Minnie the Moocher
About Minnie the Moocher
Cab Calloway's orchestra plays St. James Infirmary in a live-action opening. Betty Boop quarrels with her parents and runs away with Bimbo. In a cave a walrus ghost, drawn over Calloway's dancing and singing in his voice, performs Minnie the Moocher. Skeletons drink at a bar, ghost prisoners sit in electric chairs, and a cat with skull eyes feeds her kittens. Betty and Bimbo run home with the ghosts behind them. The cartoon ends on Calloway's band playing Vine Street Blues.
Cast & crew
More about Minnie the Moocher
Dave Fleischer directed. Max Fleischer produced. Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville, and Bernard Wolf animated. Paramount released this Talkartoon. It opened at the Rivoli in New York on 1 January 1932 on the bill with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and went into general release on 26 February 1932. It runs 8 minutes. Mae Questel and Margie Hines both voice Betty on different credits. Margie Hines voices the mother, William Pennell the father, and Claude Reese Bimbo. Calloway's dance was rotoscoped onto the walrus.
Themes
Making
Fleischer put Calloway in front of the camera, traced the dance, and dropped that cycle onto the walrus so the ghost's hips match the singer.
Reviews
Film Daily, 10 January 1932, wrote that what Calloway's band could not do to Minnie the Moocher was not worth mentioning, and that the walrus does the gyrations after a short glimpse of the musicians.
Technique
Calloway's dance was rotoscoped, frame by frame, onto the cartoon walrus.
Music
Cab Calloway and his orchestra perform St. James Infirmary, Minnie the Moocher, and Vine Street Blues. Calloway sings the title song as the walrus.
Preservation
The 8-minute black-and-white short survives. A later redrawn color version also circulates.
Notes
- Betty sings bits of Harry Von Tilzer's They Always Pick on Me (1911) and Mean to Me (1929) before the cave.
- Film Daily, 10 January 1932, called it one of the best Betty Boop cartoons so far and said Calloway's band is on screen only briefly before the walrus takes the song.
- In 1994 members of the animation field ranked it number 20 on a list of the 50 greatest cartoons.
- A redrawn color version supplied clips for Betty Boop for President: The Movie (1980).
- Paramount, not a Fleischer exchange, distributed the short.
Scenes
- Calloway's band plays St. James Infirmary before the cartoon starts.
- The walrus sings Minnie the Moocher while skeletons and ghost prisoners crowd the cave.
- Betty and Bimbo sprint home with the ghosts at their heels.
