Thursday, April 23, 2009

Betty Never Looked So Hot - Mysterious Mose

To me, this is the cutest Betty Boop ever. It's animated by its designer, Grim Natwick.
These scenes are from "Mysterious Mose", a great early Fleischer cartoon.
The animation is early, before all the secondary animation principles were established and is done straight ahead through sheer talent and design. It's animated to the beats to a hot jazz track.
Great drawings, pretty cartoon girls animated to great music is my favorite art form. It's an unbeatable combination.
Each pose lands on a beat. I think it's a 12x beat if I remember correctly.
I love the imaginative lip synch. You gotta remember too, that they had only been animating mouths for a year or so! This was all new to everybody.



It's cool how Betty's part keeps moving from one side of her head to the other.



You can't beat Horseshoe Crab hands either.


Note the dog ears and nose!





I wouldn't wanna get caught on any of those fishhooks coming out of her head.





These are supremely stylish drawings - especially for 1930, when almost everyone else was drawing characters made of circles.








These would look great on t-shirts - whattaya think girls?




http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/BettyBoop/mysteriousmose/MysteriousMose_funnyMotion1.mov

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/BettyBoop/mysteriousmose/MysteriousMose_funnyMotion2.mov