"Betty Boop for President" is a 6.5-minute short film from 1932, so this one is almost 85 years old and the title is an interesting description as it seems right now that it actually took 85 years after this one for a woman to become President with Hillary Clinton being in a promising spot right now. But back to this movie. I did not think it was a really great or funny watch, but I still gave it a solid 6 stars out of 10 because to me it felt very relevant and an interesting depiction of politics in cartoons. A couple years later, there were of course dozens of American propaganda cartoons against Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and the Japanese Empire and you kept seeing cartoon versions of Hitler all along. But things do not be that crass to make an impact in the world of animation. 1932 was an election year and Roosevelt beat Hoover and I am sure this presidential election was one of the main motivations to take the world of politics also to the Betty Boop universe. From this (and only this) perspective, I recommend the watch here.
10 Reviews
Kind of weird but enjoyable.
planktonrules19 December 2012
Like the title says, Betty Boop is running for president. Her message was a populist one of the era (smacking of the communist redistribution of the wealth pledge) as well as the legalization of booze. Throughout, there are a few funny bits (such as the impersonations as well as the argument between the Republicans and Democrats that uses a bit of naughty language they would NOT have allowed after the Production Code was strengthened in 1934). But there also is a lot of irrelevant material (bits that just seem to come out of nowhere) and an odd bit about an apparent homosexual that keep this from being a better and more cohesive cartoon. Not bad but not among the better outings of the Boopster.
Interesting historically and conceptually and a fun cartoon overall
TheLittleSongbird24 November 2016
Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style 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. The charm, sensuality and adorability factors can be seen throughout, a joy to watch as always.
'Betty Boop for President' is interesting for its historical content and when it comes to the concept and the material it is one of the most unique and interesting Betty Boop cartoons. On its own merits, it's still a lot of fun. This said, some of the jokes may, most likely to in fact, go over heads of children and some modern viewers not familiar with what they're referencing. Mostly it wasn't an issue for me, but there were one or two parts where lack of familiarity meant the joke fell flat.
However, the black and white animation is very good, smooth, meticulously detailed and well drawn with the black and white not looking too primitive. A lot of it is actually very imaginative. Even better is the music, which is rousing, catchy and unquestionably accessible to anybody who loves or is familiar with the compositional style.
Writing-wise, it's often very clever and funny with the jokes a vast majority of the time very sharply written and timed. There is a lot of charm, a lot of energy and the story is more eventful than most Betty Boop cartoons.
All in all, a lot of fun and interesting if not completely successful. 8/10 Bethany Cox
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. The charm, sensuality and adorability factors can be seen throughout, a joy to watch as always.
'Betty Boop for President' is interesting for its historical content and when it comes to the concept and the material it is one of the most unique and interesting Betty Boop cartoons. On its own merits, it's still a lot of fun. This said, some of the jokes may, most likely to in fact, go over heads of children and some modern viewers not familiar with what they're referencing. Mostly it wasn't an issue for me, but there were one or two parts where lack of familiarity meant the joke fell flat.
However, the black and white animation is very good, smooth, meticulously detailed and well drawn with the black and white not looking too primitive. A lot of it is actually very imaginative. Even better is the music, which is rousing, catchy and unquestionably accessible to anybody who loves or is familiar with the compositional style.
Writing-wise, it's often very clever and funny with the jokes a vast majority of the time very sharply written and timed. There is a lot of charm, a lot of energy and the story is more eventful than most Betty Boop cartoons.
All in all, a lot of fun and interesting if not completely successful. 8/10 Bethany Cox
I'd vote for her any day!
llltdesq19 July 2002
This is a wonderful mix of satire and the strangeness that could be found in the best of the early Fleischer shorts, particularly Betty Boop cartoons. A knowledge of 1930s politics helps with some of the jokes, but it's funny even if you don't know who Herbert Hoover or FDR were. These shorts are exceptionally fine work in many cases and are always enjoyable to watch, at least through 1934 or so. Even the ones done later are reasonably good, even if Warner Brothers and MGM had by then surpassed what the Fleischers were doing. In print and available. Well worth watching. Most recommended.
