a classic film. "Horsefeathers," the Marx Brothers wonderful romp through college, was very carelessly mangled for 1950s television. The original 1932 release had a scene early in the film with Harpo (as a dog catcher) attracting big dogs with big fire hydrants and little dogs with little fire hydrants. Urination humor was apparently too much for the television censor and that footage is now missing. And the scene in Thelma Todd's apartment where all the brothers keep barging in and interrupting a romantic moment contained various verbal and visual jokes that are missing, including one where Harpo did a head stand in Todd's lap! This footage was reportedly last seen in the 1950s and has been missing ever since and is now presumed lost. Look at that scene in Todd's apartment - as it survives it looks like the film is just badly worn - dialogue is cut in mid sentence and the action jumps around illogically. But its not the result of a worn print. It was carelessly and unprofessionally edited this way to remove things deemed too raunchy for television in the 50s. -sigh-

But the bottom line for the Betty cartoon is that we don't really know. At least not at this point. I asked an animator friend this question and he was going to ask others in the business as well as a cartoon history expert, but I haven't heard back from him. I'll knock on his door again and see we can jump start this question.

Headline in the Betty Boop News: FDR IS MISSING!!! AUTHORITIES ARE BAFFLED. CALL GRAMPY!!!:eek:

The Moocher

06-27-2006, 08:08 AM

Yes, that's the most likely theory, Ken - a pity, I like the thought of FDR being cut out by mistake. However, it begs the question of why Al Smith was left in, or was included at all.

There's an even more blatant piece of television mangling in Swim or Sink (or S.O.S. after UTM got hold of it). Betty swims to shore after the shipwreck, removes her dress, and drapes it over a rock to dry. The rock is a turtle and it walks away with her dress. She disappears into a bush and emerges in a skirt made from banana leaves.

Back at the fortune teller's a ghost appears out of the crystal ball and rips off Betty's elegant long gown. Underneath, she's wearing the banana leaf skirt.

Now, I'm no expert in Ladies' fashions, but I don't think banana leaf skirts are normally worn under long gowns. I think the skirt was added at the insistance of the television censor who didn't like the fact that Betty spent most of the cartoon running around in her underwear.

Unfortunately I've never been able to locate an original 1930s version of the cartoon to check this out.

Mooch

Ken

06-27-2006, 12:56 PM

Now, I'm no expert in Ladies' fashions, but I don't think banana leaf skirts are normally worn under long gowns. I think the skirt was added at the insistance of the television censor who didn't like the fact that Betty spent most of the cartoon running around in her underwear.

Unfortunately I've never been able to locate an original 1930s version of the cartoon to check this out.

Mooch
I haven't seen this film so I can't comment on it specifically. But it is yet another example of a film that has apparently not survived in its original form.

"Love Me Tonight" is considered by some to be one of the best movie musicals of all time. Its a pre-code film (just like the early Boops) and contains some rather saucy moments and suggestive lines. At some point the doctor's examination scene, which is certainly one of those saucy moments and also shows Jeanette MacDonald in her underwear, was snipped and the film was shown without it for some time. Fortunately it does survive and it has been restored in the DVD release from Kino. However, another portion of this movie is still missing in action. Near the middle of the film there is a delightful sequence in which all the leads are shown individually singing a chorus of "Isn't It Romantic." The Myrna Loy chorus was removed ages ago and has not been seen since. The report is that her costume in that scene revealed her navel, thus it had to be removed to protect the sanctity of something or other. That edit was done professionaly and you probably won't notice anything wrong when you watch this wonderful film (and I urge you to get the DVD of this film and enjoy because it is great fun!). But still, that bit is not there and it should be.

So, Betty is not alone in offending the delicate balance in the brains of some people. Occasionally, missing footage does turn up, but as time goes on that is less and less likely because movies made before 1951 were printed on nitrate film stock which is highly flammable and also decomposes over time. The longer we wait to find these films the greater the chance that they have either burned or turned to dust. The sooner somebody makes a serious effort to find original versions of Betty Boop the better! But I fear that many of her films survive only in sometimes edited versions prepared for television in the 1950s. It is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all silent films are missing - no known prints or negatives survive at all! At least most of Betty's films survive in some form.

