Betty Boop on Blu - Vol 3 April 29, 2014 Pre-order

[bigshot]

Betty Boop: The Essential Collection - Volume Three Blu-ray pre-order



Betty Boop: The Essential Collection Volume Two [1930-1934] Blu-ray




Betty Boop: The Essential Collection Volume One Blu-ray


Two volumes are announced now... one in August and one in September. Great selection of titles. ImportCDs has them for much less than Amazon. These haven't been available without horrible DVNR since the early days of Laserdisc. Great stuff.

[hedliniv]

I hope they realize that audio tracks that are old as these cartoons are need subtitles! If they are not included it will be one more release that I would have loved to buy but can't because of the lack of subtitles...

[bigshot]

Betty Boop cartoons don't depend on dialogue. It's all crazy visuals and music. I have a friend who can't hear and he likes these cartoons the best because they are pure visual candy.

[Hexen]

Actually, the Olive BD of 1900 (only Olive disc I have ATM) has subtitles so that shouldn't be a problem. But yeah, BB toons are majority visual gags, so subs would be mostly noise descriptions anyway.

Anyway, can't wait for a look at these, they will surely be awesome. I know I'll be getting them for my mom for Christmas as she's a huge Betty Boop fan and will freak out at this.

[Hypnosifl]

Excited for this, we need more Fleischer cartoons on blu ray! One thing I noticed about these is that according to this article, they are mostly going to be doing Betty Boop cartoons that are still under copyright, not the ones in the public domain (with one exception for volume 1, and I don't know about volume 2). That's good in a way since many of these don't show up on the public domain dvd collections, but I do hope that at some point they do a volume with some of the more memorable cartoons that are in the public domain, especially the surreal musical ones with Cab Calloway, like Snow White:

Betty Boop : Snow-White (1933) - HD - YouTube

and Minnie the Moocher:

Betty Boop : Minnie the Moocher (1932) - HD - YouTube

and The Old Man of the Mountain:

Betty Boop : The Old Man of the Mountain (1933) - HD - YouTube

For anyone who's interested, the cartoons on Volume 1 are:

CHESS NUTS (1932)
BETTY BOOP, M.D. (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S BAMBOO ISLE (1932)
BETTY BOOP FOR PRESIDENT (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S PENTHOUSE (1933)
BETTY BOOP'S BIRTHDAY PARTY (1933)
BETTY BOOP'S MAY PARTY (1933)
BETTY BOOP'S HALLOWE’EN PARTY (1933)
BETTY BOOP'S RISE TO FAME (1934)
BETTY BOOP'S TRIAL (1934)
BETTY BOOP'S LIFE GUARD (1934)
THE FOXY HUNTER (1937)

And on volume 2:

DIZZY DISHES (1930)
BIMBO'S INITIATION (1931)
BOO-OOP-A-DOOP (1932)
BETTY BOOP LIMITED (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S BIZZY BEE (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S UPS AND DOWNS (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S MUSEUM (1932)
BETTY BOOP'S BIG BOSS (1933)
MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT (1933)
BETTY BOOP'S LITTLE PAL (1934)
BETTY BOOP'S PRIZE SHOW (1934)
KEEP IN STYLE (1934)

Also, here's a page with amazon links:

[bigshot]

Aspect ratio is going to be an issue here. The first Betty Boop cartoons were made using an early sound aperture which was taller than normal. On every home video release, Snow White either has a big crop at the top or a big crop at the bottom. A fella took two laserdisc versions, one framed top and one framed bottom, and merged them into a full frame version. It was surprising how much action there was at the edges of the frame. Hopefully Olive will pillarbox them.

[bigshot]

By the way, I remember Morning Noon and Night being played on Matinee at the Bijou back in the 80s. I am pretty sure that is a PD title. I think that whole PD thing was hooey. They are probably saving the jazz ones for the end to keep the sales from flagging at the end of the series

[whiteberry]

I hope they change their minds about not releasing the public domain shorts.

[Eastmancolor]

The Blu-ray.com review indicates that because there are UM&M titles present in the new disc that the transfers were made from dupes, but that is not the case. UM&M unfortunately cut their titles into the 35mm nitrate camera negatives, discarding the original titles in the process. I've handled some of the Betty Boop negatives in the past and can vouch for this.