Betty Boop for President brought some useful chuckles to me this Election Day
tavm4 November 2008
With today being Election Day, I thought I'd watch some cartoons that reflect this important event. The title card says it all: "Max Fleischer Nominates Betty Boop for President". In this short, Betty says she'll help "split the money" for the poor as she changes faces (and voices) to become incumbent Herbert Hoover and previous candidate Al Smith. Her opponent is Mr. Nobody, a literal stick figure who lives up to his name so much, he causes the pitcher-whose face literally appears-to drink a glass of his own water! There's also a bizarre gag in which a big jailbird on the electric chair gets changed into something "swishy" courtesy of various makeup gadgets nearby! And then there's a weather operator, who resembles Grampy from later cartoons, that switches a giant umbrella to keep rain from going over New York! And how about when Betty addresses donkeys on one side and elephants on the other just before the elephants call their opposite side "asses"! LOL! With that, I highly recommend Betty Boop for President.
Stuff her ballot box
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre15 April 2003
Warning: Spoilers
UPDATE: This IMDb webpage is for a 1932 one-reel Betty Boop cartoon called 'Betty Boop for President'. Several reviewers have mistakenly posted comments here for a completely different movie: a 1980s compilation feature, also titled 'Betty Boop for President'. They're in the wrong place. Now read on.
The Fleischer animation studio was technically innovative, developing the rotoscope process (which enabled the animators to transfer filmed human movement into remarkably realistic cel sequences) and some interesting 3D backgrounds for a few of the Popeye cartoons. But I seldom enjoy the Fleischer cartoons, which tend to be extremely vulgar. In a Fleischer cartoon, a cartoon character can't just swallow a drink: we have to see the adam's apple bobbing up and down, the tongue licking the lips while drool trickles from the character's mouth, the drink dribbling from the character's face, and so on. Ugh!
More so than the rest of Fleischer's output, the Betty Boop cartoons are (usually) very annoying to me because they tend to carry all of Fleischer's flaws to a greater intensity. During a Boop toon, we're constantly nudged in the ribs with reminders that Betty is meant to be "sexy". I don't find her sexy at all. Suppose you saw an actual flesh-and-blood woman who looked like Betty Boop, with that huge head on a tiny body, and the huge face containing enormous eyes and a tiny little mouth. You wouldn't be sexually aroused; you would shudder in disgust! Also, the voice and appearance of Betty Boop were a direct steal from the singer Helen Kane, whose career nosedived because audiences thought she was imitating Betty Boop ... when in fact the imitation was the other way round.
"Betty Boop for President" is one of the more interesting Boop toons because of its historical content. Released during the 1932 Presidential campaign, it depicts Betty campaigning for the Presidency. Her opponent is a top-hatted stick-figure named Mr Nobody, who sings a clever song that must have been morbidly funny for audiences in that Depression year: "Who will feed you when you're hungry? Mister Nobody!"
There are a lot of political jokes here which modern audiences (especially children) won't get. The delegates at Betty's convention are elephants and donkeys. (OK, that joke hasn't dated.) At one point, Betty's voice and face morph her into a caricature of Herbert Hoover (the Republican incumbent that year). This effect is so startling, it's more likely to frighten children rather than amuse them. Later in the same cartoon, Betty's voice and face morph into a caricature of Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic candidate from the 1928 campaign ... at least I THINK it's meant to be Smith: the animation is so bad, maybe this is supposed to be FDR. (But Betty is wearing Al Smith's distinctive bowler hat.) Again, the morphing is disturbing rather than funny.
SPOILER AND WARNING. One gag in this cartoon is NOT fit for children at all. As part of Betty's campaign to get tough on crime, we see a prison inmate (a huge snarling macho brute) led to an electric chair and strapped in. The current surges, and the huge brute is transformed into a limp-wristed swishing "pansy" stereotype! He pauses to apply his lipstick before sashaying out of the prison! I was doing child-minding duty for my neighbours when I screened this cartoon on my video, chancing that it was safe for children to watch. One of the neighbours' children saw this "pansy" character in the cartoon and she asked me: "Is that a boy or a girl?" Well, folks, Betty Boop cartoons should NOT be your child's first introduction to the subject of alternative sexuality!