I woke up late this morning and the day is quickly escaping. But I had to take care of the important stuff (Betty) first! Now its time to get BOOPING!! :D

The Moocher

06-28-2006, 03:45 PM

I The sooner somebody makes a serious effort to find original versions of Betty Boop the better! But I fear that many of her films survive only in sometimes edited versions prepared for television in the 1950s.

The more that can be done the better, but I need to mention and applaud the excellent work carried out by the ASIFA. I don't encourage posting links, but I'll make an exception for http://www.animationarchive.org/.

Mooch

lowellahoward

06-28-2006, 04:43 PM

Thanks, Mooch. Excellent site.
Lowell

Bikerbettyboop

07-06-2006, 11:01 AM

The more that can be done the better, but I need to mention and applaud the excellent work carried out by the ASIFA. I don't encourage posting links, but I'll make an exception for http://www.animationarchive.org/.

Mooch

Way to go Mooch!! Fantastic website! Thanks for the link! :D

Comix

08-05-2006, 08:14 PM

Thank for inviting me to this forum. I'm going try to begin my input with my Betty Boop Filmography. Hope it work.
2823

Comix

08-05-2006, 08:20 PM

Let me try again.

BETTY BOOP FILMOGRAPHY

These symbols represent four of the Max Fleischer series that Betty Boop has starred in:
[TK] = Talkartoons
[SS] = Screen Songs
[BB] = Betty Boop Cartoons
[CC] = Color Classic

These letters represent the supporting characters:
b = Bimbo
k = Koko the Clown
f = Fearless Fred (Freddie)
p = Pudgy
j = Junior
g = Grampy
w = Wiffle Piffle

Accordion Joe (12/12/29) [TK] b (?)

Hot Dog (3/29/30) [TK] b (?)
Dizzy Dishes (8/9/30) [TK] b
Barnacle Bill (8/31/30) [TK] b
Mysterious Moses (12/26/30) [TK] b

The Bum Bandit (4/3/31) [TK] b
Any Little Girl That’s a Nice Little Girl (4/6/31) SS.
The Male Man (4/24/31) [TK] b (?)
Silly Scandals (5/23/31) [TK] b
The Herring Murder Case (6/26/31) [TK] (?)
Bimbo’s Initiation (7/24/31) [TK] b
Betty Co-ed (8/1/31) [SS] Rudy Vallee
Bimbo’s Express (8/22/31) [TK] b
Minding the Baby (9/26/31) [TK] b
Kitty from Kansas City (11/1/31) [SS] Rudy Vallee
Mask-a-Raid (11/7/31) [TK] b
Jack and the Beanstalk (11/21/31) [TK] b
Dizzy Red Riding Hood (12/12/31) [TK] b

Any Rags (1/2/32) [TK] b, k
Boop-oop-a-doop (1/16/32) [TK] b, k
The Robot (2/16/32) [TK] b
Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (3/4/32) [SS] (?)
Minnie the Moocher (3/11/32) [TK] b, k, Cab Calloway
S.O.S. (Swim or Sink) (3/11/32) [TK] b, k
Crazy Town (3/25/32) [TK] b
Just One More Chance (4/1/32) [SS]
The Dancing Fool (4/8/32) [TK] b, k
Chess Nuts (4/13/32) [TK] b, k
Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning (4/22/32) [SS] Les Reis and Artie Dunn
A Hunting We Will Go (4/29/32) [TK] b, k
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (5/20/32) [SS] Ethel Merman
Admission Free (6/10/32) [TK] b, k
The Betty Boop Limited (7/21/32) [TK] b, k
You Try Somebody Else (7/29/32) [SS] Ethel Merman
Rudy Vallee Melodies (8/5/32) [SS]
Stopping the Show (8/12/32) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop Bizzy Bee (8/19/32) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop, M.D. (9/2/32) [BB] b, k
Just a Gigolo (9/9/32) [SS] Irene Bordoni
Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle (9/23/32) [BB] b, The Royal Salmoans and Miri
Betty Boop’s Ups and Down (10/14/32) [BB] b
Romantic Melodies (10/21/32) [SS] Arthur Tracy
Betty Boop for President (11/4/32) [BB] b
I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You (11/25/32) [BB] b, k Louis Armstrong
Betty Boop’s Museum (12/16/32) [BB] b, k

