Voices of Betty: Mae Questel, Margie Hines, Bonnie Poe, Little Ann Little, Kate Wright, Cheryl Chase. Album Producer: George Garabedian, from the Ivy Films Presentation. Despite the absence of the fantastical Fleischer animation artistry, the pure audio experience allows the delightful music and dialogue to shine on its own. Occasionally there were soundtracks for Laurel and Hardy shorts and features, as well as The Little Rascals/Our Gang, but the Betty Boop albums were the only animation titles.Īs the program list shows, the album is a treasure trove of great performances. Mark 56 Records was an Anaheim-based company that specialized primarily in classic radio shows with album covers sporting especially fine artwork (including that of Leslie Cabarga himself, who did the cover below). The suit was ruled in the Fleischer’s favor, but the use of famous people as the inspiration of cartoon characters has been a bone of contention throughout animation history, including Bert Lahr’s claim about Snagglepuss and Jackie Gleason’s suit for The Flintstones being like his Honeymooners sketches (which he abandoned at the risk of his image with families), both against Hanna-Barbera (though Bill Hanna seemed to be, at least anecdotally, fairly open about the freewheeling “exchange” of ideas). After this exhaustive review of the “boop-oop-a-doopery” history, the stenographer threw up his hands in despair and the testimony of meaningless sounds was stricken from the record. The attorneys spent the next several days dissecting each actress’ use of syllables, discerning the difference between “boop-oop-a-doop,” ‘boop-boop-a-doop,” “boop-oopy-doop,” “boo-boo-be-doo,” “poo-poopy-doo,” and even “poop-poopy-do-do.” This silly semantic argument became a source of uproarious laughter for the courtroom, with attorney arguing the differences between a boop-oop-doop” and a “poop-poopy-doop,” as well as the difference between boop-poop” and “poo-poop.” Members of the court, including the stenographer, were confused. Here is a particularly vivid moment of the real-life courtroom drama that leaps from the book’s pages: The Kane suit-along with far more expert detail than will appear in this article, which focuses primarily on vinyl records-is chronicled in Ray Pointer’s fascinating tome, The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer. The studio had already took the precaution of producing special recordings of the Kane songs by their own voice artists, such as Margie Hines. One singer whose records were not used for the cartoons were those of Helen Kane, who famously sued the Fleischers for appropriating her persona for Betty. (When the powers-that-be in the music business halted that practice, it led to live action appearances by the performers, bands and orchestras.) While the music, dialogue and sound effect for the shorts were being performed for the sound recording-in the Fleischer case, after the film was done-they would play the record as part of the session. According to The Fleischer Story by Leslie Cabarga, one of the many tasks of Fleischer brother Lou was to purchase records for use in Talkartoons. Indeed, records were integral components of the initial Talkartoons that arrived with the dawn of sound films. There is no shortage of 78 rpm records that were either heard in Betty Boop cartoons, came as a result of them, or inspired the character of Betty herself.
(NOTE: Many popular songs and public domain tunes were also interpolated) Sing A Song of Sixpence (Mother Goose Land).The Woman in the Shoe (Mother Goose Land).Dum Dum Diddle Diddle (Mother Goose Land).Mother Goose Land Song (Mother Goose Land).
Little Jackie Horner (Mother Goose Land).Sweeping’ the Clouds Away (Mother Goose Land).I Like to Go With Mother Goose (Mother Goose Land).Mother Goose Land (Sing You Sinners) (Mother Goose Land).James Infirmary – Cab Calloway (Snow-White) I Want to See My Step-Mama (Snow-White).I Know a Gal Named Betty Boop / How’m I Doin’? – Don Redman & His Orchestra.