The Relevancy of Betty Boop

Cartoons, shorts and features of the depression era entertained and inspired a burdened nation, often sending audiences home with the illusion, however brief, that things would work out OK. The exaggerated characters and plots in the Betty Boop cartoons were set in the real world and often satirized real world issues of the day. Many of these issues are just as relevant today.

Betty Boop began her screen career as a sexy, eccentric cartoon character striving to survive and succeed in depression-era America. Betty's uncredited screen debut was in 1930 as an anthropomorphic French Poodle. Her famous hoop earrings originated as floppy dog ears. Following a few make-overs, Betty emerged in 1932 as a full-blown cinema superstar and pop culture icon.

She was adult, adorable and would belt out a catchy song at the drop of a double entendre. With her trademark "Boop-oop-a-doop" Betty won the hearts of movie-goers at a time when many struggling souls desperately needed their spirits lifted, if only for a few hours.

Betty's screen persona transitioned from sexy and sassy to sweet and soulful when national censorship laws came in 1934. Under the Hays Code (1930-1968) censors determined what was morally acceptable content on a pass or fail system. Clearly Betty Boop, Mae West and other film franchises had been pushing the envelope, and the resulting movie censorship ironically took root at about the same time as the repeal of prohibition. The Hays Code was replaced in 1968 by our current MPAA letter-based rating system.

When Paramount was put on notice, Betty Boop was simply reinvented by Max Fleischer and his creative team. Her skimpy outfits and overt sexuality were replaced in 1935 by longer skirts and a softened, more sensitive personality. Nonetheless, Betty continued to be America's "Queen of the Animated Screen" until her retirement in 1939.

From her debut in 1930 until today, Betty Boop's image remains ubiquitous in American popular culture; on greeting cards, decals, mugs, t-shirts and ceramic sculptures. While most everyone recognizes her, few today know much about Betty and her relevance to motion picture history.

So now, with tongue firmly in-cheek, we present for your amusement and edification eleven of Betty Boop's animated adventures that reflect on contemporary issues like health care, the ailing auto industry, urban renewal, politics, international relations, celebrity icons, out-of-control pets, stock car racing and baby factories. All titles below that are highlighted in gold are live links to where you can watch the cartoon on the Internet Archive or on YouTube.

First up for those not already familiar with her early work, Betty Boop's Rise to Fame (1934) will serve to introduce and establish Betty's celebrity credentials.

In this genuine classic, a live-action Max Fleischer interacts with an animated Betty Boop in presenting scenes from three of Betty's popular pre-code cartoons, including her impressions of Fanny Brice and Maurice Chevalier from Stopping the Show, her steamy hula dance from Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle, and her sultry dance with a young Cab Calloway voicing Betty's lustful adversary in The Old Man of the Mountain.

In Betty Boop's Ker-choo (1933), Betty struts her stuff as celebrity queen of the stock car races. Paramount News cameras are on hand to capture the pandemonium, but Betty arrives late with a bad cold and a Diva attitude. She serenades us with a song and the race is on.

Fortunately Betty isn't the mother of the fourteen (at least) babies she tries desperately to care for in On with the New (1938). In this post-code entry, Betty tires of working as a short-order cook and decides to change employment. That is, until tending to a room full of babies in an industrialized nursery proves even more challenging.

In Judge for a Day (1935) Betty works as a court reporter and on her way to work endures obnoxious and anti-social behavior by those around her. When at work, Betty fantasizes on what she would do if she were judge and jury.

In The Candid Candidate (1937) Betty's Grampy becomes the new Mayor by a one-vote landslide. Urban renewal is parodied with much invention and humor, and with public approval in the end.

International relations take center stage as Ms. Boop blossoms into an international superstar in A Language All My Own (1935). Betty travels to Japan where she is celebrated as would be a pre-war U.S. Ambassador or our new Secretary of State Ms. Clinton.

Out-of-control pets and out-of-control pet owners are the focus in two Betty Boop cartoons with distinctively different tones.

First up is a charming Betty Boop cartoon that introduced an animated version of the King Features cartoon character known as "Henry." In Betty Boop With Henry, the Funniest Living American (1935) Betty enlists Henry to tend her pet shop while she runs an errand. Henry battles with a monkey and the pets are soon out of their cages and out-of-control.

In Be Human (1936) Betty takes on a brutal animal abuser. This one is curious and very disturbing in its extremely violent depictions of animal abuse. Betty enlists help from Grampy, whose solution is justified payback, teaching the abuser the value of being kind to animals.

