Customer Reviews

Betty Boop 23 Classic Cartoons

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

PLATINUM DISC's BETTY BOOP 23 CLASSIC CARTOONS combines their two 2004 sets, CLASSIC BETTY BOOP CARTOONS VOL. 1 and VOL. 2.

All the shorts on the first disc are very good dubs but there's darkness problems with the last 8 on the second DVD. Also, PLATINUM's intro plays before each cartoon and a faint watermark appears on screen at times.

PROGRAM--

VOLUME ONE:

BETTY BOOP'S RISE TO FAME (1933) - During an interview, Max Fleischer interacts with Miss Boop. Highlights of three earlier shorts are included.

I'LL BE GLAD WHEN YOU'RE DEAD YOU RASCAL YOU (1932) - Superb Boop short features song by inset Louis Armstrong.

SNOW-WHITE (1933) - This ultimate Betty Boop cartoon has Cab Calloway's vocal of "St. James Infirmary."

BETTY BOOP'S BAMBOO ISLE (1932) - Bimbo meets Boop as a hula dancer. The Royal Samoans perform.

MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT (1933) - Rubinoff's orchestra plays as Betty tries to rescue a bird from Tom Cats Club.

CHESS-NUTS (1932) - Betty and Bimbo are pieces on a hallucinogenic chess board.

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN (1933) - Cab Calloway voices title character in this great Boop short.

UM&M opening-Nice PD print.

BETTY IN BLUNDERLAND (1934) - Boop dreams of being in an alter-universe Wonderland with all the famous Lewis Carroll characters.

BE HUMAN (1936) - Betty and Grampy teach a farmer to be kinder to his animals.

BETTY BOOP'S BIG BOSS (1933) - Betty encourages her employer's advances. No 'sexual harrassment' here!

PARADE OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (1933) - Boop toy is crowned queen. Rubinoff supplies Victor Herbert's music.

NOT NOW (1936) - Betty's dog Pudgy chases a howling cat but is followed home by many noisy felines.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes

VOLUME TWO:

SHE WRONGED HIM RIGHT (1934) - Betty, Fearless Fred and Heeza Ratt in corny turn-of-the-century melodrama of unpaid mortgage.

BETTY BOOP AND GRAMPY (1935) - Boop and four friends visit the old codger.

MINNIE THE MOOCHER (1932) - Betty and Bimbo see ghosts; Cab Calloway sings title song.

MUSICAL MOUNTAINEERS (1939) - Hillbillies befriend Boop and fill her empty car's fuel tank with moonshine.

STOP THAT NOISE (1935) - Betty finds the "peaceful" country just as noisy as the city she fled from.

SWAT THE FLY (1935) - Boop's cake baking is interrupted by an annoying housefly.

BETTY BOOP AND THE LITTLE KING (1936) - The King gets involved with Betty's vaudeville act (she's a trick rider) until his wife arrives and pulls him off the stage.

HAPPY YOU AND MERRY ME (1936) - Boop nurses a kitten sickened by too much candy.

HOUSE CLEANING BLUES (1937) - Grampy's inventions help Betty get her chores done.

THE IMPRACTICAL JOKER (1937) - Grampy teaches Boop's joke-playing friend a lesson.

BETTY BOOP AND LITTLE JIMMY (1936) - Betty gets caught in her exercise machine and Jimmy doesn't know who to get to rescue her

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 68 minutes

The cartoons in here fall into several distinct categories: (1) the Pre-Code ones of the early 1930s where she shows cleavage or wears nothing on top but a Hawaiian lei; (2) the ones which feature an almost-all music cartoon and (3) the ones that feature a regular story. The latter were done in the mid-to-late `30s.

My personal favorites, overall, were the musical-oriented ones because they were all uptempo and made you feel good. The ones with Cab Calloway were the best. Also, any story that featured the wild "Grampy" were hilarious. He was a hoot, even more fun to watch than Betty.

No matter what category, Betty Boop cartoons were good stuff. She was incredibly entertaining and certainly one-of-a-kind in the animated short movie business. Betty never goes out of style.

This is a good selection of Betty Boop cartoons, including samples of her early 'toons and the later ones made under the thumb of censorship.

One reviewer complained that the final 8 cartoons on the second disk were too dark and thus of lesser quality. I didn't find this to be the case on the set I have.

The earlier cartoons are a bit racy, but they are the best in my estimation. I was introduced to Betty Boop through watching the early ones with soundtracks by the great Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and other early jazz greats who were actually not major stars at the time. The later 'toons made after the censors came down on the Fleischer Bros. are fun too. They tend to be cuter with her little dog and Grampy, etc., so they are different but also fun. Until a truly definitive, complete collection is released, I recommend this one.