Interestingly, "Betty Boop for President" ends with an image which is clearly meant to raise a cheer from the audience rather than a laugh. The cartoon ends with a dissolve to a large image of a stein of beer. In the year 1932, this was explicitly a call for repeal of Prohibition. It also stacks up as a clear endorsement of FDR (who favoured repeal) over Hoover (who didn't). How many animated cartoons can you name which are endorsements for a political candidate? ("Hell-Bent fer Election" is the only other one I can name offhand.) I'll rate "Betty Boop for President" 5 points out of 10... as an historical artefact, not for its very minimal laugh value.
The Fleischer animation studio was technically innovative, developing the rotoscope process (which enabled the animators to transfer filmed human movement into remarkably realistic cel sequences) and some interesting 3D backgrounds for a few of the Popeye cartoons. But I seldom enjoy the Fleischer cartoons, which tend to be extremely vulgar. In a Fleischer cartoon, a cartoon character can't just swallow a drink: we have to see the adam's apple bobbing up and down, the tongue licking the lips while drool trickles from the character's mouth, the drink dribbling from the character's face, and so on. Ugh!
More so than the rest of Fleischer's output, the Betty Boop cartoons are (usually) very annoying to me because they tend to carry all of Fleischer's flaws to a greater intensity. During a Boop toon, we're constantly nudged in the ribs with reminders that Betty is meant to be "sexy". I don't find her sexy at all. Suppose you saw an actual flesh-and-blood woman who looked like Betty Boop, with that huge head on a tiny body, and the huge face containing enormous eyes and a tiny little mouth. You wouldn't be sexually aroused; you would shudder in disgust! Also, the voice and appearance of Betty Boop were a direct steal from the singer Helen Kane, whose career nosedived because audiences thought she was imitating Betty Boop ... when in fact the imitation was the other way round.
"Betty Boop for President" is one of the more interesting Boop toons because of its historical content. Released during the 1932 Presidential campaign, it depicts Betty campaigning for the Presidency. Her opponent is a top-hatted stick-figure named Mr Nobody, who sings a clever song that must have been morbidly funny for audiences in that Depression year: "Who will feed you when you're hungry? Mister Nobody!"
There are a lot of political jokes here which modern audiences (especially children) won't get. The delegates at Betty's convention are elephants and donkeys. (OK, that joke hasn't dated.) At one point, Betty's voice and face morph her into a caricature of Herbert Hoover (the Republican incumbent that year). This effect is so startling, it's more likely to frighten children rather than amuse them. Later in the same cartoon, Betty's voice and face morph into a caricature of Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic candidate from the 1928 campaign ... at least I THINK it's meant to be Smith: the animation is so bad, maybe this is supposed to be FDR. (But Betty is wearing Al Smith's distinctive bowler hat.) Again, the morphing is disturbing rather than funny.
SPOILER AND WARNING. One gag in this cartoon is NOT fit for children at all. As part of Betty's campaign to get tough on crime, we see a prison inmate (a huge snarling macho brute) led to an electric chair and strapped in. The current surges, and the huge brute is transformed into a limp-wristed swishing "pansy" stereotype! He pauses to apply his lipstick before sashaying out of the prison! I was doing child-minding duty for my neighbours when I screened this cartoon on my video, chancing that it was safe for children to watch. One of the neighbours' children saw this "pansy" character in the cartoon and she asked me: "Is that a boy or a girl?" Well, folks, Betty Boop cartoons should NOT be your child's first introduction to the subject of alternative sexuality!
Interestingly, "Betty Boop for President" ends with an image which is clearly meant to raise a cheer from the audience rather than a laugh. The cartoon ends with a dissolve to a large image of a stein of beer. In the year 1932, this was explicitly a call for repeal of Prohibition. It also stacks up as a clear endorsement of FDR (who favoured repeal) over Hoover (who didn't). How many animated cartoons can you name which are endorsements for a political candidate? ("Hell-Bent fer Election" is the only other one I can name offhand.) I'll rate "Betty Boop for President" 5 points out of 10... as an historical artefact, not for its very minimal laugh value.
