Cartoon Reviews

Showing posts with label Mermaid Betty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mermaid Betty. Show all posts

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Betty Boop Clocks

These are a couple of partially broken Betty Boop clocks from an antique store. I'm sure I could probably fix them, but who knows if or when I'll get around to it.

Even though the minute and second hands still work, the hour hand is stuck at six on the wall clock. The shelf clock is missing the hour hand altogether but still works otherwise and has these four jewel-like hearts at the base that rotate around like a carousel. The spinning hearts are my favorite aspect of it and make it extremely charming.

My favorite of the two is the shelf clock. It has a lot of interesting details to it and comes off as antique, although it's pretty cheap and has a 2009 date on the back (so it's no antique). It looks older than the wall clock which has a 1991 date on the back, so the wall clock is a lot older and sadly was working correctly until it fell off the wall one day.

While attempting to Google a Betty Boop cartoon that might be related to 'time' and 'clocks' to tie in to this blog post, I came across an American Screen Songs Fleischer Studios short cartoon from 1932 that has Betty Boop, or at least a Betty Boop-ish character, as a topless mermaid. It's called Time on My Hands and also features Ethel Merman singing the title song to the bouncing ball over the lyric captions. I did not know about this cartoon until now, even as a bonafide Betty Boop fan. So, there you have it. Topless Betty Boop. The rumors were true.

  

Monday, November 30, 2015

Betty Boop Calendars

This year, 2015, has been a delight with Betty Boop as my calendar girl, and fortunately the same calendar kiosk at the mall had a new one, so it looks like 2016 will be the year of Betty again. Well, not just for me; maybe the new Betty Boop movie that Simon Cowell is making will come out sometime next year.

The 2016 calendar has an interesting iTunes theme called iBoop: Betty's-Playlist (ACCO Brands) with each month depicting a different music genre with coinciding Betty artwork that's presented in the form of a play-screen. The 2015 calendar (also from ACCO Brands) has a consistent sunny surfs-up-Betty theme that's been a pleasant wall decorator. Some of the months feature an image of Betty riding a wave, which conflicts a little with the 1934 classic Fleischer Studio cartoon Betty Boop's Lifeguard, where Betty is enjoying the beach and it is established that she can't swim, a likely plot excuse so she can be saved by the hunky lifeguard, Freddy, when she inevitably loses her rubber horsey flotation. Before she is rescued, Betty has a fever dream where she is a mermaid, portrayed in that silly, musical, surreal animation style that the Fleischer brothers excelled at.

From Betty Boop's Lifeguard (1934)