Unreleased feature film?

[GuitarSolo]

Back in the 1980s, a friend gave me a supposedly unreleased full-length Betty Boop film titled "Betty Baby." The friend disappeared somewhere and I have no way of tracking him down.

I came across this film recently when I was cleaning up and realize I've never watched it. It is on two cassettes in an obscure video format from Sony called U-matic.

I've tried to search for information about the film, but there is nothing that even suggests a feature film had been made and not released.

Does anybody have any information about "Betty Baby"?

[boopman]

Hi,
Yes, it's very possible you have a project that never got released. There were several proposed and worked on in the 1980s, and others in more recent years. If you want some info, try contacting Mark Fleischer at Fleischer Studios (through their website)
-Leonard

[bettyboop0398]

Back in the 1980s, a friend gave me a supposedly unreleased full-length Betty Boop film titled "Betty Baby." The friend disappeared somewhere and I have no way of tracking him down.

I came across this film recently when I was cleaning up and realize I've never watched it. It is on two cassettes in an obscure video format from Sony called U-matic.

I've tried to search for information about the film, but there is nothing that even suggests a feature film had been made and not released.

Does anybody have any information about "Betty Baby"?


Welcome to the forum!

[bboop480]

Welcome to Boopland!!!!:D

[The Moocher]

I've never heard of "Betty Baby," but as boopman says there were a number of projects in the 1980s that were intended to make Betty better known (and to revive her image for marketing purposes). Not all of these came to fruition.

If you do find out anything more, GuitarSolo, please post it here.

Mooch

[Comix]

Betty Baby was a movie that was meant to be released during the election year in August 1976 by producer Dan Dalton. The project took too long that he missed the deadline. Apparently NTA was anxious to release the film as they advertised an "all singing, all dancing feature lenght production" call Betty Baby in the October 19, edition Of Variety. That incarnation of the film was not release in November of 1977 as promised. Then they change the title to Hurray for Betty Boop when it finally surfaced in 1980 at the Cannes Film Fesitval and had two trade screenings in hopes of attracting world-wide sales. The film went to cable television and video tapes. The movie was last released in 2004 under the new title Betty Boop for President the Movie. It has photos of George W. Bush and John Kerry on the cover.
The movie itself was a compilation of old Max Fleischer shorts from 1932 through 1939. Not only it been colorized very badly but most of the sound has been erased and dubbed over with new dialogues with Victoria D'Orazi as the new voice of Betty Boop. Tom Smothers (of the Smothers Brothers) became the voice of Pudgy and new songs were provided by Debbie Boone. Cab Calloway's songs were the only that has not been over-dubbed. This movie should offends all Betty Boop fans everywhere.

[Comix]

Hi testing the e-mail

[Comix]

Betty Baby was a movie that was produced by Dan Dalton for the election year of '76. Because the project took too long, Dalton missed the August 1976 deadline. Apparently NTA was anxious to release the film as they advertisted an "all singing, all dancing feature length production" called Betty Baby in the Oct. 19, 1977 edition of Variety. That incarnation of the film was apparently not released in Nov. 1977 as promised. The movie now renamed Hurray for Betty Boop finally sufaced in 1980 at the Cannes Film Festival and had two trade screenings in the hopes of attracting world-wide sales. No one was interested. The film went to cable television and on to videotapes. The movie was last released on DVD in 2004 under the new title Betty Boop for President the Movie. It has photos of George W. Bush and John Kerry on the cover.
The movie is a compliation of old Max Fleischer shorts from 1932 through '39. Not only all the shorts were colorized very badly but all of the sound were dubbed over with new dialogues in attempt to make one storyline throughout the film. Victoria D'Orazi became the new voice of Betty Boop. Tom Smothers (of the Smothers Brothers) was the voice of Pudgy and songs were recorded by Debbie Boone. This movie should offend all Betty Boop fans everywhere.:(

[Comix]

I'm now sorry I wrote the story twice, I thought the e-mail didn't get through the first time.:confused:

[The Moocher]

Thanks for the information Comix.

I agree, Hurrah for Betty Boop was truly dreadful.

I'm puzzled about Betty Boop For President, the Movie. The original Betty Boop for President was revamped for the Reagan-Carter election with a lot of compilation footage. I wasn't aware of yet another version based on Hurrah for Betty Boop.

Mooch

[Comix]

I don't think Bush or Kerry or any of the presidents were actually mention in the film itself. They just change the name of the movie and put photos of the two current candidates on cover of the DVD case.
Right now I'm not really ready to watch the movie again just to see if there are any "name droppings" but I don't think were any.
By the way, I got most of my information for Betty Baby from a copy of Animato! of Fall 1995, Issue 33 if you want to check it out. That issue was celebrating Betty Boop 65th birthday. I guess that makes her 76 year old now.

