Saturday Morning Cartoons: Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party (1933)

Oct 25, 2014 Brandie Ashe Animation, Reviews 0
Betty Boop's Hallowe'en Party

In 1933, Betty Boop was at the height of her cinematic fame. The Fleischer-animated shorts–racy, daffy, and wonderfully musical–were immensely popular. Audiences couldn’t get enough of sweet Betty and her crazy adventures, and the Fleischers continued to churn out one appealing cartoon after another.

Over the course of her 1930s filmography, Betty Boop hosted any number of onscreen parties: a May Day event here, a birthday bash there. But none was perhaps so creepily amusing as her Halloween shindig, in which a big, hairy brute invades the party, only to be driven out by a cadre of spooks.

Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party

The gags are typically fast and furious here, from the opening scenes with the shape-changing clouds, to the “witch” and “cat” paint that magically takes appropriate shape on the walls, to the creative way in which Betty makes her jack-o-lanterns. And when the lights go down, the animated revenge of Betty’s creepy-crawly friends is truly creative, and truly entertaining, to behold.

Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party was recently restored and included on Olive Film’s compilation Betty Boop: The Essential Collection Volume One, which is available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

About Brandie Ashe 65 Articles
Brandie Ashe is a freelance writer and editor from Alabama. She is the co-founder of and head writer for the film blog True Classics, a site dedicated to the Golden Age of Hollywood film and animation. Brandie will never outgrow her love for cartoons, both old and new. Her passion for Cary Grant is absolute and damn near legendary. If she were a character in the Harry Potter series, Brandie's patronus would be Robert Osborne.
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