What happened to Betty Boop? (no im serious)

geezus calm down harv :eek: sorry i dont find cartoon dog-women as sexy as you do :rolleyes:

ya furry pervet :mad:

um and i don't have to answer the WHY (italics!, bold!, underline!, 64 point size!) of anything?, I was the one asking the questions? :-o

Okay, don't be so touchy, ecec.
You asked a question so I answered it.

It's fine that you don't find young women's bodies to be sexy, but that's not to say that there aren't millions of viewers who do, and organizations that want to eliminate sex appeal from art and entertainment.

Thanks again.

No problem. :cool:

I don't think my generation did. "Loony Tunes" was the name of one of the series, like "Blue Ribbon" and "Merrie Melodies". I never noticed any difference between the series, but maybe there is one. They seemed pretty interchangeable to me. In fact, I seem to remember reading something about them being relabeled.

Whoops. I didn't get around to answering this question.

The difference between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies is a looooooooong one. In fact, in order to tell it I'll have to go back to how the WB animation studio got started in the first place.

The genesis was the first talkie The Jazz Singer in 1927. At that time, sound in movies became all the rage. (Disney of course followed suit a year later). One of the main things that Warner Bros. noticed when they released The Jazz Singer is that as well as being dazzled by the actors talking, pretty much every song that Al Jolson sang became a memorable hit. Warner Bros. had a song publishing company and figured that sound in movies would give them a very fertile avenue for which to release all these songs to the public. However, there were too many songs to deal with.
Meanwhile, there is trouble at the Disney studio. Some animators feel disgruntled under the conditions they're in and organize a massive walk-out. This is lead by the team of Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (with men like Friz Freleng, and Ham Hamilton not too far behind). Their first order of business is to produce a pilot film that they can show to producers and hopefully sign a contract. The film they create is Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid (c. 1929) starring a little black guy named Bosko.
Leon Schlesinger, being the shrewd businessman that he was, brought these two parties together. An agreement was reached that Warner Bros. would produce and distribute the Bosko cartoons on the grounds that they incorporate a WB song into each cartoon. Happy to finally have a contract, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising agreed to this arrangement. They called this series of cartoons Looney Tunes which was a slight variation on Disney's Silly Symphanies (being ex-Disney employees what else were they going to call them? ;) ). Their first cartoon was Sinkin' in the Bathtub (c. 1930)
However, the crew was immediately dissatisfied with the arrangement. They found it annoying that they'd have a pretty good Bosko scenario going but then have to interrupt it with a song. Breaking the contract was not an option but they didn't want Bosko to suffer because of this arrangement either. Fortunately they found a solution. They'd release another series of cartoons called Merrie Melodies (also derrived from Silly Symphanies) the first one being Lady Play Your Mandoline (c. 1931). At first they wanted this new series to introduce new characters Foxy, Piggy, and Goopy Geer. But when none of those characters took off, they settled into a setup where the Looney Tunes series promoted the characters while the Merrie Melodies promoted the songs. It pretty much stayed this way even when Harman and Ising took Bosko to MGM and some other ex-Disney artists came and created Buddy (Buddy's Day Out c. 1933).
Also around this time Leon finally consented to spending some money on colorizing some of their cartoons. But, also being extremely cheap, he decided only to color the Merrie Melodies series. This was another distinction between the two at the time.
But, Buddy was retired and eventually replaced by Porky Pig (I Haven't Got a Hat c. 1935) which lead to the development of Daffy Duck (Porky's Duck Hunt c. 1937) Daffy's first appearance caused a huuuuge sensation in theatres but, not a huge as the one Bugs Bunny caused in 1940 with A Wild Hare. By this time, sound in movies wasn't so much a sensation as it was the norm at this time. Therefore, Warner Bros. released them from their obligation to include a song so that they could make more toons with those very popular characters.
Then, in 1943, Leon colorized the Looney Tunes series (first Looney Tune in color being The Hep Cat (c. 1942) and the last B&W LT being Puss 'n' Booty c. 1943).