[boopman]

Well, there you go ... 1995, those two were not even on the scene. Hooray for Betty Boop was released in 1980 and featured Tom Smothers and Victoria D'Orazi. It was produced and written by Dan Dalton with original 1930s cartoons, but they are colorized. The Association sang "Cruisin' in the City", and Debbie Boone sang "May the Road Rise Up to Meet You". NTA Production released by New Line Cinema.
Out of this release came the "Betty Boop for President" campaign, but there was never a video released with that title. There is an NTA poster of the "Hurray for Betty Boop" video, and written in under the banner is "Betty Boop for President", but no seperate video was made. Sign Display Co. printed peel-off stickers with "Don't be a Droop...Vote For The Boop!"
Having said that, Ivy Films released (date unknown but probably 1970s) an 8mm film with the title "Betty Boop for President" which was the colorized version of an original 1930s film.
The information Comix posted is exactly as printed in Issue 33 of Animato!, where Mike Dobbs talked to Dan Dalton about the project. Yes, Dalton's idea was to use the "Betty Boop for President" short and give the film a boost since it was an election year in 1976.
Now it may be that this was recently re-released on DVD and was edited or changed to reflect the recent elections, but I have not seen a dvd to verify this.
So, back to the original question from GuitarSolo . .. . yes, there was a project titled "Betty Baby" and it wasn't this one, although it may have been the pre-cursor to "Hurray For Betty Boop". You'll just have to watch it and let us know what the story line is and which films were used to make it.

[Comix]

There really is DVD released in 2004 called Betty Boop for President. I bought it at Best Buy a couple of years ago. I was only discribing the cover of the DVD box when I mention Bush and Kerry because I do not know how to post pictures to this web site. You can find the DVD at www.navarre.com. I'm really sorry that I confused you and now I wish I hadn't mention Bush and Kerry since that wasn't important and no, I didn't get that info from the 1995 issue of Animato.
Anyway I watched Betty Boop for President earlier and I noticed what they did was they cut out Betty Boop's opening number and title sequence from Hurray for Betty Boop and replaced it with the Betty Boop for President title. The referance to Ronald Regan is still in the movie. And I this is the movie that was once called Betty Baby and the real dead giveaway is "Betty Baby" was one of songs that played several times throughout the picture. It was mention in the closing credit that the song was written by Manny Freiser and Dan Dalton (the producer of this crappy movie.) The song was also sung by Freiser. I don't think I can convince you any more than that. It not uncommon for a producer or a movie company to change a movie title (or do dumb things like putting pictures of current presidential canadidates on cover of DVD boxes) in hope to sell a movie. Case in point---a lesser known Sylvester Stallone did an X-rated movie called Party at Kitty and Studs. But after he became famous from doing Rocky, they change the name of the dirty movie to The Italian Stallion.

[Comix]

I have no idea that if I type a web address, it became a link. Let me try that again.

http://www.navarre.com/prodhome.aspx?ItemNumber=2141595&Prod=video

That should take right to the DVD.

[lowellahoward]

I have no idea that if I type a web address, it became a link. Let me try that again.

http://www.navarre.com/prodhome.aspx?ItemNumber=2141595&Prod=video

That should take right to the DVD.
Yes you are 100% right. I have that DVD and bought it about a year ago at Tower Records. And, yes it is copyright 2004.
Lowell
The web site does indeed show that DVD.

[The Moocher]

This is a fascinatiing discussion.

It's slightly clouded by the discussion about DVDs, but it brings into focus the compilations that came out in the late 70s and early 80s.

Remember that such a release can exist even if it never saw the light of DVD.

I have Hurrah for Betty Boop at a later release date than Betty Boop for President. My source is the Big Cartoon Database, which is usually reliable.

I have 1980 for Betty Boop for President, which actually makes as much sense as the confused situation allows. The cartoon (it's not a full length feature) is mostly compilations (Snow White, Just like an Automobile, etc) but there's a voiceover and linking footage as Betty Boop (described as "this popular female entertainer") contests the Presidential election. It was the 1976 election, so a proposed release date of 1977 makes sense. That it was not released until 1980 is, unfortunately, par for the course for Betty Boop features. The cartoon received some television coverage. I remember it being on UK TV in the early 80s.

I have 1985 for Hurrah for Betty Boop. This is described as "a cynical attempt to boost Betty Boop's marketing potential." I think Hurrah for Betty Boop was a rework of the Betty Boop for President compilation rather than vice versa.

The only "full length" feature that I know of is Betty Boop's Hollywood Mystery. This was supposed to be released in 1989 to capitalize on Betty's small but popular part in Who Killed Roger Rabbit, but it degenerated into a farce of missed release dates and partial releases. I believe the whole mish-mash went to DVD (or maybe VHS) eventually, but as far as I know this is unavailable.

Mooch

[Bikerbettyboop]

I see all these wonderful animations on the big screen.. like CARS and sure wish they'd make one of Betty Boop!