Betty Boop’s Ker Choo (1/6/33) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions (1/27/33) [BB] b, k
Is My Palm Read (2/17/33) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop’s Penthouse (3/10/33) [BB] b, k
Snow White (3/31/33) [BB] b, k Cab Calloway “St. James Infirmary Blues”
Popular Melodies (4/7/33) [SS] Arthur Jarrett
Betty Boop’s Birthday Party (4/28/33) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop’s May Party (5/12/33) [BB] b, k
Betty Boop’s Big Boss (6/2/33) [BB]
Mother Goose Land (6/23/33) [BB]
Popeye the Sailor (7/14/33) [BB]
Old Man of the Mountain (8/4/33) [BB]
I Heard (9/1/33) [BB] b, k Don Redman
Morning, Noon and Night (10/6/33) [BB] Rubinoff
Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party (11/3/33) [BB]
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (12/1/33) [BB] Rubinoff

She Wrong Him Right (1/5/34) [BB] f
Red Hot Mama (2/2/34) [BB]
Ha! Ha! Ha! (3/2/34) [BB] k
Betty in Blunderland (4/6/34) [BB]
Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame (5/18/34) [BB] Max Fleischer
Betty Boop’s Trial (6/15/34) [BB] f
Betty Boop’s Lifeguard (7/13/34) [BB] f
Poor Cinderella (8/3/34) [CC]
There’s Something About a Soldier (8/17/34) [BB] f
Betty Boop’s Little Pal (9/21/34) [BB] p
Betty Boop’s Prize Show (10/19/34) [BB] f
Keep in Style (11/16/34) [BB]
When My Ship Comes In (12/21/34) [BB]

Baby Be Good (1/18/35) [BB] j, p
Taking the Blame (2/15/35) [BB] p
Stop That Noise (3/15/35) [BB]
Swat That Fly (4/19/35) [BB] p
No! No! A 1,000 Times, No! (5/24/35) [BB] f
A Little Soap and Water (6/21/35) [BB] p
A Language All My Own (7/19/35) [BB]
Betty Boop and Grampy (8/16/35) [BB] g
Judge for a Day (9/20/35) [BB]
Making Stars (10/18/35) [BB]
Betty Boop, with Henry, the Funniest Living American (12/22/35) [BB] p

Little Nobody (1/27/36) [BB] p
Betty Boop and the Little King (1/27/36) [BB]
Not Now (2/28/36) [BB] p
Betty Boop and Little Jimmy (3/27/36) [BB]
We Did It (4/24/36) [BB] p
A Song a Day (5/22/36) [BB] g
More Pep (6/19/36) [BB] p
You’re Not Built That Way (7/17/36) [BB] p
Happy You and Merry Me (8/21/36) [BB] p
Training Pigeons (9/18/36) [BB] p
Grampy’s Indoor Outing (10/16/36) [BB] p
Be Human (11/20/36) [BB] p
Making Friends (12/18/36) [BB] p

House Cleaning Blues (1/15/37) [BB] g
Whoop! I’m a Cowboy (2/12/37) [BB] w
The Hot Air Saleman (3/12/37) [BB] w
Pudgy Take a Bow-Wow (4/9/37) [BB] p
Pudgy Picks a Fight (5/14/37) [BB] p
The Impractical Joker (6/18/37) [BB] g
Ding Dong Doggie (7/23/37) [BB] p
The Candid Candidate (8/27/37) [BB] g
Service with a Smile (9/23/37) [BB] g
The New Deal Show (10/22/37) [BB]
The Foxy Hunter (11/26/37) [BB] p, j
Zula Hula (12/15/37) [BB] g

