Betty Boop was a cartoon phenomenon at the time Max Fleischer was producing those black and white 6-minute animated classics for theatrical distribution in the 1930s. Every cartoon was a different concept, with the basic premise that a night club sex kitten would play the lead role. In "Boop-Oop-A-Doop," a villain attempted to compromise her virginity when the ringmaster of a circus massages her legs and suggests she would be fired if she did not submit. In one animated gem, Betty Boop tended the fields on a farm. In "Stopping the Show" (1934), a favorite of mine, she hosted a vaudeville show complete with a variety of act and delivered an impersonation of Maurice Chevalier and another of Fanny Brice. When the Hays Code went into effect in 1934, her sex kitten image was revised to wearing clothing more akin to a housewife. While the early cartoons were clearly remnants of the jazz age, her last cartoon in 1939 attempted to modernize her image with the growing popularity of the swing era. Just watching these cartoons in chronological order reveals a time capsule for the changing times.
A total of 90 animated cartoons were produced and released from 1930 to 1939, more than half of them restored in 2K and released on DVD and BluRay. Ongoing efforts to continue releasing additional shorts, remastered, continue to this day. But amidst the comic strips and merchandising, one of the few aspects of Betty Boop rarely explored are the radio broadcasts of the 1930s. There, Mae Questel (who also voiced the cartoons) voiced the character for a series of 15-minute radio adventures, in two different programs, with other cartoon characters such as Koko the Clown and Ferdinand the Frog. One series was known as Betty Boop's Fables (1932-1933), with a format similar to the cartoons where each episode placed Betty into a different storybook scenario from Jack and the Beanstalk to Cinderella. The other was Betty Boop Frolics (1933-1934), which featured more musical entertainment than stories.
A few months ago all of the radio scripts (for both series) were found and scanned into PDF format, allowing us to create an episode guide for each and every broadcast, including a list of songs performed. This truly is a historical even if some animation fans dismiss the discovery because it lacks visuals.
