Cab Calloway and Betty Boop are always a great combination.
This one is so surreal with the transformations that it makes me think of Jim Woodring's creations (http://www.jimwoodring.com/).

A great Betty Boop cartoon with Koko and Bimbo. Added attraction is "St. James Infirmary" sung by Cab Calloway. And, check out the wonderful background tableaux in the "Mystery Tunnel."

Great little old clasdic cartoon. I enjoyed watching it.

December 2016.
I finally was able to locate the tune that is played after Betty who is tied to the tree finishes singing "I'm Always in the Way".
It's a lively instrumental that is played as she falls down the snow.
There after Cab Calloway's "St. James Infirmary" comes on.
But it was the instrumental that had me puzzled if it was only a background instrumental by the orchestra.
The name of this song is called, 'PLEASE" (1932) By Will Osborne & His Orchestra.

sound is mixed a little low, but excellent.

There is an old army song, called "Ugye gondolsz néha rám" which is maybe the same like that one, before "St James Infirmary". It is not sure to be the same, but it's nice. It is also performed by diva Karády Katalin.

Downloaded 122,412 times which is alot

snow white is the most populer betty boop cartoon, its proberly mainly remembered becuse disneys snow white was released right after


this cartoon is surreal and is a majorly great cartoon

betty boops step mother is jelouse of betty boops looks and wants betty boop to be beheaded, but she fails in the end.

and betty boop and her boyfriend bimbo and koko the clown dance in a circle

It's a pity the sound quality is so poor, and I'll admit it screams out for color, but this is incredibly inventive animation. Too bad some can't appreciate it. Maybe because there weren't any car-chases.

What was that I just watched? I've never seen a Betty Boop cartoon before and after seeing that I can't imagine why I or anyone else would want to see another one! Man they must have really been desparate for entertainment back in those days.

Love Snow White... however when I put the mpeg2 to dvd the sound becomes unsynched... Anyone know how to correct this

I also copied some of the other Betty Boop shorts to dvd and they work fine.

This is an amazing cartoon and as with many of the Betty B cartoons, incorporates extracts from popular hits of the day. I can identify most numbers, but if anyone can tell me what the music is after 'Please' (Betty/Koko/Bimbo evade execution)and before Cab Calloway(Koko) singing 'St. James Infirmary'.

This tune accompanies Snow White/Betty as she cascades down hill in the ice coffin. This tune is familiar to me but I can't identify it. Vaguely Hungarian/gipsy perhaps, but may be wrong.

Awesome!

You will be much better after you watch Betty!

How to turn this friggin thing off

The Fleischer brothers were second-rate compared to Disney, but they had the brains to hire Crandall who made the Snow White cartoon what it is.

Did Crandall do any more of that sort of work, or did the Fleischers just have others copy his ideas?

It doesn't get any better... Betty, Bimbo, Koko the Clown (voiced by Cab Calloway), in a nightmarishly funny, "weird" atmosphere.

Walt Disney probabaly didn't even understand this Surrealistic Betty Boop cartoon, and his later, full-length version of "Snow White" shows absolutely no Fleischer Brothers influence at all.

But it was the Fleischers who came closest to the disturbing psychological undercurrents of the original Brothers Grimm story... A nightmare that's completely nightmarish, but is also hilarious at the same time. Don't ask me how they accomplished that feat, but they did!

Dear all:

Please be advised that the ToonCast versions of these videos (in QuickTime format) all have an added border advertising the ToonCast site, and two out of three have an added pre-roll with a big red "more" (at ToonCast)!

Vintage ToonCast has a download for this classic that has flawless audio...

I just saw this for the first time the other day and must have watched it a dozen times. Cab Calloway is beyond impressive. His musical number is so haunting and the rotoscoped animation sequence with the song is amazing. it is just so inventive and surreal. I'm just stunned by how hip these pre-code cartoons are.

the video portion is transferred just fine, but the audio is set to some dismally LOW level of 1 out 10, so one does NOT get to enjoy the vocal antics of betty boop or cab calloway.

I-) ihor

I've read of two conflicting reports of the song's origins.

One says that the song originates from an 18th century English ballad "The Unfortunate Rake". About a person dying of syphilis on the stairs of St. James Hospital ("As I lay dying on the stairs of St. James Hospital"). SOURCE: http://robwalker.net/html_docs/letterthirteen.html

The other says that Cab Calloway's wailing rendition of St. James Infirmary adds a dark and sinister undercurrent to the old Snow White story, a juxtaposition especially of interest because the song is supposed to be about a girl who died of a cocaine overdose, and "snow" is another name for cocaine. Leslie Cabarga has suggested that the Fleischers were unaware of the significance of this and the other songs that Cab performed for Betty Boop cartoons, but the cave imagery suggests that the animator, at least, knew what was going on. SOURCE: http://www.heptune.com/snowwhit.html

Valpy

We've got Betty, Koko, Bimbo, enough surrealism to satisfy Salvadore Dali and best of all, we have the great Cab Calloway! I joined this website just so I could hear Cab Calloway and I don't understand why he isn't as highly praised as Ellington and Armstrong. Don't let Cab go, bless him! Scat sing his praises or better yet, recommend this site to all your friends and relations.

Sheer brilliance - along with Betty Boop MD and Betty in Blunderland, one of the most inventive, surreal, downright enjoyable Bettys. This one was recognised by European critics in the book Film: Critics' Choice. Like M.D., it's totally psychedelic - a puff of the God-given green stuff goes delightfully well with this confection of Fleischer's crazed mind.
Betty looks hot in her final, glorious pre-code year.
thanks Archive! (Donate, everyone!)