Product Details

• Actors: Mae Questel, Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Cab Calloway, Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee
• Directors: Dave Fleischer, Shamus Culhane
• Writers: Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm
• Producers: Max Fleischer
• Format: Animated, Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• VHS Release Date: October 1, 1996
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304173164
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,828 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Betty at her Naughtiest (and Best)!, May 10, 2000

By	Thomas D. Harrington "archie_leech" (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

These are the cartoons made before Betty had to raise her neckline and lower her hemline. While they've got nothing on "South Park", there is a terrific "anything goes" approach to them that's infectious. Not until Bugs Bunny would cartoons be so liberated.

The best of the bunch are the three featuring songs by Cab Calloway, especially "Snow White", which is a lead contender for best cartoon of all time.

Overall, the quality is excellent; many of the cartoons look brand new. Unfortunately, the picture seems to be cropped heavily on the top. Since these seem to be an old TV package, I don't know if a complete print can be found, but I sure hope so.

The sound is good too, except on some shorts featuring Rudy Vallee and Etherl Merman. But you won't care much, because those shorts are the most forgettable.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cartoons don't get any better than this!, August 9, 2002

By A Customer

I may have seen some of these cartoons when I was small, on TV in the late 50's. Or maybe they just have a familiar quality that connects to me personally. These cartoons are really animated; everything in them is alive and constantly interre lating and moving with the music to create a complex carnival parade of fantastic, vibrant, evocative imagery. The best of them are at once funny, tragic, sexy, and sweet. The most interesting thing to me is the different and seemingly contradictory ways that Betty is portrayed in different cartoons, and even within the same cartoon. Some of this is because she was drawn differently by different artists and her personality developed over time, but that is just like in life. So if she should slap a lecherous attacker in the face one minute and be coming on to him the next, she has her reasons, and the one thing we can count on is that she will be protected; because her experience is her innocence, her strength is her weakness, and so her character is consistent and simple after all. Also, she has her friends Bimbo and Koko, and all of the wild animals of the forest, to help her if necessary.
Because the best of these cartoons represent love, life, and happiness, they have been suppressed to some degree over the years. My favorites are the three with Cab Calloway, particularly Snow White, which is a real classic. There are a few that you would probably not care to watch more than once or twice, but most of the toons on this video are at least very good. One problem is that the film seems to have been cropped, so you sometimes can't see the whole picture, particularly the very top.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Betty's Beautiful Classics!, July 12, 2001

By	Leealike "Leealike" (London) - See all my reviews

With the state of animation today, and only a few mainstream successes that are actually any good (stand up and take a bow Simpsons) it is a pleasure to find a tape like this.

These truely unique cartoons, that stood out from the crowd even in the Thirties, are amoung the greatest and most unusual animation ever made. Each cartoon is such a bizarre stream of consciousness its sometimes breathtaking.

Worth the price just for the excellent Cab Calloway an Louis Armstrong performances and for Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle.

A major point about this series is the quality of the films. You really won't find any cartoons from the Thirties in better condition - these really sparkle!