The Betty Boop Radio Show:
Someone asked me a question relating to the Betty Boop radio show in a message.
This will be shared publicly. So the truth is that his blog only knows very little about the show. As much information has been shared as possible.
Transcripts to episodes did exist. It is more or less obtaining those transcripts. The radio website that owns the scripts, they did not want to share. So instead, some of the episodes are listed in old archives and Paramount or general 1930s news articles.
In the same year, Pauline Comanor and Little Ann Little (who was hired in 1933) were both touring in a live-action show. So Betty not only had a radio show, but was touring in person by a Betty Boop character impersonator.
Sadly no one has a copy today of the radio show.
Only half of the credits exist, because some transcripts have no cast credits.
There was a seller during the 1990s to the 2000s that was selling this radio show online for an expensive fee. All traces to his website no longer exist. He is likely deceased.
Other collectors possibly have the show. They do not want to share it.
People need to understand that there were earlier radio shows featuring Betty Boop. One called "Betty Boop on Air," and "Betty Boop's Gang," which weirdly intertwined with the 1933 NBC show.
The 1933 NBC show was called "Betty Boop Fables" and "Betty Boop Frolics," and sometimes they removed the (s) and it became "Betty Boop Fable" or "Betty Boop Frolic" which is quite confusing.
A fable means a short story. The Bamberger Broadcasting System carried the weekly fifteen-minute coast-to-coast Betty Boop radio show.
KOA, KPO, KSD, WBEN, WCAE, WCKY, WEAF, WEEI, WFBR, WJAR, WJDX, WMAQ, WMC, WSB, WSM, WSMB, WTAG, WWJ, are all the radio stations of which aired the show.
People are asking what stations? Well mainly WEAF (660 kc.), WENR (NBC), and KSD (FM).
Who were the cast? Mae Questel started out as the leading role of Betty Boop. Questel was pregnant, and she was giving birth to her son or had. So they hit up Bonnie Poe (Clara Rothbart) to replace her. Poe also replaced Questel in the animated cartoon series for a short time.
Billy Boop, Betty's little brother was voiced by the latter.
People often wonder why Billy is not a popular character? Well it has more to do with his character design, it is not very appealing. So he's obviously not going to stand out. He has a dog-boy like appearance, and in reality should look more like Betty.
He has no personality other than that of a toddler. Sometimes he's a cute babbling baby, other times he's a rough kid from Brooklyn who hates sissies. Make up your mind.
No, Betty is not Black. She is now on Broadway but not the original cartoon Betty.
Looking at Betty you see a Caucasian white Jewish girl or woman. But knowing what we know now, nobody cares that Betty was white. She's Black to most people...
The Fleischers and others have tried gatekeeping but it never worked in their favor. You can't really control the masses. Instead they can make money off of it. With faux-Black History Months, and all that faux-ness. They have no Black people on their team by the way.
If you watch "Out of the Inkwell" from 1938, you can see Betty bully a Black janitor.
(This is not to hate on Betty, but we can't hide the truth. Racism!)
William Billy Costello aka Red Pepper Sam, Cookie Bowers and Bradley Barker were the other three voice actors. David Rubinoff and mainly Vic Erwin supplied the music.
Rubinoff was listed once? But I think Erwin did most of the music.
Bowers who was also on the show, he did more than just voice-over. He also arranged the episodes for the WBEN Betty Boop radio series.
Margie Hines claimed in a 1934 interview that she was on the 1933 radio show. If Bonnie Poe wasn't Billy Boop, then Hines likely was. For those that are unaware, Questel, Poe and Hines all shared the same character roles. They were all Olive Oyl and Betty Boop too. Of course they would also fill in the the other characters too.
Take the female animal characters on the radio show? Who else would be able to voice women? But women. Of course Bradley Barker did some of the female voices. Cookie Bowers was well-known for his female voice impersonations, and was once the voice of Betty Boop on his vaudeville tour in Europe. Yes, Cookie Bowers did Betty Boop's voice.
So Betty would sing popular songs on her radio show.
One time Betty Boop sang "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Walt Disney's popular Silly Symphony cartoon called "Three Little Pigs".
What Characters Made Appearances?
Pretty much the unpopular Fleischer animal characters. Had the Fleischers invested time and effort into their characters, they could have been like Disney.