Common practice back in the day, particularly when early TV distributors got their hands on old film libraries.

[Mason_Ireton]

I'm amazed that Betty's shorts are the 1st Fleischer production being upgraded, would've expected Popeye to transfer over to Blu (that'd be a set I'd buy)



Might pick up these sets for collection sakes, I've never seen the Betty Boop series

[bigshot]

Eastmancolor is right. All of the original camera negatives at the UCLA Film and Television Archives have UM&M titles spliced into them. UCLA searches out original titles when they do a photochemical restoration, but for a video transfer, that is probably too much work,

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Aspect ratio is going to be an issue here. The first Betty Boop cartoons were made using an early sound aperture which was taller than normal. On every home video release, Snow White either has a big crop at the top or a big crop at the bottom. A fella took two laserdisc versions, one framed top and one framed bottom, and merged them into a full frame version. It was surprising how much action there was at the edges of the frame. Hopefully Olive will pillarbox them.

Yes, this was also a concern of mine. I hope they do them right.

[Hypnosifl]

Originally Posted by Mason_Ireton

I'm amazed that Betty's shorts are the 1st Fleischer production being upgraded, would've expected Popeye to transfer over to Blu (that'd be a set I'd buy)

Some company (not Warner) did already put out the Fleischer Superman cartoons, though unfortunately the review suggests they did a terrible job with the blu ray.

[BrianS]

Originally Posted by Mason_Ireton

I'm amazed that Betty's shorts are the 1st Fleischer production being upgraded, would've expected Popeye to transfer over to Blu (that'd be a set I'd buy)



Might pick up these sets for collection sakes, I've never seen the Betty Boop series

The copyrighted Betty Boop cartoons have never even been on DVD, so hell yes this release is LONG overdue.

If you've never seen these cartoons, you really should watch them. They're among the best cartoons ever produced. Pick them up for entertainment sakes, they're much better that way.

[David M]

Those screen grabs look amazing, for the most part. Some have better resolution than others, but I imagine that's an inevitability of the materials used. Wow. Disney should learn a few things from these people!

Originally Posted by Eastmancolor

The Blu-ray.com review indicates that because there are UM&M titles present in the new disc that the transfers were made from dupes, but that is not the case. UM&M unfortunately cut their titles into the 35mm nitrate camera negatives, discarding the original titles in the process. I've handled some of the Betty Boop negatives in the past and can vouch for this.

Common practice back in the day, particularly when early TV distributors got their hands on old film libraries.

+1 - I came on here to post this, but you've beat me to it.

Given the amazing resolution in some of those grabs, I'd be amazed if they weren't the negs. Optical copying is never that good!

It's a shame they didn't restore the original titles, but that's small fry compared to how good the resolution is.

[Atreyu]

Only seen bits and pieces of these cartoons, but I love early animation so I pre ordered these. Wish someone would put the real early Felix The Cat cartoons on blu. I have a disc of those, one I bought at Wallyworld for a dollar.

[bigshot]

I believe Rise to Fame and BB's Museum are PD titles.

[bigshot]

Chess Nuts should be in a different aspect ratio than the later cartoons, but it isn't here, so it appears that the older films will have a bit cropped from the top and bottom.

[Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Eastmancolor

The Blu-ray.com review indicates that because there are UM&M titles present in the new disc that the transfers were made from dupes, but that is not the case. UM&M unfortunately cut their titles into the 35mm nitrate camera negatives, discarding the original titles in the process. I've handled some of the Betty Boop negatives in the past and can vouch for this.

Common practice back in the day, particularly when early TV distributors got their hands on old film libraries.

I heard that Paramount has theatrical elements on at least some of the Betty Boops, but these are part of a completely different holding than the Republic negatives at UCLA, which this Blu-Ray was most likely sourced from.

[David M]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Chess Nuts should be in a different aspect ratio than the later cartoons, but it isn't here, so it appears that the older films will have a bit cropped from the top and bottom.

Steve, why would that be the case? Any good reason or just the operators not knowing?