Aliya Grace as Betty Boop and the "BOOP! The Musical" North American Touring company. Photo by Matthew Murphy. Courtesy of the Fabulous Fox Theater
– By Cate Marquis –
The Broadway tour of “Boop!” boop-oop-a-doops into the Fabulous Fox Theater for some Jazz-era cartoon fun, Oct. 27 – Nov. 8. The musical is inspired by Max Fleischer Studio’s adorable 1930s-era cartoons, and their biggest “star,” Betty Boop.
Betty Boop is still a familiar image, a black-and-white drawing with big eyes, over-sized head, small red mouth, black spit curls and shapely body in a short black dress, an image familiar even to people who have never seen the classic black-and-white cartoons from the 1930s. The old cartoons feature Betty and her often part-animal friends as the stars of funny, cute, and inventive cartoon adventures, where the laws of physics often playfully do not apply. In early cartoons, Betty Boop is an independent woman, taking on a variety of jobs – airplane pilot, sea captain, soldier, even running for president – but her curvaceous appearance also draws plenty of unwanted attention from drooling “wolves.” While Betty may get chased around a desk, in the end she always dispatched the wolves with a well-wielded frying pan or baseball bat to those (numb)skulls. Betty is cute but she could take care of herself, which might be part of why she remains popular.
“Boop! The Musical” starts out in Betty Boop’s black-and-white cartoon world, where Betty (Aliya Grace) sings and dances up a storm as the star of a string of movie adventures. Grace is perfect in the role, capturing Betty’s little girl voice, slinky moves and cute, sweet appeal, while showing off her excellent jazz voice.
This section of the show is the best part for the fans of the Betty Boop cartoons, a true visual extravaganza, with Betty appearing in a series of cartoons where she is an airplane pilot, a soldier, a politician and more, while Betty scat-sings and boop-oop-a-doops her way through these adventures in her signature short skirt, curled bobbed hair and with her little girl voice.
The family-friendly “Boop! The Musical” is a marvel and a delight in this beginning scenes, transporting us into a cartoon world of black, white and grays, with costumes, make-up and props all in shades of gray, and wonderful, creatively-impressive projections to make Betty’s animated world spring to life. Although there is nothing too adult in this show, this is the sassier pre-Hayes Code Betty Boop, before she was “domesticated” with no more jobs, an acceptable boyfriend, longer skirts and higher necklines, and even an apron at times. This earlier Betty Boop was more adventurous, independent and fun.
Betty’s jumpy director, Oscar Delacorte (Kevin W. Egan), clad in plaid and jodhpurs, and his assistant Clarence (St. Louis native PJ Palmer) fawn over his big star, constantly worried that he might do or say something to upset her. Betty avoids giving interviews the press but one day, a reporter finds his way on set, and the director talks Betty into granting an interview, for the publicity. When the reporter asks her who the “real” Betty Boop is, she doesn’t know what to say, but she starts to think about who she really is beyond being a movie star.
After the interview, Betty heads home for the night with her grandfather Grampy (a wonderful Dan Mason) and their dog Pudgy (a puppet operated by Adam Clarke). We get even more impressive black-and-white special effects, as Grampy whips up dinner for his granddaughter using several of his Rube Goldberg-style inventions, which we see projected on the walls, as well as the crazy-looking kitchen appliance props on stage, all Grampy’s creations.
Betty is still troubled by the reporter’s question, about who the real Betty Boop is, and tells Grampy about it. That prompts Grampy to tell her about one more of his inventions – a machine that can take him from the cartoon world to the “real” one. Betty wants to go, to escape fame and find her real self, but Grampy, who has visited the real world before, where he met and fell for a scientist named Valentina (Michelle Jennings), so he refuses to let her go. When he’s sleeping, she goes anyway.
This propels the cartoon Betty into the real world, which is filled with color, and also into the future, landing her in contemporary New York. After wandering the streets, wowed by all the colors (Yellow! Red! Blue!), she luckily stumbles into Comic Con where she blends right in with her black-and-white appearance. She meets a young man, Dwayne (Mason Ballard) who is puzzled by her but hurries off to look for his younger sister, and then a young fan, Trisha (Ashley Calderon) who is impressed by Betty’s “costume.” Betty is surprised to find she is famous in this world too, even though fan Trisha has never seen any of the cartoons. Then Dwayne returns, because Trisha is the kid sister for which he was searching. Trisha urges Betty to come home with her, and meet her aunt Carol (Aisha Collins), with whom the orphaned Trisha lives.
It turns out that Aunt Carol is the campaign manager for an obnoxious politician named Raymond Demarest (Joshua Woodie) who is running for mayor, and Betty gets wrapped up in all this, becoming friends with Trisha and starting to fall for Dwayne. Eventually, the colorful real world and the black and white cartoon worlds come together as the story races to its sweet conclusion.
The cast is great. with Aliya Grace completely charming as Boop. Other standouts are Dan Mason as Grampy, Ashley Calderon as teen fan Trisha, and a scenery-chewing Joshua Woodie as politician Raymond Demarest, the show’s cartoonish villain.
This first part of the show is filled with visual surprises and treats, taking us into a whole black-and-white cartoon world, with an inventive mix of projections and all the sets, props, costumes and even the cast in shades of gray. The effect is stunningly impressive and especially fun for fans of the old cartoons, as well as being an amazing technical feat. The trip to the real world takes us back to full color, which feels more ordinary and a bit duller by comparison, although some of inventiveness comes back when the two world begin to meet.
The musical’s story is pretty familiar and isn’t very surprising, and the part in the cartoon world is a lot more fun than the “real” world but all too brief.
Still, from a staging and technical aspect, this show is still a whole lot of fun. The visual trickery are great, and the songs and dance numbers have a lot of fun with costumes and staging. Late in the second act, there is a number where the color and black-and-white worlds meet that is terrific. The songs are fun, and lean towards jazz, which is fitting for a cartoon character that began as a Jazz Age singer in a bit part in a cartoon. She also began as a nameless dog-like cartoon but pretty quickly became the Betty Boop we know.
Although the dog origin gets mentioned a couple of times, we don’t learn very much about Betty Boop or the wonderfully imaginative Max Fleischer Studio cartoon world she inhabited, which is disappointing. We do get some visual references to the Max Fleischer cartoons in images that run across back drops, among the shows best and most fun touches. A little more time with the Max Fleischer cartoons and the real Betty Boop world of human-like animals would have made this show so much more fun, but it does delight with the visit to that world we do get and the affection for Betty Boop that it shows.
“Boop!” is on stage at the Fabulous Fox through Nov. 8, 2026.
© Cate Marquis
