Saturday Cartoon

Betty Boop in Snow-White Dave Fleischer directed this 1933 Betty Boop cartoon for Paramount, with song vocals by, and the rotoscoped dance moves of, Cab Calloway. Animation is credited to Roland C. Crandall. This is not a conventional telling of the Snow White tale. In the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, As Selected by 1000 Animation Professionals, Leslie Cabarga reports that “Doc” Crandall animated the whole cartoon himself, working on it over six months. The sheer volume of screen action is breathtaking. And the bizarre surrealism - a hallmark of Boop cartoons - is thoroughly fascinating. In his encyclopedic Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin devotes several paragraphs to describing details of the film’s action, and he calls particular attention to the throw away gags, which are abundant throughout. Regular Fleischer characters Bimbo and KoKo the Clown are prominent supporting players, but even wardrobes and props contribute to the action, and pieces of the background scenery have speaking parts. The cartoon doesn’t feature a typical linear storyline, rather it displays a stream-of-consciousness run amuk. It’s quite the tour de force of animation.