In retrospect, and kind of even at the time, the Warner Bros Paste-Up Films and Specials (Quackbusters, Bugs Bunny's Mad World of Television et all) that many of us growing up in the late 20th Century saw were a bit of an odd trend that gets harder harder to explain with each passing year, but they were far from the only practitioners of this form of on-screen recycling.
In 1973, Fred Ladd's production company, known for importing/dubbing early Anime like Astro Boy and Kimba and, very relevantly, producing the early redrawn/colorized Black & White Porky Pig, Betty Boop etc cartoons that haunted TV screens for years released The Weird Adventure of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff, a compilation of 11 redrawn Mutt & Jeff cartoons that were some 50 years old at the time. One of the shorts (Sick Sleuths) featured a morphing villain, which, now named Bugoff, provided an easy conceit to link all the shorts together. On top of that is a non-lip-synched dialogue track establishing Mutt & Jeff as Cold War-era CIA agents on the trail of the Soviet Bugoff. It ends with a gag via stock footage aimed at then VP Spiro Agnew, which became out of date while the film was in theatres. Despite apparently only playing at Kiddie Matinees a large part of the film is taken up with Bugoff morphing into a gyrating live action belly dancer, trying to seduce or tempt Mutt & Jeff or whatever.
It was never released on VHS or DVD, nor were there any known TV screening, but somehow, someway, it ended up on YouTube. Without seeing it, you probably can't picture just how weird it is, and even watching it, it's astonishing to think how bad it must have looked on the big screen!
Somewhat better known and borderline normal by comparison is Hooray for Betty Boop, aka Betty Boop for President, produced by record producer Dan Dalton and released by a pre-Freddy New Line Cinema, which strings together a story about Betty working her way to the White House and her dreams of becoming the first female President which, whaddyaknow, still works. It was produced to tie in with the Bicentennial Year 1976 election but sat on the shelf until the 1980 election. This again uses redrawn and colorized shorts with a new voice track and, as you might expect given Dalton's background, a lot of new songs. Despite being talkies, like the Mutt & Jeff film lip synch doesn't seem to have been a priority. Victoria D’Orazi was the new voice of Betty and Tommy Smothers was the (first?) voice of Pudgy. Like the Mutt & Jeff film it seems aimed as much at zonked out Woodstock casualties as it is at kids.
Unlike the Mutt & Jeff film the Boop film has been released on Home Video more than once, including a DVD release tying in with the 2004 Election, the cover encouraging you to vote for Betty rather over Bush and Kerry. No comment. This release seems to have had some rather crude text edits utilising Windows Movie Maker or similar.
This later version has been uploaded to YouTube by Dan Dalton himself. By all accounts Dalton is pretty proud of the film.
Don't know if I can say much for the quality of either of these films, but they're certainly something!
In 1973, Fred Ladd's production company, known for importing/dubbing early Anime like Astro Boy and Kimba and, very relevantly, producing the early redrawn/colorized Black & White Porky Pig, Betty Boop etc cartoons that haunted TV screens for years released The Weird Adventure of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff, a compilation of 11 redrawn Mutt & Jeff cartoons that were some 50 years old at the time. One of the shorts (Sick Sleuths) featured a morphing villain, which, now named Bugoff, provided an easy conceit to link all the shorts together. On top of that is a non-lip-synched dialogue track establishing Mutt & Jeff as Cold War-era CIA agents on the trail of the Soviet Bugoff. It ends with a gag via stock footage aimed at then VP Spiro Agnew, which became out of date while the film was in theatres. Despite apparently only playing at Kiddie Matinees a large part of the film is taken up with Bugoff morphing into a gyrating live action belly dancer, trying to seduce or tempt Mutt & Jeff or whatever.
It was never released on VHS or DVD, nor were there any known TV screening, but somehow, someway, it ended up on YouTube. Without seeing it, you probably can't picture just how weird it is, and even watching it, it's astonishing to think how bad it must have looked on the big screen!
Somewhat better known and borderline normal by comparison is Hooray for Betty Boop, aka Betty Boop for President, produced by record producer Dan Dalton and released by a pre-Freddy New Line Cinema, which strings together a story about Betty working her way to the White House and her dreams of becoming the first female President which, whaddyaknow, still works. It was produced to tie in with the Bicentennial Year 1976 election but sat on the shelf until the 1980 election. This again uses redrawn and colorized shorts with a new voice track and, as you might expect given Dalton's background, a lot of new songs. Despite being talkies, like the Mutt & Jeff film lip synch doesn't seem to have been a priority. Victoria D’Orazi was the new voice of Betty and Tommy Smothers was the (first?) voice of Pudgy. Like the Mutt & Jeff film it seems aimed as much at zonked out Woodstock casualties as it is at kids.
Unlike the Mutt & Jeff film the Boop film has been released on Home Video more than once, including a DVD release tying in with the 2004 Election, the cover encouraging you to vote for Betty rather over Bush and Kerry. No comment. This release seems to have had some rather crude text edits utilising Windows Movie Maker or similar.
This later version has been uploaded to YouTube by Dan Dalton himself. By all accounts Dalton is pretty proud of the film.
Don't know if I can say much for the quality of either of these films, but they're certainly something!
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