Ah, but dear readers, life can be evr so cruel. As we cheer, the skater crashes to the ice out of her triple-axel, ending the dream. The battered knees can no longer make the turn, and the runner is handily thrown out at third base. The lead singer, his voice now two octaves lower, must cheat on one song after another and our enthusiasm turns to mournful embarrassment for our erstwhile heroes. Mixed with that is perhaps a bit of grief for ourselves as well; the hands of time are, sadly enough, unidirectional. As now they are, so we shall be. And how do these maudlin musings relate to our favorite topic, that of animation?
Recently a comeback has been announced involving one of the most recognizable and beloved figures in the history of toondom. At the decidedly mature age of 68, Betty Boop will be returning in an all-new animated series under the aegis of Warner Bros.' International Television Production division. Yes, that saucy, spit-curled siren of sexual suggestiveness will be starring in Betty Boop's Misguided Tours. To add to the excitement, a hallowed pedigree: WBITP is partnering with Richard Fleischer (son of Max, nephew to Dave) in this new endeavor. From what is known at this time, Betty will be making her comeback as a tour-bus driver whose routes evidently span the entire globe. At least twenty-six episodes are planned for production, and WBITP senior vice-president Catherine Malatesta is high on the project. Stating that the show will be "sexy and edgy without being gross", Ms. Malatesta is negotiating with MTV and HBO at the time of this writing. Look for somebody to bite; La Boop is, after all, a pre-sold product with popularity to spare and considerable merchandising power even in the 1990's.
My question is: What is to be gained by bringing Betty back at all? At the risk of infuriating thousands of Boopsters (including Ms. Malatesta and the executives at WBITP) (Not to mention Your Obedient Webkeeper!) I shall argue that this is one comeback better left unattempted. Betty does look great on T-shirts, mugs, clocks, and countless other geegaws, and even I am charmed by seeing a leather-clad Betty astride a Harley winking at me naughtily over her studded shoulder. But a return to animated life? I think not. There are two reasons why Betty Boop's Misguided Tours is a misguided idea, and if you haven't hurled your Betty Boop bookend through the computer screen in anger, read on and I shall attempt to explain.
Betty Boop, as we know, began life as a dog although no canine extant ever had such bodacious curves. She was designed by Grim Natwick for the 1930 Talkartoon "Dizzy Dishes". Why was she a dog? Most likely to entice the affections of Bimbo, Fleischer's predominant star at the time. Her boffo cabaret act did just that, and the studio had a great new star worth developing. It took some time to develop the definitive Betty; she retained a dog's ears for nearly a year and a half and was sometimes known by other names such as "Nan McGrew". Fully humanized by 1932, Betty Boop took the world by storm. Her main appeal was a mixture of pouty innocence and blatant sexuality that 1930's audiences found irresistible. Even her trademark "boop-oop-a-doop" had sexual connotations, and animators furthered the image by dressing Betty in a tiny black dress, high-heeled pumps, and a flirty garter.
Betty was ably backed up by Fleischer's loopy style of animated surrealism, Mae Questel's insouciant voice, and some of the hottest jazz scores ever put to a cartoon soundtrack. Thus, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong became part of the Boop legend, and all for the better. Betty's cartoons were sexy, even scandalous for their time. Fending off lechers that included bosses, carnival owners, a goggle-eyed Bigfoot and Satan himself, Betty lived in a world of hopped-up hormones that made her a luscious target for anything male, including inanimate objects. Sometimes her clothes would seemingly refuse to stay on her body or audiences were given momentary "upskirt" or see-through shots that were more charming than salacious. Betty's bizarre anatomical features may have given the animators fits, but every one of them did a sterling job; Betty Boop was the sexiest vamp this side of Mae West and the screen's first animated female star.
But nothing lasts forever. In 1934 Betty Boop became a victim of the Hays Office crackdown against excessive sex and violence in movies. She was reduced to a happy domestic with a puppy, a Grampy, and a very modest wardrobe. Her popularity immediately sank and not even the appearance of guest stars from newspaper cartoon strips could save her. By 1939 Betty Boop was no longer with us, having largely been replaced in the Fleischer pantheon by Popeye. Betty Boop was never quite forgotten; her films were given a dreadful colorization treatment and released to TV, and there was an original animated special in 1985 which did not amount to much. A live-action film was once in the works but plans fell apart and Betty Boop was relegated (with great success) to the world of merchandising. Except for one final, bravely authentic hurrah.
Betty Boop's last great role came in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. As Detective Eddie Valiant awaits the floor show at the Ink and Paint Club, Betty appears as a cocktail waitress; she is inked in black-and-white and is clearly an anachronism in 1947. Although she knows that times have changed she believes that she's "still got it" and throws a flirty "Boop-oop-a-doop" Eddie's way. In one of the film's most poignant moments Eddie assures Betty that, yeah, she's still got it; his look and his tone of voice plainly say otherwise. Moments later Jessica Rabbit appears onstage to scorch the stage with her sultry sexuality. The contrast with Betty could not have been sharper.
