Minnie the Moocher

Plot synopsis:
A Jewish mother and father scold their daughter, Betty Boop, not for her revealing dress, but for refusing to eat. Pa yells at her so much that his head becomes a phonograph playing the same old record. Betty runs away from the table. Even Ma is getting sick of Pa's yelling, so she turns over the record to play some music. Meanwhile, Betty sings about her woes as she walks up the stairs, declaring that she'll eat worms and die. Instead, she rolls up her toothbrush in a blanket and leaves a note. It says, "I'm leaving Home because you're not Sweet to me. I won't ever be Home again."She calls her friend, Bimbo the Dog, to come over. After Betty escapes through her window (by grabbing the blind and jumping out, letting it unroll until she reaches the ground), she and Bimbo head for a cave, where they meet a walrus, with Cab Calloway's voice, singing "Minnie the Moocher" and dancing to the melancholy song. Betty and Bimbo are subjected to frightening sights. Various dead things come to life and sing the chorus. Three skeletons drink from a bar, the booze turning them black. Their ghosts rise out of them and gyrate to the music.Bimbo looks down in a well, and sees three images of himself in the water singing along. Three ghost prisoners walk right through their bars and head to three electric chairs, which electrocute them, but don't stop them from singing.A mother cat with black circles for eyes, making her head appear skull-like, feeds her equally empty-eyed kittens. They feed from her and get large as she deflates like a balloon. She gives them a bottle of milk, with enough nipples for each, and they grow even larger.Bimbo and Betty are so scared they become negative images of themselves. Now an endless number of ghosts, phantoms, skeletons and other weird beings chase them out of the cave. Betty runs into her house and up to her room where she cowers in her bed. The note she left for her parents rips itself apart, leaving only the words, "Home Sweet Home."

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
The Betty Boop cartoon 'Minnie the Moocher' has an advantage: at least the second half is entertaining whether you like the cartoon itself or not since Cab Calloway's famous song with the same name plays there.
Before the cartoon starts we see the real Calloway doing one of his dance moves, another little thing to make sure you probably will enjoy this.
The story deals with Betty's parents being mad at her causing her to run away with Bimbo.
After they have left they enter a forest where ghosts and other scary creatures all dance on "Minnie the Moocher".This cartoon is very nice.
The Calloway part is terrific with some inventive animation that fits the music perfectly.
I also liked the last moments when Betty and Bimbo have escaped the scary forest where the happy ending is found in quite a funny way.
If you like Betty Boop cartoons this one is not to be missed.
Betty Boop and Cab Calloway make a great team.
The first part of the film shows us a younger Betty Boop than we're used to seeing in the Fleischer Brothers cartoons.Betty is a girl in her early/mid teens, being nagged to tears by her immigrant parents.
Betty sings the 1911 Von Tilzer number "They Always Pick On Me".
Notice how the animator attends to such details as the bouncing of Betty's breasts on the staircase-- such details would soon be suppressed in USA animation by the Hayes Code.This is the first of 3 Fleischer cartoons with Cab Calloway featured on the soundtrack.
They proved popular-- and Calloway used them as advertising, having the cartoons shown in theaters of towns the week before his travelling band would arrive."Minnie The Moocher" is good, as is the last of the series "The Old Man of the Mountain", but Betty Boop's "Snow White" is the best of all..
Wow. The best cartoon I've seen in half a lifetime.
I only knew the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy version of Minnie The Moocher and only through coincidence did I find this and hear Cab Calloway's version...
all I can say nice.What else is there to say, you almost get nostalgia to the days when you'd sit at home on the Saturday mornings and watch cartoons till noon.
Back in the worry-less days.Perfect collaboration between the Boop and the Swing..
Perfect use of the song with the right character and the results are an excellent short.
Everything works here-the song, "Minnie the Moocher" goes hand in glove with the character of Betty Boop, the music and the animation are a wonderful fit, Cab Calloway has just the right flair to pull it all together, it all works splendidly and gives the viewer a treat for both eyes and ears.
