The Betty Boop Movie (MGM/Zanuck Co.)

This adaption of The Betty Boop Movie was never made, and never will be. It was scrapped way back in 1993, making anything relating to this film in the "Boop Universe" non-canon. The film is a more or "what could have been" in comparison, however gives more of an insight on Betty's estranged father Benny Boop.

Some of the information is Boop-Oop-a-Dooping full of SPOILERS. Boop-Oop-a-Doop!

The Betty Boop Movie

Betty Boop by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and The Zanuck Company

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Information

Animated feature with Lili and Richard Zanuck, Executive Producing, Alan Ladd Jr, Steve Leiva. Production for the film went on from June 1993 - September 1993. It was later decided that the film would be canceled.

According to the lyricist Cheryl Ernst Wells, the film was scrapped due to studio head changes and licensing rights disagreements with the Fleischer representatives. The film would have been released in 1994. Alan Ladd Jr stated "While our Betty will remain in the 30s, she will have a decidedly modern twist."

In the storyboards for the title sequence, Betty Boop matures and is shown performing on stage with her father as a baby (Baby Boop), as a 9-year-old, and eventually as an adult, during which she sings "I Wanna Be Loved By You" live. Since the movie was shelved and then canceled, any allusions to it are considered canonical.

Betty was to have been a waitress at the Greasy Spoon, who is desperate to meet her long lost father Benny who was vaudevillian. A couple of guys help Betty find her father, and she gets married to her love interest Johnny, and becomes Betty Davenport.

Betty Boop A La Marilyn Monroe Betty Boop Zanuck 1993

"Betty walks through the door and a breeze catches her skirt, blowing it up a la Marilyn Monroe."

Quotes

Richard D. Zanuck: "I can't conceive the fact that Disney is the only studio that can make successful animated films." (1994)

Steve Moore: "We were gonna do this Betty Boop movie, they had a management change at M-G-M." (2023)

Steve Moore: "Head guy was out, new guy was in. Killed the project." (2023)

Cast & Crew

Sue Raney as Betty Boop (Pilot / Storyboard)
Jimmy Rowles as Mr. Boop (Pilot / Storyboard)
Mary Kay Bergman as Betty Boop (Film)
Harry Connick Jr. as Johnny Davenport (Film)

Prior to her death, Bergman stated on her official website^[1] that she won the role of Betty Boop over big talent. Bergman was best known for her Adriana Caselotti Disney character "Snow White" vocal impersonation, and was quoted as, "recreating Betty Boop's original voice with perfection." You can hear a snippet of Bergman's Betty Boop imitation on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 song "Pretty Fly For A Rabbi." She says the line, "For a Rabbi."

Stephen Moore (Director)
Fred Cline (Production Design)
James Lopez (Development Artist)
Jerry Rees (Screenwriter)
Rebecca Rees (Storyboard Artist)
Stevan Wahl (Storyboard Artist)
Tom Riggin (Storyboard Artist)
Dan Root (Storyboard Artist)
Cheryl Ernst Wells (Lyricist)

Characters

Mr. Boop
Baby Boop
9-Year-Old Betty Boop
Betty Boop Davenport
Johnny Davenport
Bimbo
Koko the Clown
Charlie Chaplin
Clark Gable
James Cagney
Cab Calloway
Edward G. Robinson
Lady Leona
Fred Astaire
Bette Davis
Katharine Hepburn
Mr. Jack Paynk
Manny Miracle
Jeff
Chastity
Charity
Constance
Reginald
Humphrey
Cagney
Ronnie
Bogey
Stewart
Bogart
Lorre
Dobs
Mush

Music

Story

Fleischer stated that the story would have been a "comedy with a good love story", which would have focused on the adventures of Betty and pals Koko the Clown and Bimbo as they travel Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. In 1993, the Zanuck Company began pre-production on a Betty Boop feature to be done through MGM Studios. Richard "Dick" Fleischer, who was the Son of Max Fleischer of Fleischer Studios, wanted to make a feature out of his father's star character Betty Boop, but those plans were later canceled.

Jazz was a major part of most of the old Betty Boop cartoon shorts. In the little storyboard in the link above Betty Boop performs a song called "Where Are You?" with her estranged father Benny Boop. Sue Raney stands in for Betty and Jimmy Rowles stands in for Betty's father Benny Boop.

The Fleischer Studios tried many attempts^[2] to get Bernadette Peters to take on the role of Betty Boop for several projects, after seeing her performance as Betty in a live-action Saturday Night Live^[3] skit. Peters was noted as being a "real life" Betty Boop, and was often compared to the character. Peters was also offered the role of Betty, in the early Betty Boop Broadway show, however Peters never accepted any of the offers. Peters was initially slated for the lead role in this 1993 film. However according to Mary Kay Bergman, this apparently didn't happen and she won the role over Peters up until the film was canned.