Riding the Rails (1/28/38) [BB] p
Be Up to Date (2/25/38) [BB]
Honest Love and True (3/25/38) [BB] p
Out of the Inkwell (4/22/38) [BB]
The Swing School (5/27/38) [BB] p
Pudgy and the Lost Kitten (6/24/38) [BB] p
Buzzy Boop (7/29/38) [BB]
Pudgy the Watchman (8/12/38) [BB] p
Buzzy Boop at the Concert (9/16/38) [BB]
Sally Swing (10/14/38) [BB]
On With the New (12/2/38) [BB]
Thrills and Chills (12/23/38) [BB] p

My Friend the Monkey (1/27/39) [BB] p
So Does an Automobile (3/31/39) [BB]
Musical Mountaineers (5/12/39) [BB]
The Scared Crow (6/9/39) [BB] p
Rhythm on the Reservation (7/7/39) [BB]
Yip Yip Yipee (8/11/39) [BB] (Betty Boop does not appear)

Betty Boop for President (Betty Baby, Hurray for Betty Boop) (1980) b, k, f, p, g
Romance of Betty Boop (3/20/85)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Betty Boop’s Hollywood Mystery (1990)

The Moocher

08-06-2006, 04:21 PM

Thanks Comix!

Mysterious Mose, not Moses. I assume that was just a typo, although I've this vision of Charlton Heston......

The only one I've never heard of is the Male Man. Do you have a storyline?

I notice you haven't included Boilesk (SS, the Watson Sisters). Betty isn't in the cast list, but that's not unusual in a screen song. I've seen reports that she was in the animation, but I haven't been able to get a copy.

Mooch

Comix

08-06-2006, 07:11 PM

This is an old list and I've never seen The Male Man (4/3/31). Usually whenever I read about a Betty Boop film that I never heard of, I'll add it to my list just like I'm going to do with Boilesk. I have looked around and I couldn't figured out where I found that imformation. If I do find I'll let you know.

I'm still reading your report on the History of Betty Boop, I'll put in some input later.

Comix

08-06-2006, 08:12 PM

I just found out where I got that information from, It was from the Betty Boop 2002 Year in a Box Calendar.

http://www.bettyboop.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2826&stc=1&d=1154905679

Comix

08-06-2006, 10:41 PM

I was looking through my copy of Betty Boop 2002 Year-in-a-Box Calendar and I found three more Screen Songs titles that starred Betty Boop. They are:

Little Annie Rooney (10/3/31) [SS]
By the Light of the Silvery Moon (11/14/31) [SS]
Boo Boo Theme Song (10/3/33) [SS] The Funny Boners

I guess you can cut and paste those.

The Moocher

08-07-2006, 07:45 AM

OK, I've found The Male Man in my records. I didn't have it under Betty Boop.

According to what I have it starred Bimbo and Koko but not Betty. I've no synopsis, and no record of who animated it.

I haven't seen the short, so I don't know if Betty appeared in it. In April 1931 she didn't have a name and sometimes appeared only briefly in Fleischer talkartoons.

Mooch

Comix

08-14-2006, 10:47 PM

The Moocher

08-15-2006, 06:16 AM

Oops, yes, I meant Is My Palm Read. I'm getting old and senile.

Both shorts start with shipwrecks, which is why I got confused.

Thanks Comix.

Kims21

10-23-2006, 01:43 AM

wow wow wow wow

ktm_4n

10-23-2006, 06:52 AM

thank u :D

bye

dandu

11-06-2006, 05:17 PM

Do you know which ones are colorized?

I know only:

Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee
Is My Palm Read
Mask-A-Raid
Minnie the Moocher
Red Hot Mama
Making Stars
Henry
Little King
Crazytown
No No A Thousand Times No!

The Moocher

11-10-2006, 09:14 AM

Sorry for the delay in reply Dandu.

I haven't been able to get a definitive list of colorized cartoons. I think most of them were. I do know Dizzy Red Riding Hood was colorized because there was this ridiculous purple wolf....

The only short that I kbnow for sure wasn't colorized was Dizzy Dishes. Apparently UTM reckoned that in her very first appearance, Betty "wasn't pretty enough."