Eddie Valiant, as tactful as he was, knew the truth. Betty Boop's day had come and gone along with the Jazz age, Prohibition, the Depression, and the Fleischer studio itself. The cultural climate of the 1930's was ideal for Betty, and so were the entertainments and elan of the time. Many are the tales of the Fleischer artist spending their paydays getting soaked on bootleg booze while palying cards with the local talent at various New York bordellos. Almost anything was allowable in the movies then, and the screens were filled with sadistic gangsters, lurid love affairs, and enough tales of moral ruin to keep William Hogarth sketching for yeras. The Hays crackdown was almost inevitable. The nature of Hollywood entertainment was changed for the next thirty-five years, leaving little room for the Betty Boop we once loved.
Betty Boop belongs to a bygone age, one in which her mixture of innocence and sexuality clearly reflected a cultural trend in films and entertainment. This is the Betty Boop we lovingly adore on videotape or at revivals, the little vamp who could "win you with a wink". We do her no justice by dragging her into the 1990's and forcing her into some "sexy and edgy" Procrustean bed simply because she still has a high recognition factor among consumers. The lady had paid her dues, walked the wiggly walk, won our hearts, and gained immortal fame among animation fans and non-fans alike. She has little left to prove and is best viewed these days on T-shirts or better yet, in her excellent video compilation series: Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection. (That is, if you can get around the electronic violence Republic Pictures did with their attempt to remove "dust and scratches"...Webkeeper) None of this indignancy is likely to dissuade those who simply cannot let sleeping Boops lie, but I suspect that the ratings will soon settle the issue.
The second reason that Betty Boop should be allowed to rest on her laurels? With only a couple of exceptions cartoon comebacks seem to fail. The magic is never quite recaptured, mainly for two reasons: One, the original guiding hands are absent, and two, the updates are forced so full of contemporary humor that the fit is a poor one for the cartoon in question. My criteria for evaluating the success of comebacks is simple: The cartoon character in question ought to have some kind of recognition factor and been out of circulation for at least a decade to twenty years. I cannot count the major Disney, Warner, or Hanna-Barbera characters, as they have been constantly used and re-invented over that time period. Now, let's see...
Droopy, Master Detective (Hanna-Barbera). Hmm. Guilty on both counts listed above. Felix the Cat (Film Roman). Quite an eyeful, yes, but it's dissolution into postmodernist anarchy by the second season put paid to the comeback. (The second season of The Twisted Tales Of Felix The Cat was done by hacks, not by the wild, Spumco-influenced team that did the first season. Postmodernist anarchy? Hardly. Boring drivel? Definitely. -- Webkeeper) Popeye (as reinterpreted several times by Hanna-Barbera). The Hawaiian shirt. Olive Oyl joining the Army. Popeye the Caveman. Had enough? Tom and Jerry: The Movie. I had to watch the gleeful sadism of 1943's "Baby Puss" and the smartly choreographed mayhem of 1950's "Cueball Cat" to get the taste out of my mouth. Does anyone remember What's New Mister Magoo? My regrets if you do. Not even the presence of former Spumco staffers could make Baby Huey any more popular than he ever was (which wasn't much to begin with), and even soon-to-be Spumco bigshot John Kricfalusi watched a Beany and Cecil revival go down with the ship. Little Lulu checked in and promptly bowed out as well.
In all fairness, two successes do deserve mention. Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi did a stellar job in reviving Mighty Mouse, and Sherri Stoner and crew did a passing fair job with Casper the Friendly Ghost. However, it should be noted that these two characters were among the blandest, most repetitive one-note Nellies ever to achieve cartoon stardom; almost any reinterpretation was bound to meet with a measure of success. This does not detract from the marvelous talents of Bakshi, Kricfalusi, or Stoner, but they were essentially given tabulae rasa in the first place. Maybe the greatest stand-alone success was the revival of Alvin and the Chipmunks by Ross Bagdasarian and his wife Janice Karman; many of the scripts weren't bad at all, but few over the age of eight took any notice.
As I ponder Betty Boop's return, I recall those depressing commercials in which Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, and other deceased stars are made to return in CGI-assisted scenarios in order to sell beer and other products. Snipped from the original contexts of their films and incongruously stuck out of time, these characters are debased to the level of trained animals performing tricks that had no place in their natural lives for the amusement of vacuous consumers who somehow think this to be cute. Betty Boop's Misguided Tours will be the next best - or should I say next worst - thing to this. If Betty can't be decently remembered as the legend she was, I at least hope that her ill-advised resurrection does that legend no lasting damage.
And your opinion? Tell Dr. Toon. I await your thoughts and opinions.
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