Bimbo and KO-KO (perverted clown) are popular but not as popular as Boop. Grampy, Pudgy and Fearless Fred were not created until after 1933, so they didn't exist.
People ask, why don't you call out Bimbo? He's 16 like Betty. So when Bimbo and Betty dated, there was no issue. They are both teenagers, the same age.
KO-KO however is a grown man. So what does that indicate!?
Never forget that though Betty is 109 in age, and 94 in years counting. She is canonically a teenager age 13 to 16. But she is from a different era, and people thought a little differently back then. So when most girls or women were 16, they were dating men.
For example Ginger Rogers who took on the role of Puff Randolph!?
That character "Puff," she is 16 in the film. She's dating grown men, while at the same time imitating a sort of earlier Betty Boop incarnation. Rogers was older than 16, but she was playing 16. The film in question was filmed and set in 1930 in New York City.
If you watch some old films featuring her. You'll see her sing and talk in a baby voice, and she also does a little alternative scat-singing similar to the "Boop" routine.
For anyone that doesn't know Ginger, she was going to be the next Betty Boop singer. But she dropped the "Boop" act, and created a whole new persona by 1933.
She didn't want to live in the shadow of someone else. Good for her.
In the original Betty Boop series, the majority of male characters were deviants. There is no need to cover that anymore. Watch some of the old cartoons and see for yourselves.
Betty Boop Radio Show Characters:
Bimbo the Dog
Betty Boop
Billy Boop
Ko-Ko the Clown
Dora the Duck
Daisy the Cow
Harry the Horse
Stella the Stork
Bessie the Beaver
Kitty the Kitten
Charlie the Camel
Brownie the Bear
Paul the Pelican
Ferdinand the Frog
Celia the Centipede
Victor the Lion
Kasper the Kangaroo
Molly the Mule
Oscar the Octopus
Gus the Gorilla
Harold the Hippo
Betty Boop Radio Show:
Below are some of the episodes. If someone knows more, they can likely fill in the blanks. This blog clearly has been through every listing. If there are no credits, that is because there were none listed. Radio transcripts of this show do exist, hopefully people are aware.
May:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 9:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Wednesday, May 17, 1933) | (Mae Questel, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 9:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Wednesday, May 24, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 9:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Wednesday, May 31, 1933) | (Mae Questel, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin)
June:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 9:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Wednesday, June 7, 1933) | (Mae Questel, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Thursday, June 29, 1933) | (Mae Questel, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin)
July:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Thursday, July 6, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:35 p.m. | WENR (NBC) | (Saturday, July 8, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, July 14, 1933) | (Mae Questel, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, July 21, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 5:15 p.m. | KSD (FM) | (Friday, July 21, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, July 28, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe, Red Pepper Sam and Vic Erwin's Band)
Announcement made on Saturday, July 22, 1933, was that Bonnie Poe the radio voice of Betty Boop has been the voice of the screen Betty Boop for the last four months.
August:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:15 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, August 4, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, August 11, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, August 25, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
September:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 1, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 8, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 15, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 17, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 7:30 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 22, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:45 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, September 29, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe, Billy Costello and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 5:45 p.m. | KSD | (Friday, September 29, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe, Billy Costello and Vic Erwin's Band)
On Saturday, September 2, 1933, the New York news gave a review that they have grown more accustomed to the absence of Mae Questel. And that Bonnie Poe more than fits the bill as Betty Boop. She's a cute bit of but the arrangements of Vic Erwin's orchestra were not as good as they used to be.
October:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:45 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, October 6, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 5:45 p.m. | NBC-WEAF | (Friday, October 13, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:45 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, October 20, 1933)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 5:45 p.m. | KSD | (Friday, October 20, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe, Billy Costello and Vic Erwin)
- Betty Boop Frolics, NBC at 5:45 p.m. | WSM (650 kHz) | (Friday, October 27, 1933)
November:
- Betty Boop Frolics at 6:45 p.m. | WEAF (660 kc.) | (Friday, November 3, 1933) | (Bonnie Poe, Billy Costello and Vic Erwin's Band)
- Betty Boop Frolics at 3:45 p.m. | KYA (San Francisco's 1260) | (Friday, November 17, 1933)
That is about it. If people really wanted this show you would probably have to dig in archived radio archives, particularly WEAF. This blog will probably never be able to hear the show, and that's okay, that is fine. Some things were not meant to be.
Boop Boop A Doop! Oop!
