The stiff collar indicates Betty is doing an impression of President Herbert Hoover.
She’s now Al Smith, who lost the Democratic nomination in 1932 to Roosevelt (after losing the presidential vote four years earlier). Comedians made fun of the fact that Smith insisted on calling a radio a “raddio.” Betty does that, too.
Gag’s over. She pulls down the brim of her hat and becomes Betty again.
Betty wins the White House at the end of the cartoon, thanks no doubt to animal rights activists (cars are stopped to allow cats to cross a city intersection) and supporters of heterosexual conversion therapy (a hard-boiled inmate is effeminised).
Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall get the animation credits. Mae Questel is Betty. I don’t know if New York-based radio mimic Johnny Woods supplied the voices of Hoover and Smith; I’d have to listen more carefully to see if it sounds like him.
They did keep the politicking for one side/issue or the other to a minimum in the cartoon, other than the paean to the looming 21st Amendment, repealing prohibition, as the short ends (As with Olive 16 years later, Betty seems to be a Democrat here, but the "You're an elephant/You're an ass," line does neuter any partisanship the audience might have seen).
ReplyDeleteAlso, UPA would have loved the abstract design for Mr. Nobody, if UPA had been around in 1932.