Watch a Surreal 1933 Animation of Snow White, Featuring Cab Calloway & Betty Boop

[littlemissmartypants]

Watch a Surreal 1933 Animation of Snow White, Featuring Cab Calloway & Betty Boop: It’s Ranked as the 19th Greatest Cartoon of All Time

Of the three collaborations jazz singer Cab Calloway made with cute cartoon legend Betty Boop, this 1933 Max Fleischer-directed “Snow White” is probably the most successful. It certainly is the most strange—more hallucinatory than the first in the series “Minnie the Moocher”, and less slapstick-driven than “The Old Man of the Mountain.” It is a singular marvel and rightly deserves being deemed “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1994. It was also voted #19 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time in a poll of leading animators.

When she made her debut in 1930, Betty Boop would have been recognizable to audiences as the embodiment of the flapper and the sexual freedom of the Jazz Age that was currently in free-fall after the Wall Street crash of 1929. Only a few years before her premiere, Boop would have been the mascot of the age; now she was a bittersweet reminder of a time that had already passed. With a champagne bubble of a voice, kiss curls, daring hemline, plunging neckline, and the ever present garter belt, she was a cartoon character definitely not designed for kids. That her best films are collaborations with Cab Calloway attest to that. Calloway would make sure his Betty Boop cartoons would screen in a city a week or two before he would play a gig. His “advance woman” as he called her helped sell more tickets.

Accompanying her in this film are the Fleischer’s original character Koko the Clown and Bimbo the Pup, which for this film are sort of empty vessels: they protect Betty, they get knocked out, and Koko gets inhabited by the spirit of Cab Calloway, who then turns into a ghost, all legs and head, no torso. (The ghost is animated through rotoscoping over Calloway’s own film footage.) The Queen, whose talking mirror changes his mind over “the fairest in the land” once seeing Betty Boop, sentences her to death, and then chases her through the underworld before turning into a dragon. At the end, Boop and her gang turn the dragon inside out like a sock, a gross gag not seen again (I’m going to guess) until one of the Simpsons’ Halloween Specials.

In the middle of all this bouncy, surreal mayhem is Calloway’s ghost singing “St. James Infirmary Blues,” a mournful tale of a dead girlfriend and the singers plans for the funeral. The origin of the song is shrouded in mystery, possibly a folk ballad by way of New Orleans jazz. Whatever the source, Koko/Cab sings it to the now frozen and entombed Betty Boop, with the seven dwarves as pallbearers. Koko/Cab turns into a number of objects during his dance, including a bottle of booze and a coin on a chain.

More at the link.

https://www.openculture.com/2020/10/watch-a-surreal-1933-animation-of-snow-white.html

Betty Boop is my spirit animal.


❤ lmsp

[NJCher]

1. this part was wild!

, they get knocked out, and Koko gets inhabited by the spirit of Cab Calloway, who then turns into a ghost, all legs and head, no torso.

That was fun to watch. I'll prol'ly watch it a few more times.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. I'm glad you liked it. I love Betty Boop. ❤ nt

[OneBlueSky]

3. yet one more thing I never thought I'd see in my lifetime . . . thanks for posting . . .

a Betty Boop cartoon featuring Cab Calloway doing "St. James Infirmary" . . . right up there legal pot, same-sex marriage, and "President" Donald Trump getting beat . . . will wonders never cease? . . .

[littlemissmartypants]

5. 19th Greatest Cartoon of All Time.I'm glad you enjoyed it. ❤ nt

[cayugafalls]

4. This is a great cartoon, it is unreal how incredibly artful they were back then.

I have a Betty Boop DVD Collection and this is on it along with so many others.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Thanks! I also have her cartoons and a few fiberglass figures around my house.

Last edited Fri Nov 6, 2020, 03:30 AM - Edit history (1)

And of course there are the Betty Boop Christmas ornaments. She and Pogo have helped me through many hours of despair. Thanks again for sharing.
❤ lmsp

[littlemissmartypants]

7. This is in the kitchen

and this




I have her as Marilyn Monroe



and her in her car with her puppy, Pudgy. I can't find a picture of the one I have. There are many of her in various automobiles. It took several years to collect them. She's very popular.

❤ lmsp

[cayugafalls]

9. Oh wow! I love your collection!

Those are all awesome! Thank you for sharing those!

[littlemissmartypants]

8. That was great! The cats singing scat pushed me over the edge! ❤ nt

[Hekate]

10. I read the review first -- the cartoonists sure packed a lot into 7 minutes!

When I was a kid watching tv in the 1950s there were just a ton of cartoons on that were not originally meant for children. I’m certain the producers of after-school shows were just filling in time-slots in this relatively new medium with already-existing material.

I remember Cab Calloway’s music, and I remember Betty Boop. I was innocent, so she looked just as innocent. She was a cutie-pie flapper, singing boop-boop-de-boop-oop!

I distinctly remember Loony Tunes characters in WWII-themed cartoons that I now recognize as propaganda material. Tojo and Hitler were long dead, but the animations of familiar characters lived on, kicking Axis butt. And why not? WWII war movies were routinely in rotation on television, and I didn’t even have to stay up all that late to see them. I didn’t get into 11p.m. and midnight movies until I was 12 y.o. and babysitting till all hours.

Anyway, love this cartoon, and thanks so much for bringing it here to lighten up this long election night.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. ❤ nt

[MicaelS]

19. One of the Looney Tunes directors stated.....

“ I didn’t make this for kids, I made them for me.”

[callous taoboy]

12. Cab Calloway lived down the road from my aunt and uncle.

They'd see him at the grocery store.

[littlemissmartypants]

13. That's very cool, callous taoboy. ❤ nt

[Illumination]

15. This is from my era. Grew up with a black & white TV. It was a big deal when we bought our

first colored TV cabinet!
GO JOE!

[cemaphonic]

16. I love all of the strange backgrounds during the St. James Infirmary Blues part.

So awesomely weird. And everybody and their brother have covered that song, but no one sings it like Cab.

[littlemissmartypants]

17. ❤ nt

[Earthshine2]

18. Wow! The strangeness doesn't let up for a moment. nt