The 1980 movie is a total hoot
Woodyanders26 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Sassy'n'sexy flirtatious flapper Betty Boop (deliciously voiced with saucy aplomb by Victoria D'Orazi) decides to run for president. Prior to hitting the campaign trail, the irrepressible Betty works at both a diner and a circus, dreams that she's Alice in Wonderland, gets a role as Snow White in a movie, becomes the first woman race car driver to win the Indianapolis 500, and creates a new fashion craze. Meanwhile, the evil and meddlesome Belzabub (a perfectly growly voice by Dave Somerville) tries to foil Betty's plans by collecting her soul. Writer/director Dan Dalton cleverly edits several vintage old cartoons by Max and Dave Fleischer into a single very funny and entertaining composite new feature. Tommy Smothers supplies the voice of loyal adorable doggy Pudgy and serves as the picture's narrator. The wonderfully quirky and colorful animation ensures that this film remains an eye-popping visual feast from start to finish. As an added bonus, there are groovy rock songs by the Association and a lovely ending credits song by Debbie Boone. Best of all, legendary jazz singer Cab Calloway pops up to belt out both "Minnie the Moocher" and "Saint James Infirmary Blues." A real riot.
Why?
ilikepuppies29 April 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is attempted suicide. Whoever owned the rights to the old Boop shorts when this was made clearly had no idea what they had in their hands. The cavalier treatment of these masterpieces in this "film" is a downright tragedy.
The idea (for some reason) was to make a story about Betty running for president. So they (for some reason) took a collection of 70 year old cartoon shorts and strung them together in discontinuous fashion. Then an attempt was made (for some reason) to overlay a brand new script over the original footage.
The result is the absolute mutilation of a treasure trove of visual (and conceptual) cinema.
I can't begin to wonder why any person thought this was a good idea, or better yet how this idea even occurred to anyone.
Embarrassingly, I purchased this (for some reason).
The idea (for some reason) was to make a story about Betty running for president. So they (for some reason) took a collection of 70 year old cartoon shorts and strung them together in discontinuous fashion. Then an attempt was made (for some reason) to overlay a brand new script over the original footage.
The result is the absolute mutilation of a treasure trove of visual (and conceptual) cinema.
I can't begin to wonder why any person thought this was a good idea, or better yet how this idea even occurred to anyone.
Embarrassingly, I purchased this (for some reason).
Bad splicing, horrid voice acting.
chrisa-1828 June 2005
This "movie" is made up of spliced-together classic Fliescher shorts with the audio track replaced with bad dialogue which means the lipsynch is completely off (naturally).
Characters who previously had no voices were given voices and Betty is the only character who sounds anything like the previous voice acting and the animation quality is inconsistent since they use shorts from many different eras of Betty Boop cartoons.
This movie would be slightly more valuable if it had the intact audio, since it is the visuals (though cut to pieces) from lots of wonderful classic Boop cartoons. This movie feels very forced and is really only worth watching for gag value.
Characters who previously had no voices were given voices and Betty is the only character who sounds anything like the previous voice acting and the animation quality is inconsistent since they use shorts from many different eras of Betty Boop cartoons.
This movie would be slightly more valuable if it had the intact audio, since it is the visuals (though cut to pieces) from lots of wonderful classic Boop cartoons. This movie feels very forced and is really only worth watching for gag value.
Fun Short from Betty
Michael_Elliott10 June 2016
Betty Boop for President (1932)
*** (out of 4)
It's funny to watch this animated short from 1932 because it really does play out like a music video from the 80's. The "song" here would deal with Betty singing to become your next President and talking about the various things she would do for the country. She's running against someone calling himself Mr. Nobody who of course is making a lot of fake promises. This here is a pretty catchy little gem that manages to make you smile as well as keep you entertained throughout the running time. The animation itself is of high quality as you'd expect but it's the song that really makes this seem so fresh and original. Fans of Betty Boop will certainly enjoy this one.
*** (out of 4)
It's funny to watch this animated short from 1932 because it really does play out like a music video from the 80's. The "song" here would deal with Betty singing to become your next President and talking about the various things she would do for the country. She's running against someone calling himself Mr. Nobody who of course is making a lot of fake promises. This here is a pretty catchy little gem that manages to make you smile as well as keep you entertained throughout the running time. The animation itself is of high quality as you'd expect but it's the song that really makes this seem so fresh and original. Fans of Betty Boop will certainly enjoy this one.
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