Betty Goes A-Posen

Never thought this would happen...a 1930s cartoon done in 2017!  I can't believe this flew completely under the radar of even Cartoon Brew!  From what I'm seeing, Titmouse is obviously trying to stay true to the original Fleischer Studios style, things are anthropomorpic as usual, but of course you have to be careful in days like this, so expect no innuendos or sexual overtones like in those old shorts.

The parts that were the most cringeworthy were these cheesy catchphrases: "You're a star, Betty!"  and Betty doing little to nothing in this cartoon.  An ugly stare is apparently all it takes to defeat a steam monster.  There were these constant iris outs in random places as if these were all just random shorts spliced together.

The animation is hand-drawn, from a distance.  Some parts here and there are obviously tweened, even Betty's face retains its original shape in near every frame.  But the majority of it is hand-drawn, so I commend Titmouse for that.  The animation doesn't have the same line thickness that the original Fleischer cartoons had back then, but then, it should be a surprise to see Betty back in the limelight at all, especially in this day and age.  There's also a lack of camera variety in this short; everything is seen from the same 3/4 angle, and it lacks the weird mouth shapes that the originals had.  And in true Fleischer Popeye tradition, the characters all talk out of sync.

On another note, it suffers from the 2010s Warner Bros. Animation syndrome where anything animated(characters, props, etc) has to have a shadow behind them, for some strange reason.  This is pretty obvious in The Looney Tunes Show 2011 and the Tom and Jerry 2010 films.  I'm just glad that in this day and age, they haven't reduced her sexual appeal.


But all in all, I'm surprised this character managed to surface again, and it should be disappointing that this video got little to no views.  Guess I'm the first one.  It's your standard nostalgia pandering advert, using an old familiar character, taking cues from the original.  But personally, I would hire the creative team from Cuphead to work on this rather than Titmouse.

Pink Panther Theme Song

Maybe John Kricfalusi is onto something...

Look at this clip from the latest Powerpuff girls series: 0:46.



Now look at this clip from The Pink Panther 2006: 1:25



https://youtu.be/HhHwnrlZRus?t=1m25s



See the problem here?  As the decades go by, it seems that cartoon violence gets toned down, to the point of not being funny.  That goose being slapped by a fox?  Any one could walk it off, barely feel a thing.  But the Pink Panther clip, that actually felt like a real slap, there was impact and force to it, therefore helping the comedy of the scene.  John Kricfalusi was right, we as a species are growing weak and weak as time goes on...

John Kricfalusi might be on to something.

Look at these 2 clips of cartoon slaps.


This one is from Powerpuff Girls 2016: