New Year's Eve

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When Betty Boop sold herself to some 1%-ass mogul in the mid-1930s, possibly Hearst, her life was made for her, henceforth-wise. It looks like she lives in a scale model of Xanadu, in a neighborhood where every mansion even has its own rooster!



This Fleischer Brothers short subject portrays the morning after Betty's birthday party. But I am exercising blogger's license to state that her birthday happens to be 31 December, because first, I'm going for a holiday theme; and second, it's as likely as her having been born on any other day of the year except 29 February. (However, on momentary reflection, I'm thinking she might actually have been conceived on New Year's Eve. That's not a problem, though, since cartoon characters have a virtually instantaneous gestation period.)

Had this cartoon portrayed her 1933 party, it is likely that she would not have awakened alone---there would have been at least one animal in bed with her, and very possibly a spooky clown, too. But this event occurred after 1 July 1934, so our heroine slept alone. Hollywood's golden age of censorship depressed her enough that she put on some weight below the neck and lost some above. Plus most of her spunk (heh heh). Back in 1933, pre-Code, Betty went mano a mano fearlessly with gorillas, skeletons, hungry cannibals, and ogres; but in 1937, she is daunted by the mess her degenerate guests made of her crib. "I'm tired of cleaning things/But I'm tied to my apron strings," she complains. The plutocrat pig Hearst did this to you, baby---run for the hills, Betty! Burn the place to the ground! Call Bimbo and tell him to meet you back at St. James Infirmary!

Too late. Grampy's here. Well, at least he drives a bitchen roadster with four spare tires (just in case!), no doubt one of his original designs. Whatever flows through Grampy's veins, it seems much more effective than a 10% solution of the type Sherlock Holmes employed. Judging by Grampy's reaction to mainlining it at about 4:30, I'd guess a cocktail of mescaline, absinthe, and espresso... on Sunday morning, a few minutes after sunrise!

I think Dave Fleischer might have been trying to sneak something past the Code office at the very end, where Betty sucks down Grampy's thick, foamy head. How about you?

Happy New Year, "gangstas"!

House Cleaning Blues, Betty Boop and Grampy (1937, A Betty Boop Cartoon; Dave Fleischer, Director; Eli Brucker and David Tendlar, Animators; Fleischer Studios), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.