This article merges all radio shows including the earlier "Betty Boop" radio shows featuring Mae Questel. Before the "Betty Boop Fables" and or "Betty Boop Frolics" there were several other earlier radio shows.
Some of the information is Boop-Oop-a-Dooping full of SPOILERS. Boop-Oop-a-Doop!
The Betty Boop Radio Show
| Betty Boop on Radio |
|---|
(NBC radio promo featuring Bonnie Poe and Victor Erwin.)
The Bamberger Broadcasting System carried a weekly fifteen-minute coast-to-coast Betty Boop radio show called Betty Boop Fables and Betty Boop Frolics.[1] In a 1932 radio show, Max Fleischer introduced Mae Questel as Betty Boop to radio audiences.
An earlier version of the Betty Boop Fables radio show featuring Betty Boop was titled Betty Boop on the Air and or Betty Boop's Gang featuring Mae Questel. Questel ad-libbed as Betty on the show. One day singer Helen Kane heard Betty Boop and Max Fleischer on radio, and wanted to know why Betty Boop was singing like her, which eventually led to a $250,000 Infringement Lawsuit. Betty Boop was featured on numerous radio shows throughout the 1930s, including to promote the 1933 "in-person" country tour with artist Pauline Comanor.
The Betty Boop Frolics show played on radio stations such as KOA, KPO, KSD, WBEN, WCAE, WCKY, WEAF, WEEI, WFBR, WJAR, WJDX, WMAQ, WMC, WSB, WSM, WSMB, WTAG, WWJ. Program listings for Betty Boop Frolics can be viewed here.[2]
Information[]
Dates: 11/15/1932 - 1/27/1933
Network: NBC
Days: Tuesday
Starting time: 7:30PM
Length of show: 15 minutes
Characters[]
- Bimbo
- Betty Boop
- Billy Boop
- Koko the Clown
- Dora Duck
- Daisy Cow
- Stella Stork
- Bessie Beaver
- Kitty Kitten
- Charlie Camel
- Brownie Bear
- Freddie Frog
- Celia Centipede
- Victor Lion
- Kasper Kangaroo
- Molly Mule
- Oscar Octopus
- Gus Gorilla
- Harold Hippo
Cast & Crew[]
- William Billy Costello (Red Pepper Sam) as (Freddie Frog aka Ferdinand "Ferdie" Frog)
- Bonnie Poe as Betty Boop (Betty Boop Fables, Betty Boop Frolics)
- Mae Questel as Betty Boop (Betty Boop on Air, Betty Boop Fables, Betty Boop Frolics)
- Cookie Bowers (Misc.)
- Little Ann Little as Betty Boop (Radio to promote "in-person" show while touring with Pauline Comanor)
- Margie Hines as Betty Boop (NBC Network)
- Bradley Barker as Bimbo, Molly Mule, Bimbo, Gus Gorilla, Freddie Frog, Samson Mouse
- Vic Erwin (Music)
- David Rubinoff (Music)
Music[]
- "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" by Bonnie Poe from Walt Disney's Silly Symphony, Three Little Pigs. (1933)
New Programs Tonight (1932)[]
Betty Boop, the pouty-lipped starry-eyed cartoon heroine makes her air debut at 6:30 p.m over WJZ. In real life Betty is Mae Questel.
WJZ, New York (June, 1933)[]
With Mae Questel, Vic Erwin and Red Pepper Sam. These adaptions of Max Fleischer's cartoon idea held a late afternoon spot until NBC had an idea that perhaps the adults would think more of it than the kids had, and so it was moved up to 9:15 EST.
Only standout feature of this jamboree that makes this stanza listenable is the hot and novel conglomerations of jazz that Vic Erwin and his band pout into it.
For the Betty Boop part there's the Helen Kane takeoff, Mae Questel who does the voice imprinting also for the Fleischer film strip. On the air hers is none-too-soothing-to-the-ear mixture of pop numbers, giggles and squeals, with the latter emissions from the larynx tossed into the proceedings with neither place nor restraint. There's also Red Pepper Sam, who fills in as "Ferdie Frog," and whose claim to fame reposes on a talent for stringing together a raspy succession of froggy wah-wahs.
Those who tuned in on the program caught (31) were amply rewarded for their attention by whimsical and imaginative treatment that Erwin gave "The Jungle-town" Revue" It was atmospheric music that seethed with rhythm and at the same time projected a series of sound effects that made identity no difficult matter.
Friday, September 29, 1933[]
These are Gus Gorilla and Kaspar Kangaroo, of the Betty Boop comedies. The trouble between these maulers has been brewing for a long time. Gus has the advantage of a long reach, but Kaspar's tail has a mean swing. Ferdie Frog is referee and Betty Boop will urge the battlers to proper activity with a "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" song or two. Vic Irwin will furnish the musical background. Ferdie Frog is portrayed by William "Red Pepper Sam" Costello, Kaspar Kangaroo is none other than Bradley Barker and Bonnie Poe is little Betty herself. This is fun with a capital and promises excitement for young and old alike. Incidentally, did you know that Miss Poe has a little sister Evelyn Poe who can put all the cute quivers and giggles into a song in a manner that tops most of the present singers of this type? Don't be surprised if you find Evelyn with one of the big name bands in the very-near future.
Radio Fan-Fare Review (Oct-3 1933)[]
"The Betty Boop Frolics" is a mad skit with Betty (Bonnie Poe) sounding like a roadshow of Jeannie Lang and Ferdinand Frog giving imitations of Poley McClintock, But still we like it.
1933[]
Betty Boop Frolics, WEAF. 660L-WEAF-454M 9:15PM. Betty and her story-book friends are a lively bunch.
(Bonnie Poe sang in 14 Broadway nightclubs and charmed with her "It," before at 19; she clicked with Vic Irwin as Betty Boop on the air.) [3]
Miss Marjorie Hines (1934)[]
We're sure you've heard her as the voice behind those Betty Boop flicker cartoons. That's the way Marjorie started her career. Since then she has been many things, a baby's cry, the voice of a goldfish, a cat's meow. And now a featured orchestra singer. Hines worked with Vic Erwin in that network Betty Boop series.
Trivia[]
- Mae Questel was originally credited as the voice of Betty Boop on radio, but the role on the radio series was also shared with Bonnie Poe and Marjorie Hines for the NBC radio station network.
- In a 1936 interview Little Ann Little claimed she also provided the radio voice for Betty, and claimed she did while she was touring as Betty. She is also credited as Betty's radio voice in a 1933 newspaper article. An article notes Little's appearances as "Betty Boop" on radio in "1935" on "WEEI" in Boston, "WEAF" in New York, and a few other lesser-known stations.
- Also known as The Betty Boop Film Fables, Betty Boop Frolics and Betty Boop's Gang.
- A WJAS radio singer Jean O'Toole who sang "Betty Boop" songs was a "dead ringer" for Mae Questel.[4]
- Cookie Bowers helped arrange the episodes for the WBEN Betty Boop radio series.