James Infirmary," with ghostly cakewalking hipsters out in full force. His skewed take on that familiar story is evident in his choice of music - Cab Calloway and his populist big band swinging the "St. Betty is a naughty-but-nice circus performer lusted after by an oily ringmaster who tries to force his attentions on her: sexual harassment in the workplace 64 years before "Disclosure."įleisher also tackled "Snow White" five years before Disney. Most of the Betty Boop cartoons here are light fare, but her debut in 1931's "Boop-oop-a-doop" now seems weirdly prescient. And in early cartoons that shimmered with musical and visual rhythms, undulating Betty seemed to have a perpetual case of ants-in-her-pants. In fact, she may have been the first animated figure to burst out of a bustier and dance topless (albeit with a strategically placed lei). Until the 1934 Hays Code banned lewd imagery in cartoons, Fleisher Studios clearly didn't waste a lot of ink on Betty Boop's clothes. While Disney's heroines came across as professional virgins, Betty Boop looked as if she'd stepped off a burlesque stage onto the animator's page.
In the early days of animation, Fleisher Studios was the Rolling Stones to Walt Disney's Beatles. After seeing this, you'll never be able to listen to Cindy Lauper or Meg Tilly again without thinking: Betty Boop. And watching these Max Fleisher creations from the '30s, one senses she is the mother of, if not all of us, definitely Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. Boop is the inspiration for "Betty Boop Confidential," a 10-cartoon collection playing at the Biograph. Betty Boop's "the little queen/ Of the animated screen." And though "made of pen and ink,/ She can win you with a wink."
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