FDR's New Deal also called for new ideas, and since anyone could have an idea that might make money - Betty, KoKo and Bimbo all show off their crazy concoctions at an invention convention in Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions (1933).

Mae Questel will forever be remembered as the real-life Betty Boop (also Olive Oyl), though other artists were occasionally the voice. In addition to voicing the cartoon character, Questel appeared in a number of 1930s Paramount short subjects as the real-life Betty Boop.

A song Questel sings as the animated Betty in Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions, "Keep a LIttle Song Handy," is reprised by crooner Rudy Vallee in a live-action short subject called The Musical Doctor (1932). Questel plays the live-action nurse Betty Boop to doctor Vallee in a musical hospital where music the prescription for every patient. The song is infectious: "Keep a little song handy, wherever you go, and nothing can ever go wrong (boop oop a doop). Keep a little song handy, and sure as you know, sunshine will follow along. Any little single jingle, that sets the toes a-tingle, is welcome when you mingle, in any single song."

Lastly, here and on the screen below you can enjoy Betty Boop starring in So Does An Automobile (1939). The auto industry is ailing indeed, at least at Betty's Auto Hospital, where Ms Boop provides diagnosis for sick cars, while serenading them into recovery. This is an amusing musical metaphor for our current ailing healthcare and auto industries.

Betty's star shined bright once again on early 1950s television, but dimmed as black and white content transitioned to color.

Betty made her television comeback during the 1980s on PBS, when Betty Boop cartoons were often featured on the original Matinee at the Bijou series. We here at the Bijou considered Betty Boop our unofficial mascot during the PBS years, and look forward to bringing her back once again soon in all her eccentric glory and in pristine HD.

The country could certainly use a Betty Boop stimulus package. The Depression era messages of humor in the face of the bleak reality issues of the day, as reflected in these cartoons, ring true today. Just as sweet and sexy Betty was an inspiration then, she is just the kind of artistic "stimulation" that our national psyche needs today in more ways than one.

Our Funny Valentine: Debbie Reynolds

Cinema superstar Debbie Reynolds is a national treasure! Frequent Bijou Blog contributor Victoria Balloon shares our great admiration for Ms. Reynolds, so it was with extra pleasure that she produced this homage to our sweet and funny valentine:

Like so many others, I first saw Debbie Reynolds in Singin' in the Rain. She later said of the experience, "Singin' in the Rain and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life." You never would have guessed it from watching the film. Sandwiched between the highly acclaimed dancers Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, the five foot two inch Debbie Reynolds sang, smiled, and held her own, winning America's hearts.

Debbie began life as Mary Frances Reynolds, born April 1, 1932 in El Paso, Texas. She grew up in Burbank, CA as a tomboy among eight boys - a brother, four uncles and three cousins. She was a cut-up and a clown who entertained family and friends with imitations of radio personalities, and she admired the exuberant comedic talent of Betty Hutton.

In 1948 she won the Miss Burbank contest, and at sixteen got a contract with Warner Bros. Talent executive William Orr changed her name to "Debbie," but she would not let anyone change her last name, and for a year she refused even to answer to Debbie. She made two pictures with Warner Bros. - The June Bride (uncredited) and The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady - but Warners didn't seem to know what to do with her and let her go. MGM picked her up and gave her a one picture deal with Three Little Words, where she lip-synched flapper Helen Kane's trademark song, "I Wanna be Loved by You," (mimicking Bijou's favorite vamp, Betty Boop). After receiving excellent reviews, her next role was as Jane Powell's kid sister in Two Weeks with Love. The musical number "Abba Dabba Honeymoon" sung with Carleton Carpenter burst off the screen with wit and charm, landing the song in the 1951 Hit Parade. Debbie graduated from John Burroughs High School in Burbank CA with every intention of getting a scholarship to USC and becoming a gym teacher, but luckily for us, that was not to be.

Debbie was part of the last generation of actors to be molded by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under Louis B. Mayer. She recalls, "Being at MGM was like going to a university. You could get out of college in four years, but some of us were at this university for ten and fifteen. You never stopped studying. Ballet, tap, modern dance. Placing the voice properly; how to sing; how to walk and move; how to model, how to hold your hands, how to hold your head, knowing the angle right for the camera; how to do makeup, how to do hair."

Debbie had three months of eight-hour days to prepare herself for the dance numbers in Singin' in the Rain. Her grueling hard work, combined with a little pep talk from Fred Astaire (who found her sobbing under a piano one terrible day and invited her to watch him rehearse) helped create what even Roger Ebert calls "the greatest Hollywood musical ever made." In this wonderful clip Debbie relates memories of the experience. A trailer for this film can be seen here.