Betty Boop was animation's answer to Clara Bow, the "It" Girl and the early shorts were more risque and playful than the later ones, after The Code took effect.
Entertaining, but I wanted to see more of Cab Calloway!.
This is a Betty Boop cartoon, though it starts with a bit of footage of Cab Calloway and his orchestra.
Calloway's song "Minnie the Moocher" is set to life using Betty, her friend Bimbo and an odd assortment of ghosts, though I really would have much preferred to actually just watch and listen to Calloway sing this song live--since it is very easy to like and quite funny (and a bit radical with its reference to cocaine).
However, as a cartoon, it's a very strange thing indeed as I really don't know who the audience for this Pre-Code nightmare would be!
After all, it is really scary and so younger kids would be terrified by it and the drug references, if the parents noticed, would really turn them off as well, as it's NOT good child fare!
Interesting, well animated but too bizarre, this one is great for adults who want to see just how subversive Betty could be in her wild Pre-Code days..
Quintessential Betty Boop.
Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites.
Their visual style was often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation.The character of Betty Boop, one of their most famous and prolific characters, may not be for all tastes and sadly not as popular now, but her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable sensual charm about her.
That charm, sensuality and adorable factor is not lost anywhere here, nor her comic timing and she is very well supported by the ever fun Bimbo, the two have great chemistry together too.'Minnie the Moocher' (title taken from the famous Cab Calloway song) is quintessential Betty Boop.
If anybody is a fan, 'Minnie the Moocher' is a must watch, and perhaps even people not so hot on her might get a lot of value out of it.As always, the animation is outstanding, everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination.
Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness, great for putting anybody in a good mood.Like with pretty much all the early Betty Boop cartoons, meaning before the production code tightened up and everything became tame, 'Minnie the Moocher' certainly does not disappoint when it comes to being risqué, creative or delightfully bizarre.
As a pre-code cartoon, a lot of the content here is very daring stuff, very ahead of its time back then and you don't see much like the pre-code Betty Boop cartoons made today.
And it's done in a very hugely creative and humorous way, with a very high spirit and spookiness throughout.
The voice acting is good as always.Overall, wonderful cartoon and for Betty Boop fans it's quintessential.
10/10 Bethany Cox. Betty and Cab. Minnie the Moocher (1932) *** (out of 4)Betty Boop gets yelled at by her parents so her and Bimbo decide to run away.
They don't get too far when they run into a group of ghosts.
The big highlight of this short is that Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra play a big part in it.
The film opens up to a Calloway song and showing him do a dance and then once we get to the ghosts they are basically dancing to his music.
We also see the main ghost dancing like Calloway was at the start of the picture.
If you're a fan of the Betty Boop shorts then you'll certainly enjoy this one as there are some funny jokes throughout and the animation is extremely good.
Another highlight are the actual ghosts that look quite good and there's no question that the music is excellent..
Betty Boop has some right to feel a bit persecuted by her parents.
They nag and assault her verbally, causing her to run away with Bimbo.
Obviously, the cartoonist sided with the parents because once the two get into unfamiliar territory, they are bombarded by ghosts and demons.
The interesting thing is that this film has nothing to do with the character of Minnie the Moocher from the Cab Calloway song.
All of that said, the animation is superb, the characters terrifying, and everything is great fun.
Why is this sexy little thing with the garter and the revealing costume living at home with her parents.
Running away and being so inexperienced seems the action of a seven year old..
MINNIE THE MOOCHER {Short} (Dave Fleischer, 1932) **1/2.
Betty Boop is possibly the most durable of all Hollywood female icons, since she can still be seen adorning stationery items and girlie accessories almost 85 years after her creation!
Even so, her real stock-in-trade – the Max and Dave Fleischer series of black-and-white cartoon shorts throughout the Thirties – are among the least-seen items of classic animation.