They held auditions for three weeks. People who had auditioned for the film were as follows: Chris Penn, Terri Garr, Bud Cort, after his arrest Paul Reubens, Shelley Long, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Helen Hunt. Virginia Madsen and Ned Beatty.

A Betty Boop impersonator Sandy Fox who was touring as Betty Boop for Universal Studios in 1993 even dropped in the studios to audition for the role. Though then Fox was not the voice actress for Betty Boop, nor was she considered for the role in this film.

Steve Moore wrote on his blog that they actually tried to avoid bumping into "the woman dressed up like Betty Boop". This possibly has something to do with not hiring character impersonators but A-list stars or voice-doubles. At the time Fox was not known as the voice of Betty Boop, more or less an "in-person" Betty but was a known sound-a-like. She had started out during the early 1990s in "Walla" as background voices on The Simpsons. Fox doubled as Betty's voice for the audio at the Universal Studios them park during the late 1990s, providing small dialogue and she recorded several "Betty Boop" theme songs. But this was many years after the film had been deserted.

Mae Questel, Betty's original voice had lost the ability to do Betty's voice, and later retired from the role. Much like Fox, Questel who was Betty's original voice was "very sick" and was also not considered for the role. During the late 1990s, Questel passed away the same year that Betty Boop's "voice" had been established at the theme park in Orlando, Florida. Many years later Fox became a well-known voice-over artist, and because of her Betty Boop impersonations became one of the several official voices of Betty Boop in animated commercials and toys. Betty Boop was revived in animated form in the 2012 Lancôme Paris Star Eyes commercial and that was Fox's first official animated debut as Betty. Fox however had been "impersonating" Betty Boop as a "Betty Boop Impersonator" since 1991. Betty's ventures in animated form as of the 2010s and 2020s are on and off. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were more plans to make more animated Betty Boop cartoons in cartoon form and 3D CGI, but those projects were canned.

The only two women cited as being considered for the role of Betty Boop in this film were aspiring voice-over artist Mary Kay Bergman and Broadway star Bernadette Peters. However several other "unidentified women" also auditioned for the role of Betty Boop.

During the 2010s, a brand new Betty Boop the Movie by Syco and Animal Logic was in the works, however much like Zanuck's it also was later canceled. Syco and Animal Logic attempted to sell the new film to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony, both rejected the offer claiming that Betty Boop is "outdated" and "weird". This version had "Lady Gaga" in mind for the role of Betty Boop.

A "French animated Betty Boop animated TV series" set for 2018 was also canned.

Gallery

Trivia

In the storyboard art by Fred Cline Betty is seen performing "Where Are You?" at the Roosevelt Hotel.

In this film Bimbo is no longer Betty's boyfriend, and Betty Boop's new boyfriend would have been Johnny. At the end of the script Johnny proposes to Betty, she accepts his proposal and would have became a married woman.

During the 1980s, the mantle had been passed to Richard Fleischer as his sister had become too ill to continue on with the enterprise. Richard, who was then retired from directing films, devoted the rest of his life to the continued expansion of Betty Boop products, which aslo included one more animated special, Betty Boop's Hollywood Mystery, produced in San Francisco by Colossal Pictures. Betty was licensed for the acclaimed Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and a Betty Boop feature was planned, only to be canceled after an administrative changeover at MGM. It was during this time that great research and sorting out of the original contracts was made to establish and formulate the ownership of Betty Boop.

The musical storyboard scene of the proposed film used to be archived at Moore Studios Inc.

In 1996, Richard Fleischer was shopping around a concept for a Betty Boop television series where she was an intergalactic flight attendant at Fred Wolf Films, and saw a character design book which had been done in France, and it was very well drawn, yet faithful to the original style of the characters. But this never came to fruition due to a conflict in budgets and licenses. Then, due to the great profits earned by Betty Boop products, Harvey Publications attempted to sue for a percentage, claiming rights based on the original Paramount sale in 1959. They lost this suit.

In one of the concept art sketches, Betty Boop can be seen doing Marilyn Monroe's classic pose.

Betty used to appear in MGM's Grand Theme Park starting from 1993, the same year when the film was being produced and she is franchised at MGM's Grand Hotel.

Betty Boop was going to star in a new film Betty Boop the Movie by Syco Entertainment and Animal Logic Entertainment. According to Wikileaks, MGM were interested in buying the film as the character has a vast history with MGM. The project was later scrapped, including the 2018 TV series Betty Boop by Normaal Animation.

According to Stevan Wahl, 90% of the boards were complete, but the movie never went in to production due to legal disagreements between the three entities that owned various rights to Betty Boop at the time.