Roe v. Boop

I was thinking a little more about the last volume of Betty Boop and it occurs to me that Betty Boop's Big Boss holds the key to some essential problems in gender relations. Betty is looking for work (and remember this is 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression). Hundreds of people crowd the office for this one job, not because they really want to work in the top floor office but just because any job is a job when you're in the middle of the Great Depression. So Betty has to compete with hundreds of people and even if she did have all the requisite skills it's likely she would have used whatever else she could to get the job. It's a dog eat dog world. So Betty declares that while she can't type or take dictation she has other skills that might come in handy like not judging a book by its cover, or in other words she can look past the fact that you're old bald and fat, sugar-daddy. Of course she gets the job. She practically prostitutes herself to get it. Once she gets it she doesn't prove herself to be incompetent, but the boss figures he might as well cash the check on her. This is sexual harassment at the least, and pretty soon crosses the line into sexual assault. It doesn't matter what she implied about her willingness to perform extracurricular activities earlier she clearly didn't give any green light to be taken advantage of anytime and anywhere. So she calls the police and they call the Army, Navy and the Air Corps to save her. In the meantime, we skip the step where Betty willingly starts making out the boss. Presumably they've come to an understanding, resolved their earlier issues and are now engaged in a consensual relationship. On the optimistic side we can say that Betty wasn't lying when she was flirting but that she just expected a little more in the way of a lead-up, like, say, dinner and a movie and some other things. On the more pessimistic side we can say that Betty can't afford to lose her job because of a simple matter of boorishness so maybe she'll do what it takes to clear up the matter and keep her job even if it means making out with the guy she just called the cops on. At any rate, it's not a very happy representation of life and relationships and the economy of need.

At any rate, we're ready now for Volume 2, which for the most part features later Betty.

Vol. 2
1. She Wronged Him Right (1933/1934)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Roland Crandall and Thomas Johnson

This play is presented for your complete relaxation--if you feel like hissing the villain go to it--it's O.K. with us.
The Managment

Get ready for the metatheatrical. Betty is appearing in the Tanktown Theatre's production of She Wronged Him Right, so we're watching an audience watching Betty in a play where Betty's farm (why does urban Betty always own a farm?) is threatened with foreclosure by the moustache-twirling villain Heeza Rat. The scene design for the play is pretty good, but the play and the acting are terrible. (And it's a...musical!) In true musical melodramatic form Betty is rescued by Fearles Fred of Fearless Fred's Lumber Company. Be sure to take a drink everytime Heeza Rat says "Curses!" When the play is over so is the cartoon, so basically what you just saw was a play within a play.

2. Betty Boop and Grampy (1935)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by David Tendlar and Charles Hastings

This cartoon highlights the strange relationship of Betty and Grampy. Betty is cleaning up her house (Say what you will about Betty Boop, but she's no freeloading Daisy Buchanan floozy. She's a a working independent middle class woman.) when she gets an invitation to a party from Grampy. So Betty sings her way to Grampy's house bringing with her the entire neighborhood, including a fireman who leaves a fire to join in the procession and a cop who stops directing traffic to come along. Grampy is an elderly inventor who has rigged up all kinds of bizarre inventions to entertain his guests (and himself) including a chandelier that doubles as a punchbowl. When Betty asks for some music Grampy rigs up some household items into an automated band that plays the "Tiger Rag" and everyone dances until they drop. Now, I know it's possible to imagine that Grampy is a relation of Betty's (hence the affection) but when you take into account other pairings I think it's actually a little bit of a May-December relationship. I mean, Betty is clearly not seeing anyone else and she is really excited to head over to Grampy's and when she gets there she only dances with Grampy. Maybe Betty has a thing for older men, or maybe it's just that Grampy is so cool.
At any rate, a clip from this cartoon can be spotted in the opening credits of one of my favorite Futurama episodes, "Hell is Other Robots."

3. Minnie the Moocher (1932)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Willard Bowsky and Ralph Somerville

This Talkartoon is the highlight of the whole set. The live action segment at the beginning is the earliest known film footage of Cab Calloway and you don't have to love The Blues Brothers to think this is cool. Man, that cat can hoof!
So, in this cartoon Betty won't eat her dinner so her parents (who are immigrants) yell at her. It's nothing terribly abusive, but it does make her cry and sing "Mean to Me" and resolve to run away from home.

