Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Would you dare to call Betty a dog?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 2, 2013

Betty Boop may have made her ebullient debut in 1930, but there’s little question that she’s actually a child-woman of the 1920s, a kind of virtual hangover from the chaotic twenties, a flapper both out of her proper era and well ahead of her time. Betty became one of the most iconic figures in animation, something that continued well past her heyday, including as recently as the brouhaha which arose when she made a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and actually bared her breasts for one solitary frame, something that became a cause célèbre when the first home video versions were released and prurient viewers could pause playback to actually see Betty in all her momentary glory (Disney later bowdlerized subsequent releases when the furor threatened to disrupt their wholesome image). Betty was always a flirt and a bit of a loose woman, and until the Hays Office came along, anyway, she was fairly forward in displaying her physical charms. Olive Films is releasing a glut of Betty Boop cartoons on Blu-ray, including Betty Boop: The Essential Collection - Volume One, and this second set features Betty's first ever appearance, though some may wonder if it's actually Betty.

Volume Two includes the following shorts:

Dizzy Dishes (1930). When is Betty Boop not Betty Boop? Well, when she’s a—dog? Dizzy Dishes marked the debut of Betty, but not as the carefree quasi-flapper she would later become famous as. Instead, in this club (could it be a speakeasy?) set toon, Betty is a stage performer with a curious set of ears. This might not be seen as an especially auspicious debut for such an iconic character, but as a historical artifact, it’s absolutely essential.

Bimbo’s Initiation (1932). This is one of the more iconic of the early Boop outings, if only because the typically ebullient ambience of so many of the Boop outings is replaced by an almost hallucinatory quality, as Bimbo finds himself in a literal underground society where he’s being urged to become a member.

Boop-Oop-A-Doop (1932). Betty and Koko are performers in a circus, but Betty finds herself the object of some unwanted advances in yet another seemingly odd plot point for a supposedly carefree and innocent cartoon to exploit. Evidently “boop-oop-a-doop” was once a euphemism for something a bit on the naughty side.

The Betty Boop Limited (1932). This was the final entry in the Talkartoons series, and it’s a perfect example of the surreal quality that often infuses these Fleischer outings. Everyone gets into the act in this “showbiz” entry—including the train.

Betty Boop’s Bizzy Bee (1932). 2 Broke Girls have nothing on Betty, who operates her own little food cart. Once again the surreal aspect of this series pops up when pancakes—the only thing Betty can cook—spring to life.

Betty Boop’s Ups and Downs (1932). The housing crisis we’ve been suffering through over the past few years was the worst such meltdown since The Great Depression, and this unexpectedly charming entry deals with that sad state of affairs. Things are so bad in this formulation that the actual planet is up for sale.

Betty Boop’s Museum (1932). Were the writers of Night at the Museum Betty Boop fans? Betty gets locked in a museum and some supposedly “dead” items come to life.

Betty Boop’s Big Boss (1933). This is yet another amazingly lascivious entry in the Boop franchise, with Betty assuming a kind of Baby Face “sleeping her way to the top” role (Baby Face also came out in 1933— maybe it was something in the air that year). There’s a fair degree of ambiguity here—is Betty the victim of circumstance or is she actually pulling all the strings (literally in the closing moments)?

Morning, Noon and Night (1933). This is the only short in this volume which features a live action element, in this case a brief prelude featuring Rubinoff and His Orchestra, something that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the actual Boop material, which concerns Betty attempting to run a farm which is being overrun with nasty (if not exactly feral) cats.

Betty Boop’s Little Pal (1934). Pudgy is a bit of bad dog in this short, turning Betty from a pet loving chanteuse to a very frustrated "parent". Pudgy then ends up on his own and finds out sometimes there are dogcatchers waiting in the wings. It's up to Pudgy, in a sort of presaging of Lady and the Tramp, to figure out how to get free.

Betty Boop’s Prize Show (1934). Betty takes part in an old style melodrama, with her boyfriend Freddy playing the hero (of course), and a kind of Snidely Whiplash-esque villain threatening their domestic bliss.

Keep in Style (1934). It’s often fun to look back on old prognostications about what the world might be in the future, and that’s much of the allure here, as Betty reveals a series of whimsical inventions that she’s sure will soon sweep the planet, and in fact at least one of her brilliant ideas turns out to be a hit.

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection – Volume Two is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Benefitting from 4K scans from the original archival negatives, this second set boasts the same excellent contrast and appealingly natural grain structure as the first set, but overall also benefits from somewhat less overt damage, especially with regard to emulsion problems. Density is really exceptional throughout most of these shorts, and gray scale is extremely well modulated. There is still damage here, mostly in the form of scratches, some of which are fairly persistent—after all, these shorts are pushing 80 and some age related problems should be expected—but lovers of Betty will probably be stunned to see the marked improvement in the appearance of these early Fleischer classics.

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection – Volume 2 features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix which offers highly variable quality scattered throughout these twelve shorts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dizzy Dishes fares the worst here, perhaps due to its slightly older vintage. There's pretty overwhelming hiss in evidence on this short and highs are somewhat clipped. However, that's actually the exception here. While many of these shorts retain the pretty boxy sound that is redolent of this era's recording techniques, most of them sound surprisingly spry, without any horrible damage to report. Highs actually are a bit on the brittle side a couple of times—Rubinoff's violin, for instance, is a bit of a challenge to listen to—but midrange is decently full sounding.

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is another top rate collection of Betty Boop cartoons, including some fantastic pieces done by such legendary animators as Grim Natwick. This set once again demonstrates how delightfully surreal the Betty outings tended to be, perhaps one reason they gained some newfound cachet from "enhanced" viewers through the years. While some will probably wish additional—or at least other—toons had been selected, the two Betty Boop Essential Collection volumes put together offer a really nice, if curtailed, overview of this iconic character. This set features impressive video—if only goes in realizing how old these are and what age will do to elements—but some occasionally problematic audio. Even without any supplements, this set comes Highly recommended.