The 1950s were Debbie's most productive time in film. Her spunky, wholesome girlishness was exactly right for the MGM musicals and comedies of the time, and from 1953-54 she made five films in fifteen months. While the scripts were not always dramatically challenging, her effortless enthusiasm transformed the roles she played into enjoyable venues for her talent, and her buoyant optimism made her extremely popular with audiences

As clean-cut as the scripts were, however, Debbie always brought a little spice, a certain feistiness to her roles. Even as the dedicated Grainbelt University co-ed Pansy Hammer in The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, she couldn't always "work, work, work." Her newly found affection for Dobie (Bobby Van) puts both of them more in the mood for love than English essays or chemistry labs. This fun film romp contains a reprisal of the song, "All I Do is Dream of You," from Singin' in the Rain (this time as endearing duet), and the dance number "You Can't Do Wrong Doin' Right" (with Reynolds, Van, Barbara Ruick, and Bob Fosse) is dynamite. You can watch the original trailer here.

When she was loaned out to RKO to do Susan Slept Here with Dick Powell, Debbie plays a juvenile delinquent (albeit an adorably cute one) who struggles and kicks with surprising venom. The May-December romance at the heart of the story gets an uneven reception from audiences today, but what becomes quickly apparent in watching the film is that Debbie Reynolds is a very funny comedic actress who can do bang-on impressions. The scene in which Susan (Reynolds) watches home movies of Mark Christopher (Powell) girlfriend Isabella Alexander (Anne Francis) contains some of her best ever on-screen mugging for the camera. For Debbie, it was easy - "From an early age, from the time I used to sit on my grandpa's knee, I was a mimic. I used to copy Red Skelton. People who knew me would ask me to do these little performances for other organizations like the Boy Scouts and Job's Daughters, or even just for a group of friends. I never thought of it as entertaining because I didn't dance or sing. I didn't think of myself as a person who could dance or sing. I was just this nutty kid." Her love of imitation is still strong and is used in her stage show today, much to the audience's delight.

The Tender Trap paired Debbie with Frank Sinatra in his first MGM movie since On the Town. While the script seems dated now, the film is still enjoyable for the actors' performances and the décor of Sinatra's pad. The song "(Love Is) the Tender Trap" received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and became an enduring hit for Sinatra. He offered words of wisdom about singing this song both on and off screen, and Debbie recalls Sinatra's advice: "Remember that when you're singing lyrics you approach the lyrics like a poem. What does it mean? What is it really about? Is it to hold the note eight bars and prove that you really have great breath control? Or is it about a wonderful, loving moment?"

Bundle of Joy was a musical remake of Bachelor Mother, and her rendition of "Lullaby in Blue," sung with then-husband Eddie Fisher captures such a feeling. Here is Debbie and Eddie appearing together as the "mystery guest" on What's My Line? but it's hearing Debbie sing the title song of her next movie that you realize how well she's taken Sinatra's advice to heart.

In Tammy and the Bachelor, bayou girl Tammy Tyree (Reynolds) nurses downed pilot Peter Brent (Leslie Nielsen) back to health. When her grandfather (Walter Brennan) is jailed for making corn liquor, Tammy goes to live at the Brent Family plantation, where it's Tammy's earnest simplicity against urban snobbery. Though the film opened to lukewarm reviews, Reynolds recording of the title song "Tammy" did well immediately. Universal pulled the film to allow the record to generate interest, and the song went to the Top Ten on the Billboard charts in 1957. Debbie recalls that "everyone was amazed because it was a sweet, simple little ballad in contrast to the hits by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Paul Anka, and Buddy Holly." Her ability to convey sweet, simple emotion in this song is undoubtedly what has made it her signature song and an audience favorite. This movie was the second Debbie Reynolds film to generate a series (the first being The Affairs of Dobie Gillis) and Debbie's fans agree - she was the first Tammy, and she is the best.

Much of Debbie's larger-than-her-frame physical presence undoubtedly comes from a childhood of being the only girl (and the youngest) among eight boys. She wanted to be part of their group, playing their games, but "they'd trip me, push me, twist my arms, pull my legs, pull my hair, jump on me - anything to get rid of me." But Debbie was tough stuff, and had a temper, too. "I would wait for the moment. and then I'd retaliate. I'd push one of them, or trip him, or pull his hair, or slam him in the back of the head with a two-by-four, if it was available (and I could lift it)." She plays this same tomboy with a temper in The Mating Game.