Mooch

Bikerbettyboop

11-12-2006, 05:15 PM

What Moocher, you didn't like the purple wolf? LOLL!!

dandu

12-21-2006, 12:34 PM

I would like to see that one, I noticed that the nice and surreal color choices were made by JH Song (I think these Betty Boop redrawns are the only ones that credit the colorizing crew) Song's work on Crazytown and Red Hot Mama are really pleasing. There were ones with a rather bland and sometimes eye bleeding choices go to someone in New York, that person's job on Betty Boop's Kerchoo was horrendous, TOO MUCH RED!!! The animation is allright though.

poopielee

08-14-2007, 12:31 AM

I have a betty boop 8mm film by metro films New York ny titled: Bad Bad Baby and I can't find any info on it and was wondering if you could help me in anyway. It's a really cute animated film.

Thanks in advance,

poopielee :confused:

chess nut

08-14-2007, 01:49 AM

There were a couple of companies that released 50 or 100 foot reels of scenes from Betty cartoons. These were usually 50 or 100 feet in length and silent for home projectors. They were usually given titles different than from what cartoon they were from. Metro and Excel are two of the companies that I know of.

Kokolossal

10-29-2007, 04:53 AM

Hi, all. I found this site while I was searching for a comprehensive filmography of Betty Boop. I have read this entire thread, but not had time to poke around the rest of the site much yet, but this thread has been very helpful! Of course the posts were made over a few years, but they are fresh to me, as I just read them.

My goal is to collect, and then watch in chronological order by release date, as many BB cartoons as possible. To try and come up with a comprehensive filmography, I started with Leslie Cabarga's book, The Definitive Betty Boop Collection, which I own, and filmographies from the IMDb, and the Wikipedia. I see the lists here are incomplete, as was mine. On this thread, I see four cartoons that I did not know were BBs. Also, I have seen several that are discussed here, and can say yea or nay, as to whether they are BBs. Maybe at some point I will type out my entire list, if there is interest, but I'm a slow typist, and this is a long post, so not now.

First, five cartoons I have NOT seen, that are mentioned here as being BBs:
Accordion Joe, TK, 12/12/30 (wikipedia says has BB)
My Wife's Gone To The Country SS, 5/31/31
Little Annie Rooney SS, 10/3/31
By The Light Of The Silvery Moon, SS, 11/14/31
Boo Boo Theme Song SS 10/13/33

Another I have not seen, and is not mentioned here, but the wikipedia says it has Betty:
Teacher's Pest TK, 2/7/31

If anyone knows of a source for any of the above, on video, please let me know!

There are three that I have seen, that I can confirm are definitely Betty, but weren't on most lists I found:
Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie SS, 3/4/32
Just One More Chance SS, 4/1/32
Time On My Hands SS, 12/23/32

There are three that IMO are NOT BBs:

First, I have seen Boilesk, and it is not Betty. There are two main female characters, neither of which looks like, or acts like, Betty. The main female is a cabaret singer/ other woman who looks like a hippo. The wife the husband leaves at home (she has many men hiding in her room!) doesn't look like Betty at all, but her voice sounds a bit like Betty. She is on screen for about 10 seconds.

Most people agree that Betty Co-ed is not a BB cartoon. I certainly agree with that. I would point out that there had been 8-11 prior cartoons with BB looking like BB, so a "proto-BB" would seem anachronistic. I don't think they even got the name from that cartoon. It was a popular song of the day, and came out 3 months after the first cartoon where BB's name was spoken, AFAIK. That cartoon was TK Silly Scandals, 5/23/31.

Then, there is SS Any Little Girl That's A Nice Little Girl, 4/16/31. I realize that this is on BB:TDC, which Richard Fleischer had something to do with. I guess it comes down to if you are a purest, or a completist. The female lead, a cat, looks nothing like Betty. There is a sort of gallery of stills of "nice little girls" that has at least two stills that look more like Betty than the female lead. However, there IS a still image of Betty's face, almost filling the frame, near the end, but it neither moves, nor speaks. So, is that enough to make it a BB cartoon? Would a full frame poster of Clark Gable make a film a "Gable film" if he appeared nowhere else in it? I think not. But, that's just my opinion.:D

BTW, thanks to The Moocher, for all the hard work , and very informative filmography posts! :cool: Much appreciated, even if that was two years ago for you!