Although I have collected many of the comprehensive classic animation box sets issued on DVD in the past decade (be it Walt Disney Treasures, Looney Tunes Golden Collections, Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker or, best of all, Tex Avery), tellingly, I have not sprung for any of the 3(!) collections recently released on BluRay (no less!) dedicated to Betty Boop and what entries I will be reviewing from her filmography presently have been watched via "You Tube" and are simply more grit from the "Wonders In The Dark" mill.This particular "Talkartoon" short – which was obviously intended to highlight then-popular entertainer Cab Calloway's current song hit, who also appears with his jazz band in the brief, live-action intro – features Betty angering her parents by declining to eat her dinner (a helpful flower tastes it and promptly wilts away!) and fleeing the house with her dog Bimbo into the woods where they meet a bunch of ghosts, whose walrus leader scares them back home with a rendition of the titular tune.
Again, for a film of its age, the animation is pleasing enough (if not particularly inventive) and the song itself is now a standard..
Great Music, Bizarre & Fascinating Visuals.
The title is a song made famous by Cab Calloway, and we immediately see him making like Michael Jackson smoothly dancing as she leads his orchestra in the song.
Calloway was definitely a very cool cat, and ahead of his time.After that short performance comes the cartoon story, in which we see Betty being blasted by her father at the dinner table.
She's in tears, can't eat and walks away singing the blues, ready to leave home.
She writes a note: "Dear Ma and Pa, I'm leaving home because you're not so sweet to me.
Betty."She calls Bimbo and the two leave together.
They get scared when it gets dark and hide in a cave, where a giant walrus (Calloway) materializes and sings them the "Minnie The Moocher" song.
During the song we see skeletons, jailbirds singing on electric chairs, spooks, ghosts, all kinds of very strange sights.
After witnessing these strange sights, Betty changes her mind about never going back home.
Home, all of a sudden, looks pretty good.Not hilarious, but a very entertaining cartoon.
I love it when Betty and Cab get together..
The second is in the bizarre story involving a visit to hell.
Of all the strange Boop adventures, this is perhaps the most disconcerting (together with `Red Hot Mama') visits to the demonic side.
No Scooby do here, this is real.The third spookiness is in how the rotoscope imbues the ghost on the screen with the personality and very subtle movements of the lively Cab, a man haunted by his own demons.This was during the period that it was possible to have a character (in Betty) that superficially looked and acted silly but conveyed deep and dangerous tides of sex.
If these would have been in color, she would be redheaded, like Clara Bow.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching..
Minnine the Moocher is a high-spirited Betty Boop cartoon with Cab Calloway from the Fleischers.
At the beginning of Minnie the Moocher, an animated cartoon from Max Fleischer based on Cab Calloway's famous song, we see the real Calloway doing his unique dance in live-action in what is supposedly the first time moviegoers saw him on the big screen.
Then we see Betty, supposedly a teen, being harassed by his immigrant parents about the way she lives her life.
As she cries in her bed at night, she writes a note saying she's running away and calls Bimbo to come with her.
As they leave, the go to a cave that has a walrus doing Cab's steps (which was rotoscoped from the man himself) and singing the title song with various ghostly jailbirds and some cats joining in.
During this sequence, Betty and Bimbo turn black before leaving the craziness behind in a rushed ending sequence that brings Betty back under the covers of her bed and the note she wrote ripping to just say "Home Sweet Home"...While Walt Disney seemed intent on using public domain symphony pieces for his Mickey Mouse cartoons, Max Fleischer was getting some of the best jazz musicians like Calloway and Louis Armstrong on his and Betty Boop benefits greatly from them.
I'm guessing Cab enjoyed what was done with him here so much, he eventually made a couple of other cartoons with the Fleischers, Max and director Dave, like Snow-White and The Old Man of the Mountain.
So on that note, I recommend Minnie the Moocher for any animation buff out there..
That age-old fathead Betty Boop decides to teach her tee-totalling ma and pa a lesson by running away with her hip little dog pal Bimbo.
Suffice it to say, what they experience on their little sojourn would make even the most die-hard of runaways run screaming back home to mama!