Dear Ma & Pa--I'm leaving Home because you're not so Sweet to me. I won't ever by Home again.
Betty

Betty calls her pal Bimbo and they run off together. They walk into a cave where a ghost walrus (rotoscoped from Cab Calloway) and some liquored up dancing skeletons sing Minnie the Moocher. Oh, you read that right: Ghost Walrus Cab Calloway and some ghosts dance around, perform a mock triple electric chair execution and sing Minnie the Moocher. Then the ghosts chase Betty and Bimbo all the aay back home where Betty hides under the covers and her previous note is torn into pieces leaving just the phrase "Home Sweet Home." The only thing I regret about this cartoon is that it wasn't about 20 minutes longer with a lot more he-de-he-de-he-de-he and whatnot. That, and unlike The Old Man of the Mountain, this one doesn't have Betty singing along or doing much of anything other than clinging to Bimbo in the corner while the ghosts do their thing. But, don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed because I will say it again: Ghost Walrus Cab Calloway. Watch this cartoon now!

4. Musical Mountaineers (1939)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Thomas Johnson and Harold Walker

This is one of the last Betty Boop cartoons ever. (This lack of chronological order in the set drives me a little crazy.)
Betty (voiced here by Margie Hines) is driving her roadster through the countryside when she runs out gas in hillbilly territory. You know it's hillbilly territory on account of the sign that warns Hatfields to stay on their side of the property line. Betty's driving outfit (yes, I'm about to make a comment about fashion, but that doesn't mean I'm about to sit through a Sex and the City marathon) makes her look like a proto-Rosie the Riveter. In fact, she looks a bit taller and more proportional in this animation (though her head IS still as wide as her shoulders).
Betty's car backfiring causes Zonk Peters and his kin to think there's a hatfield attack under way and they get armed (including turning their plow into a tank--apparently the Transformers were invented in West Virginia.). When Betty shows up at the doorstep they shoot at her feet to make her dance and are so impressed with her hoofing that they break into a jug band routine that would make the Country Bears proud. The toothless bumpkins are kind enough to give Betty a jug of Corn Drip'ns to get her car started again and she drives away.
Yep, it was May 1939 and just before the world went to hell in a handbasket this is what people were watching.

5. Stop That Noise (1935)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Edward Nolan and Myron Waldman

This cartoon is a classic "grass is always greener" story. Betty (in her classy white pajamas) can't sleep because of all the noise from the construction and elevated trains. So she packs up and moves to the coutnry where she lays back in a hammock to read a book and enjoy the bucolic charm. Her idyll is immediately interrupted by an impossibly loud row of ducks and then a bizarre colloquium of bugs who make noise aand tear apart her copy of "The Spider--"Caught In His Own Web" and then engage in a full out onslaught on the poor urbanite. Finally, when she can't take it anymore she races back to her car and moves back to the city where the hum of industry and activity puts her to sleep. The moral of the story is: city people belong in the city and shouldn't seek refuge in the country, which isn't there merely to provide a getaway for the urban population but is actually a place of rural activity that must be taken on its own terms.
Okay, maybe that's too long for a lesson. Maybe the only lesson is that despite having near constant access to rural property, Betty Boop is a city girl when it comes down to it, or at the very least a proto-suburban woman.

6. Swat The Fly (1935)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by David Tendlar and Samuel Stimson

Betty is home baking a cake while her cute pooch Pudgy is napping when they are bothered by a fly. Mayhem ensues as Pudgy chases the fly and Betty hurls cake batter all over the house trying to hit the unwanted guest. Despite wrecking her kitchen and covering the whole room with cake batter the fly still manages to escape, even as Betty and Pudgy think the mission is accomplished. (Another lesson in counterinsurgency: Don't waste all your cake batter on a small target.)

7. Betty Boop and The Little King (1936)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey

This cartoon features a crossover appearance by Otto Soglow's Little King, a cartoon character that first appeared in the New Yorker in 1931 and ran in King Features Syndicate newspapers until Soglow's death in 1975. I don't know much about the Little King, but clearly he had a following.

So, the Little King and his big queen are watching a special performance at the opera by a singer with a giant chest. She is so awful that the Little King escapes from the royal box (if you will) and waddles down the street to where he sees a sign for Betty Boop at the Vaudeville theatre where Betty is doing some sort of wild west show. I can see why this would be more entertaining than the opera. (The Little King has a bit of an Elmer Fudd accent, which is weird.) Anyhow, the Little King is so excited that he joins Betty on stage to perform with her. When the queen finally notices the Little King's absenve all hell breaks loose and she heads into the theater with the guards to drag the king back. As they drive off in the royal carriage the king continues to hold Betty's hand as she rides on the running board. A cute little cartoon about the unhappiness of royal marriages. (And don't think that it escapes my mind that this cartoon is from the same year that Edward VIII abdicated because of his marriage to Wallis Simpson.)

