Minnie the Moocher (film)

Minnie the Moocher
Betty Boop series
Still from the film
Directed by	Dave Fleischer
Produced by	Max Fleischer
Voices by	Mae Questel Cab Calloway (vocal chorus)
Animation by	Willard Bowsky Ralph Somerville
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (National Amusements)
Release date(s)	March 11, 1932
Color process	Black-and-white
Running time	7 mins
Language	English

Minnie the Moocher (1932) is a Betty Boop cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

The cartoon opens with a live action sequence of Cab Calloway and his Orchestra performing an instrumental rendition of "St. James Infirmary". Then Betty Boop gets into a fight with her parents, runs away from home with her friend Bimbo, and sings excerpts of the Harry Von Tilzer song "They Always Pick on Me" (1911) and the song "Mean to Me" (1929).

Betty and Bimbo end up in a cave where a walrus, with Cab Calloway's voice, sings "Minnie the Moocher" and dances to the melancholy song. Calloway is joined in the performance by various ghosts, goblins, skeletons, and other frightening things. Betty and Bimbo are subjected to skeletons drinking at a bar; ghost prisoners sitting in electric chairs; a mother cat with skull-like eyes feeding her equally empty-eyed kittens; and so on. The film ends with Calloway performing the instrumental "Vine Street Blues".

Notes

Clips of the redrawn colorized version were used in the compilation movie Betty Boop For President: The Movie (1980).

External links

• Minnie the Moocher at IMDb
• Minnie the Moocher at Big Cartoon Database
• Minnie the Moocher at Internet Archive
• Minnie the Moocher at YouTube