Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55256 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-01
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 150 minutes

About the Actor
Betty Boop made her first appearance on August 9, 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. She was little like her soon-to-be-famous self, however. Grim Natwick, a veteran animator of both Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' studios, was largely responsible for creating the character, which he modeled on Helen Kane, a singer and contract player at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons. In keeping with common practice, Natwick made his new character an animal, in this case, a French poodle. Beginning with this cartoon, the character's voice was performed by several different voice actresses until Mae Questel got the role, in 1931, and kept it for the rest of the series. Natwick himself later conceded that Betty's original look was quite ugly. [citation needed] The animator redesigned her in 1932 to be recognizably human in the cartoon Any Rags. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her poodle fur became a bob haircut. She appeared in ten cartoons as a supporting character, a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons she was called "Nancy Lee" and "Nan McGrew". She usually served as studio star Bimbo's girlfriend. Although some claim that Betty's first name was established in the 1931 Screen Songs cartoon Betty Co-ed, this "Betty" was, in truth, an entirely different character. Though the song itself may have led to Betty's eventual christening, any references to Betty Co-ed as a Betty Boop vehicle have been made in error. (The official Betty Boop website describes the titular character as a "prototype" of Betty.) In all, there were at least 12 Screen Songs cartoons that featured either Betty Boop or a similar character. There were only two films that are known, where Betty was featured in color. 'Poor Cinderella' and 'Crazy Town' (1932). ( Although she appeared in the color feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Betty appeared in her traditional black and white. Betty made light of it in the film, saying work may have been slow since cartoons went to color, but she still had what it took.

About the Director
Fleischer produced his Inkwell films for Bray Productions until, in 1921, he established Fleischer Studios (initially named "Out of the Inkwell Films") to produce animated cartoons and short subjects. Koko and Fitz remained the stars of the Out of the Inkwell series, which was renamed Inkwell Imps in 1927. The Fleischer Studio invented the "bouncing ball" technique for its "Song Car-Tunes" series of animated sing-along shorts. In 1924, Fleischer added synchronized sound to this series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process developed by Lee De Forest; these Song Car-tunes would last until 1926. This was years before Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), which is often mistakenly cited as the first cartoon to synchronize sound with animation. In 1923, Fleischer made a 50-minute animated film to explain Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1925, he made a feature-length film about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution combining animation and live action. Several of Fleischer's cartoons had soundtracks by (and often live or rotoscoped footage of) some of the leading jazz performers of the time, most notably Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Don Redman. Black musicians contributed songs to Betty Boop cartoons as well. Fleischer's use of featured black performers was unusual at a time when cinematic depictions of blacks were often minor and/or stereotypical roles.

Customer Reviews

The Real Betty Boop
In case you're not a Max Fleisher fan of old cartoons, like myself, let me first start off with the important stuff. Betty Boop was a totally different girl before the Production Code, or Hay's Code, was put into act in 1934. This code was similar to the ratings on tv now, keeping things G or MA, etc. Pretty much everyone, including myself, agrees that the best Boop was before the Code, when she was sexy and the show was a little edgy - I mean come on, it featured up-tempo jazz music! A far cry from today's edgy music, to be sure, but at the time it was certainly a phenomenon.

The reason why this matters is because this dvd ACTUALLY features episodes from before the Hay's Code - the best episodes! And without noise and grain that can be found in other discs I've bought before. Honestly, this really got me enthusiastic about this dvd, so much so that I wanted to write a review! This dvd comes in a sharp cover too, which really stands out next to my other Betty Boop memorabilia. All in all, a great buy.

Best so far...
This "Betty Boop Vintage Collection 2-disc set" has more good than bad. I read the scoop and all the reviews on so many other Betty Boop DVDs, and, after some mild confusion and a little frustration, I settled on this one. Glad I did.

The cons: It's an "All Regions" format, which gave my TV-set DVD player some trouble with disc 2 of the set. But I was still able to watch each episode all the way through after having to go through the damned menu steps too many times. Also, there's nothing more than a list of the episodes on the back of the case - no other information. Basically, these seem like cheap-made discs.

The pros: This set has "I'll be glad when you're dead and gone," featuring a cleanly restored live lead-in with Louis Armstrong and his band, and his voice and music (along with his face appearing later on) throughout the episode! This set also includes the three Cab Calloway episodes, "Minnie the Moocher," Old Man of the Mountain," and the classic "Snow White" !

The video reproduction is clean, and, in most episodes, the audio quality is okay. There are no audio over-dubs, nothing added in, and no extras. There are several episodes from 1933 (before the Hays Code was enacted), and a few from '34. Some are later. "Betty's Rise to Fame" is a cute "interview" featuring Max Fleisher himself. There are some good episodes with Bimbo and with Koko the Clown, two of yesterday's hippest cartoon characters. This 2-disc set seems like the best one available here so far...

The episode list:
Disc 1
1.) Grampy
2.) The Little King
3.) Bamboo Isle
4.) Be Human
5.) Betty in Blunderland
6.) Big Boss
7.) Chess Nuts
8.) Happy You and Merry me
9.) House Cleaning Blues
10.) I'll be glad when you're dead and gone (featuring Luois Armstrong)

Disc 2
1.) Minnie the Moocher (featuring Cab Calloway)
2.) Morning, noon and night
3.) Musical Mountaineers
4.) Not Now
5.) Old Man of The Mountain (featuring Cab Calloway)
6.) Parade of Wooden Soldiers
7.) Betty's Rise to Fame (featuring Max Fleisher himself)
8.) She Wronged Him Right
9.) Snow White (featuring Cab Calloway)
10.) Stop That Noise
11.) Swat That Fly
12.) The Impractical Joker

Betty Bloopers for Betty Boopers
Overall, if you are a Betty Boop fan some of the selections here are worth looking at. This particular collection is not of the best quality. The videos have been copied from sources equal to what you can see free on U Tube. The particular collection I paid $25 for when opened had two dvds pop out of the case and landing on the floor. The case cannot hold the dvds. These were obviously used and numerous scratches were on the disc already. Sound quality is low and faint. 1/3 of the selections were unable to play completely. Hopefully there will be a better edition out there somewhere. For now get your Betty on U Tube.