8. Happy You and Merry Me (1936)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Willard Bowsky and George Germanetti

A kitten follows a fly (what is it with these flies?) into Betty's house and lands in a box of candy which it proceeds to gorge itself on while Betty and Pudgy sit at the piano and she plays the title song. The kitten gets sick from eating all the candy (Betty's arm apparently doubles as a thermometer and Pudgy's tail is a perfect metronome.) Also, Pudgy is apparently tobe trusted taking notes to the drugstore and the pharmacist trusts a dog to take a box of catnip back to Betty. Pudgy is chased down the street by the kitten's parent who is drawn in by the smell of the catnip and the kitten and cat are reunited in Betty's living room. This cartoon is notable for its representation of cats getting high on catnip and floating through the air.

9. House Cleaning Blues (1937)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by David Tendlar and Eli Brucker

First of all, if that's Betty's house on the corner then Betty is loaded. It looks like an awesome house. There is some terrific animation here, with great perspective and some clear examples of rotoscoping.
Anyhow, Betty wakes up after a monster birthday party and her house (that awesome house) is wrecked. The entire floor is covered with cigarette butts and Betty goes loopy trying to clean it all up. Meanwhile Grampy is on his way to pick up Betty to go for a drive, but Betty is too busy with the house cleaning to go. So, in order to save his date, Grampy whips up some gadgets to automate the cleaning while Betty goes up to get dressed for the drive. Grampy's car even has a working soda fountain so they can have a float (with two straws) and drive along. Ah, American ingenuity at its best. Say what you will about the new iphone, but it doesn't have an app that will clean your house or whip up a root beer float for you.

10. The Impractical Joker (1937)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Frank Endres and Thomas Johnson

Betty is trying to bake a cake (always with the cakes, that Betty) when she is visited by Irving the practical joker (voiced by Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye). Irving thinks it's a real hoot to play a bunch of practical jokes. Irving is a pinheaded toolbag.
Why doesn't Betty just toss him out of her house? That's what I don't understand. But maybe it's not so much her house as her boarding house, which would explain why Prof. Grampy has a sign outside his door upstairs. So maybe the house is a more public space than not.
Anyhow, Betty enlists Grampy in getting revenge, which Grampy does with all of his fancy gadgets. Again, it's clear that Betty and Grampy have a bit of a relationship going.

11. Betty Boop and Little Jimmy (1936)
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animated by Myron Waldman and Hicks Lokey

This is another crossover with a King Features Syndicate comic strip character. Little Jimmy ran from 1904-1958. (But what was he running from?)
Betty starts this cartoon working out and singing "Keep Your Girlish Figure" while Little Jimmy (who she's babysitting, presumably) sings along. And yes, Betty Boop is working out in heels. Brilliant.
When Betty's belt exercise machine goes haywire Little Jimmy heads out to find an electrician and proceeds to have a series of misadventures as he forgets what he's looking for. The kid goes from looking for an electrician to looking for an optician, magician, politician and beautician and finally puts some bedsprings on his shoes which send him bouncing back home where he accidentally unplugs the machine.
I really dislike the fact that this whole cartoon was about Little Jimmy. Little Jimmy is a little simpleminded nimwit of a kid who can bite me.
At any rate, Betty comes out of the machine anorexic thin causing everyone to laugh hysterically for a ridiculously long time until they get fat. Apparently laughing makes people get fat. Ha ha. That Little Jimmy is such a card! (I hate you, Little Jimmy.)
I'm really not sure what this cartoon does for body image issues but I'm going to go back and watch Minnie the Moocher again so that this doesn't have to be the last Betty Boop cartoon I see.

I have to say that sitting through 23 Betty Boop cartoons is not a chore and it doesn't even take that much time. And if I can track down more that I haven't seen, I will. Betty Boop is a classic bit of Americana and the thing is that her image has become an icon that has been completely decontextualized from its origin. And that's a shame, because these are pretty decent cartoons for the most part and I think it's a shame when people like or hate Betty Boop based solely on her image without ever taking the time to see the cartoons. Because when you take time to do that you might get a pleasant surprise, like seeing Ghost Walrus Cab Calloway singing "Minnie the Moocher" and you shouldn't let your life go by without seeing that.