Minnie the Moocher

Minnie the Moocher (1932)

*** (out of 4)

Betty Boop gets yelled at by her parents so her and Bimbo decide to run away. They don't get too far when they run into a group of ghosts. The big highlight of this short is that Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra play a big part in it. The film opens up to a Calloway song and showing him do a dance and then once we get to the ghosts they are basically dancing to his music. We also see the main ghost dancing like Calloway was at the start of the picture. If you're a fan of the Betty Boop shorts then you'll certainly enjoy this one as there are some funny jokes throughout and the animation is extremely good. Another highlight are the actual ghosts that look quite good and there's no question that the music is excellent.

The best cartoon I've seen in half a lifetime. Doesn't say much since I'm still rather young. Point is though this seems like a visual (and also audio) symphony of swing.

I only knew the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy version of Minnie The Moocher and only through coincidence did I find this and hear Cab Calloway's version... all I can say nice.

What else is there to say, you almost get nostalgia to the days when you'd sit at home on the Saturday mornings and watch cartoons till noon. Back in the worry-less days.

Perfect collaboration between the Boop and the Swing.

This is a Betty Boop cartoon, though it starts with a bit of footage of Cab Calloway and his orchestra. Calloway's song "Minnie the Moocher" is set to life using Betty, her friend Bimbo and an odd assortment of ghosts, though I really would have much preferred to actually just watch and listen to Calloway sing this song live--since it is very easy to like and quite funny (and a bit radical with its reference to cocaine). However, as a cartoon, it's a very strange thing indeed as I really don't know who the audience for this Pre-Code nightmare would be! After all, it is really scary and so younger kids would be terrified by it and the drug references, if the parents noticed, would really turn them off as well, as it's NOT good child fare! Interesting, well animated but too bizarre, this one is great for adults who want to see just how subversive Betty could be in her wild Pre-Code days.

The first part of the film shows us a younger Betty Boop than we're used to seeing in the Fleischer Brothers cartoons.

Betty is a girl in her early/mid teens, being nagged to tears by her immigrant parents. Betty sings the 1911 Von Tilzer number "They Always Pick On Me". Notice how the animator attends to such details as the bouncing of Betty's breasts on the staircase-- such details would soon be suppressed in USA animation by the Hayes Code.

This is the first of 3 Fleischer cartoons with Cab Calloway featured on the soundtrack. They proved popular-- and Calloway used them as advertising, having the cartoons shown in theaters of towns the week before his travelling band would arrive.

"Minnie The Moocher" is good, as is the last of the series "The Old Man of the Mountain", but Betty Boop's "Snow White" is the best of all.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style was 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. That charm, sensuality and adorable factor is not lost anywhere here, nor her comic timing and she is very well supported by the ever fun Bimbo, the two have great chemistry together too.

'Minnie the Moocher' (title taken from the famous Cab Calloway song) is quintessential Betty Boop. If anybody is a fan, 'Minnie the Moocher' is a must watch, and perhaps even people not so hot on her might get a lot of value out of it.

As always, the animation is outstanding, everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination. Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness, great for putting anybody in a good mood.

Like with pretty much all the early Betty Boop cartoons, meaning before the production code tightened up and everything became tame, 'Minnie the Moocher' certainly does not disappoint when it comes to being risqué, creative or delightfully bizarre. As a pre-code cartoon, a lot of the content here is very daring stuff, very ahead of its time back then and you don't see much like the pre-code Betty Boop cartoons made today. And it's done in a very hugely creative and humorous way, with a very high spirit and spookiness throughout. The voice acting is good as always.

Overall, wonderful cartoon and for Betty Boop fans it's quintessential. 10/10 Bethany Cox