Betty Boop Collection

After suffering through years of trying to find as much Betty Boop as I could through public domain collections of varying quality, I finally decided to break down and buy a used copy of this set here on Amazon, and despite the cons I'll mention in just a bit, I'm glad I did. I've not yet finished watching all eight volumes, but what I have watched has been a very fun treat, full of plenty of risque humor, surrealistic imagery, and just overall good times.This set, curated by animation historian and fanboy Jerry Beck, pulls together eight VHS tapes, each of which contains two themed programs for a total of 90-110 minutes in length, with the exception of the first volume, which only contains one themed program and is little more than an hour in length. Some might bemoan the fact that the cartoons are presented this way as opposed to chronologically, and I would be perfectly happy with such a presentation, but I have no issue with this presentation either. There are 115 shorts here and little over 13 hours of viewing pleasure. Pretty much every short is in this collection, with the exception of a few that, to my knowledge, are still lost or in private collections and Betty's cameo in the very first Popeye cartoon. Most seem to be struck from the best available prints, with a very few even retaining their Paramount opening logos. (Most feature no opening studio logo, a UM&M TV card, and a few use an NTA card.) "Poor Cinderella" is presented in its original two-color-process glory, all others in their original B&W - except for one, which I'll get to.The packaging of this box set is to die for. The box is made to be displayed with the spines lining up to form Betty's face. Inside the box is a booklet titled "Boopliography." One does wish there was a chronological listing of the cartoons within the booklet, but what IS in the booklet is a fun read.So this set sounds completely perfect, right? Not really. There's two cons that have caused me to remove one star from what would otherwise be a perfect five-star rating.The first con is that the 1932 cartoon "Romantic Melodies" on volume 4 is actually not the original version. In the original version, Bimbo and his band serenade Betty, then it cuts to singer Arthur Tracy and a bouncing ball sequence, and goes back to an animated sequence. Here, we only have the first half. And it's not even the original version of THAT - it's a B&W transfer of a re-colored version. In the 1960's and 1970's, several Betty Boop shorts were colorized by re-tracing the original animation onto new cells, that were then colored. This was done cheaply by not doing every single frame, causing the fluidity of motion to be severely compromised. Other mistakes occur, including changing the word "delicatessen" on a storefront to the word "delafates." The complete original short IS out there and can be found on YouTube, so no idea why Republic Pictures allowed this shoddy version to be released.The other con is fairly big - digital video noise reduction, or DVNR. This set is riddled with it. This process, often used to clean up scratches and dirt, can also remove lines and objects in animation, especially during fast motion. At its least distracting, lines become thin and fine ones disappear. At its worst, entire objects seem to disappear. The intensity was set far too high and the animation really suffers at times as a result. It may be cheaper and faster to push a button and do this than restore the cartoons frame-by-frame to make sure only dirt, scratches, and dust get removed as opposed to ears, tails, hands, etc. but in the end, it would have showed that Republic cared way more about this product than any PD company would.For me, the DVNR, even at its most distracting, is a split-second glitch and it doesn't keep me from enjoying all of this classic animation. If you can handle these two drawbacks, this collection contains the best versions of these cartoons you're going to find, unless you have some of the American Movie Classics recordings from the 90's left on VHS. It's an invaluable collection of classic 30's animation, and should not be passed up.

"Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection" documents the highs and lows of this classic cartoon character. The eight-volume set includes virtually every Boop short from 1930 to 1939, even her cameo appearances in Max and Dave Fleischer's "Screen Song" cartoons. The first four volumes focus on the Depression-era, pre-Code period, with plenty of freewheeling surrealism and risque humor from Betty, Bimbo and Koko the Clown. "Minnie the Moocher," "Snow White" and "I Heard" remain animation classics, featuring terrific music by Cab Calloway and Don Redman. Of course, you're also stuck with the remaining four volumes, which focus largely on the toned-down, more domesticated version of Betty Boop during 1935-39. There are a few gems in these later volumes, such as the cartoons with Grampy the inventor, but many miss the mark - particularly those featuring Betty's cute dog, Pudgy. If you're a Boop completist, the "Definitive Collection" is a must. Otherwise, you may want to buy a more selective Fleischer compilation, such as the excellent "Betty Boop Confidential" or "Betty Boop: Special Collector's Edition."

I don't know why it took me ten years to buy this collection. I don't remember enjoying these shorts as much when Amc was showing them in the late 1980's on the weekends. They're almost as funny as the cartoons produced at the whitehouse, the creativity and intellect was certainly superior. I highly recommend this set, even being that the format is vhs. I decided not to wait for the more user friendly dvd version to be released, as there is nothing to guarantee that it will be as complete, or as well made, or even if they will be offered at all. One thing is certain about this collection ; a lot of time and research went into this project, it shows in the the presentation and packaging. As mentioned in other reveiws, I too would have prefered them to be in chronological order instead of arranged by theme, and a companion booklet would have been nice also. Don't wait, if you're anything like me, and see what's on the television, you probably need good hard laughs as soon as possible.

This VHS collection, is the only "official" release of Betty Boop cartoons from Republic. It has all the cartoons, except one with Popeye and three or four others, considered lost back in 1998, when this collection first released (those cartoons already "re-discovered" on various private collections worldwide, maybe a future DVD collection gonna have them).The picture and the sound quality is great, compared the usual public domain DVDs you may have seen the last years.There is a problem through: It is called "Digital Noise Reduction" and it is the nightmare of the animation fans! This set here, is the obvious example of how bad DNR can be, when we use it on Cartoons. Beyond that, it is an excellent choice for Betty Boop fans, now!

This set of 8 VHS tapes is the absolutely best restoration of these priceless Betty Boop cartoons available.This fine set of VHS tapes traces the history of one of cartoons only starring females, and is relatively complete. This boxed set of VHS tapes is beautiful and forms a neat picture of Betty when assembled in the correct order. In volume one, you'll see Betty as she was still a puppy dog with long ears co starring with Bimbo. Her floppy poodle ears eventually became hoop earrings, and her black poodle nose became a girl's button-like nose. The mad wild cartoons with jazz musicians like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong are worth the price of admission alone.My only question is why oh why have these versions of these cartoon films not been transferred to a set of DVDs yet?

She is my favorite! I ordered a new unopened box set but some of the videos were opened. They still worked, and I could never give Betty anything but 5 stars.

Historical cartoon collection and personal favorites.

I was never a great fan of Betty Boop cartoons being somewhat before my time but, as a collector of all things animation, I felt I should have a representative sample of the Boop.This collection is not that large but it achieves what I wanted and takes you back to the formative and often very inventive years of character animation. There's no denying that Betty Boop was a huge star for the Fleischer Studio, starting as a dog, she developed over time to become quite a raunchy little female performer.The cartoons are, of course, all black and white and show their age a bit as far as quality goes but those who like to wallow in nostalgia of the animated kind should enjoy this collection.

Some classic original Max Fleischer cartoons with great music and comical storylines. Some of the footage could have done with a bit of restoration work as it's very dark in places, making it hard to discern all the details. But Fleischer beats Disney every time in my book!

Bought this for my girlfriend for christmas as she is a big Betty Boop fan and she loved it, the quality is very good...

We both enjoyed the classic vintage cartoons.

Christmas gift