The whole short is packed with the patented loony and brilliant images that make these particular types of old cartoons dark works of art.
There's so many strange and macabre things to see that are leaping about and at the screen, fantastic indistinct blurry demonic things all swirling around the two characters in a satanic kind of dance around the maypole.
Some of my favourite sight and fright gags are when Betty's father warps into some kind of old-timey radio, the skeleton cat and her kittens-freaking twisted, and the skeletons who die again and come back as skeleton ghosts!
I don't know if other people thought so, but there seemed to be a great sense of depth to it.
This sense of added depth helps to create a much more atmospheric experience for the viewer, almost like we're right there in that nightmare cave with them!
It must have especially been something amazing to see way back in 1932!::: Once more we are treated to the magic moves and sweet soulful tones of Cab Calloway.(RIP) Hey, now we know where the Moonwalk came from!
Is there any greater honour than being animated as a jazz singing ghostly walrus version of yourself?
Loved this, another great little animated vision of madness.
Betty runs away from home.
As this short opens one could be forgiven for thinking it wasn't a cartoon at all as it begins with live action footage of Cab Callaway and his band performing the opening to 'Minnie the Moocher'.
When the cartoon proper begins we see Betty's parents remonstrating with her for not eating her dinner.
Her father clearly sounds like a broken record, stuck in the groove, to her as his head literally turns into an old fashioned gramophone player.
She soon has enough and retreats to her room; here she write a note informing her parent that she is leaving then goes off with her boyfriend Bimbo.
The two of them take shelter in a cave and things become very surreal; they see an apparition of a walrus like creature that is dancing and singing 'Minnie the Moocher'.
As the song progresses they see a number of disturbing images including dancing skeletons and ghosts going to the electric chair!
Understandably by the end of the song they are terrified and run back home as fast as their legs will carry them.While this short is hardly a laugh-riot, it isn't meant to be, it does have some amusing moments and the animation is very creative; far more surreal than most more recent cartoons.
This provides a good illustration of the fact that animation wasn't always considered to be a medium primarily aimed at children with the numerous creepy images and drug references in the song.
The combination of imaginative animation with Cab Callaway's classic song work brilliantly; any fan of classic animation is sure to love this..
We discussed this Betty Boop short along with The Jazz Singer and discussion on minstrel shows and racism.
This is an excellent example of racism in early cartoons and has a great study on gender.
Betty Boop is a flapper with her short hair, makeup, jewelry, short skirt, and rebellious attitude.
In this film, she writes a letter to her parents as she's running away, talks of killing herself, has noticeable stockings under her skirt, and becomes involved in subversive "black culture".
Betty and Bimbo both walk with "jive", the same way Malcolm X and Shorty did in the beginning of Malcolm X.
In this scene, Shorty tells X that he has to walk black and they walk in the same way Betty and Bimbo do, leaned forward, rhythmic, and arms swinging.
Here, Cab Calloway plays this ghastly ghost creature, while there are skeletons, ghosts, and other creatures dancing about.
This is quite exploitive, representing black culture and jazz as ghostly and evil in a way to almost scare kids away from getting involved in black culture and to stay in their comfortable homes, just as the monsters literally scare Betty and Bimbo back into their house.
In the beginning, her facist-esque father screams at her and his head literally becomes a record player.
Meanwhile, Betty is balling and she, her father, and her mother are all bouncing up and down in sync.
It is very uncomfortable and unsettling to me and makes me cringe a little bit..
Mediocre Betty Boop cartoon.
"Minnie the Moocher" is definitely among the most famous Betty Boop cartoons.
I probably don't need to say it, but these are black-and-white sound cartoons and this one here runs for 8 minutes, slightly longer than they usually do.
Betty is also as always not the only main character here.
Bimbo is of course also on board once again and so are many skeletons and other creepy creatures.
I am probably a bit biased here as I have never been a big Betty Boop fan, but for me it says a lot if this really mediocre little film is considered one of the best of the series.
As usual, with Betty it is all about the weirdness and awkwardness and maybe a bit about the music too.