From that point on, both Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies series featured star characters (as well as any one shots they so desired to make) and therefore the titles became irrelevant.

That's it in a nutshell. :D

Is that the point Grim Natwick stopped working on Betty Boop?

If so, there's your answer.

If I was a mod here I'd do it myself.

I hope you save this somewhere, so it doesn't just disappear into "thread limbo". Perhaps an FAQ entry "What's the difference between Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies?" somewhere would be a good idea.

Well, when I read that post, I thought "Wow, that poor guy spent all that time on that post when the same information is available at various places online."
But he loves it, so he's not really a "poor guy." :D

Anyway, do a web search for the following ...

[i]"looney tunes" "merrie melodies" "blue ribbon"

[/i]... and you will find that same information - plus much, much more - at numerous places online. :)

You should ask that question at the GAC forums. You'd probably get a very detailed answer over there. :cool:

the drawings are smoother but not as free, not as expressive, not as exciting, and the animation has become quite...formulaic. And the stories change in a big way too!, they're not wacky. :(

This sort of thing happens to most long-standing cartoon characters: Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Felix the Cat.

It seems that all they're trying to do it take characters that were previously targeted to adult audiences and market them more to children. The early Boop was a sexpot who wore see-through clothing.

and p.s. the "early" betty boop was also a blacked-nosed floppy-earred dog so she really wasn't that sexy :)

Have you actually watched the early Boop shorts? You make it sound like she was Lassie. She was a hot young girl with floppy ears, like a Playboy Bunny.

That is, WB came in and said, "Ok, no more styles!, no more creativity!, it all stops at these model sheets."
And Mickey Mouse hasn't changed for about 60 years because Walt Disney and his company are notoriously stagnant and stubborn.

Yes, but you're not answering why they wanted those limitations.
The reason they wanted fewer styles, less creativity, and more stagnation was because they wanted their products to be palpable and family-friendly, i.e., appealing to children and narrow minds, and immune to conservative organizations.

Boop Dog and Mae West

In "Dizzy Dishes" Betty Boop had dog-like features to make her appeal to her friend Bimbo, a humanized dog.

In 1933-1934, Mae West hit the film scene with her sizzling sexuality, and arguably, the conservative public reacted by adopting the Production Code in 1934, which dictated morals and mores in American films for the next 30 years.

Just like Jane getting covered up in the Tarzan films, so cartoons had to buckle under the puritanical pressures.

--This history and much more is detailed in Leonard Maltin's book "Of Mice and Magic"

Cooker

p.s. In my opinion, the early Boops are the best. The post code cartoons are lame.

maybe it isnt relevant and/or heavily marketable

Tex Avery left to work for MGM. Frank Tashlin went into live-action. I think it was before the studio closed, but I don't know for sure. If I remember correctly, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones were working there when Warners decided to close the animation unit. There were other directors, too. At the moment, the only name I can think of is Friz Freleng. There's one other director, whose name escapes me, who later worked for DePatie-Freleng.

Tex Avery went to MGM in 1942 after a dispute with Leon Schlesinger about the ending of The Heckling Hare. Frank Tashlin left for live action films in and around 1945 loooooong before the studio closed. Bob Clampett both quit and was fired sometime around 1944 but his last films finally were all distributed in theatres until 1946 (ending with The Big Snooze). Incredibly, Chuck Jones was fired by Jack Warner himself just a few months before the studio was shut down in 1962. Jack didn't care for Chuck doing some work on a project at a rival studio (UPA's Gay Purr-ee). Friz Freleng really created a safety net for himself though. When the animation studio closed, Friz almost immediately set up a partnership with David DePatie and created their own studio. Their first and probably their most successful project were the Pink Panther cartoons starting with the openning sequence of the Pink Panther movie. Bob McKimson was hired on as a director of some of those cartoons (that's the name you couldn't think of I'm sure) as well as Art Davis.

you will find that same information - plus much, much more - at numerous places online. :)

Well, now you can find it numerous places online........... plus one. ;)