As Mariette Larkin, she's trying to get IRS man Lorenzo Charleton (Tony Randall) more interested in her than Pa and Ma Larkin's unpaid taxes. Lorenzo tries to maintain a distant professionalism and stick to business, but when Ma Larkin decides he's The One for Mariette, Lorenzo hasn't a prayer. This film features Debbie, 90 pounds sopping wet, being chased by the boys and swinging on a rope out of a loft to drop into the hay below. During the fight in the barn, that's really her on the pile - and although she's usually on top, she still gets knocked over and down, only to leap back into the fray. The scene where she's backed into a chair, holding off a security officer with one foot, is wonderful pandemonium.

As the 1950s progressed, all around Debbie the movies were changing. Louis B. Mayer was replaced by Dore Schary, and the studio heads at MGM became less interested in musicals and more interested in "realism" - gritty urban scripts with morally ambiguous outcomes and more explicit sexual themes. Like Doris Day and Donna Reed, Debbie had been cast in the "cute" mold, and Hollywood was unable to see that Debbie offered much more. But Debbie knew what she was capable of, and when she saw The Unsinkable Molly Brown on Broadway, she knew the part was perfect for her.

Initially director Chuck Walters didn't want her; he wanted Shirley MacLaine, then under contract with Hal Wallis. "I knew exactly what they meant. They could see Shirley doing that, but not Tammy. They were wrong. I knew I was so right for the role. Molly was a really gutsy yet sensitive, vulnerable girl; and I could play it that way. I was Molly Brown and I intended to prove it." When Wallis refused to release MacLaine from her contract, Debbie got her chance - sort of. MGM and producer Larry Weingarten wanted her, but Chuck Walters, who had directed her in The Tender Trap, wasn't sold. "You're much too short for the role," he told her. "How short is the part?" she shot back.

Based loosely on the life of Margaret Tobin Brown, "Molly" (Reynolds) is rescued from a flood at birth, grows up in poverty, and at sixteen sets out to find her fortune. She soon learns that it takes more than money and marriage to Johnny Brown (Harve Presnell) to find acceptance in Denver or European society. Johnny wants to return to a simpler life, but Molly has greater ambitions, so they part. However, Molly finally realizes that, to the elite, she is only an amusement and is not truly accepted for herself. She at last admits how much she misses Johnny and returns home on the infamous Titanic. Once again she survives disaster, proving that she is truly unsinkable.

At first Walters gave her very little direction, so Debbie turned to former MGM drama coach, Lillian Burns Sidney, to help her with the role. When the rushes came back, Walters began to feel differently about Debbie's performance. "You're not too short for the part," he finally told her with a kiss. However, there were additional pressures when MGM cut the Molly Brown budget because of cost overruns with Dr. Zhivago. Walters worried particularly about the dance numbers, because Debbie only had three days to rehearse her part and there wasn't a budget left for multiple takes. He wanted to cut the numbers; Debbie argued that it wouldn't be a musical without the numbers. She knew she could learn them and suggested they be shot in one take. A far cry from the three months of rehearsals she had for Singin' in the Rain, her training and determination paid off; though they all collapsed at the end of the seven-minute number (and one dancer fainted), Debbie had triumphed. The Unsinkable Molly Brown earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 1965, and she became the number-two box office draw. (Watch Debbie Reynolds describe her rehearsal experience with The Unsinkable Molly Brown during an episode of the Mike Douglas show from 1976 (at 7:27)

Debbie Reynolds as an actress is an American icon. For her talented contributions to musical films and her first-hand memories of a Hollywood now gone, she is a priceless treasure. In addition, her body of work from the 1950s creates a character that is itself an American icon - a mid-century ideal of femininity and youth. Whether or not that ideal was reality, or even realistic, it was immensely popular with film audiences. Ms. Reynolds herself is still so appealing because the enthusiasm of her onscreen roles was real. She's had plenty of opportunity in her life to feel sorry for herself, but she's pulled herself up and constantly reinvented her path forward - always with the same optimism and sense of fun that captured our hearts in the first place.

It only takes a look at the user reviews and comments at the Internet Movie Database to realize that Debbie still has many fans. The Internet has given them new ways to network, from posting tributes on YouTube and selling memorabilia on Ebay to creating fan sites and fan pages. For more reasons to fall in love with our sweet and funny valentine, check out The Debbie Reynolds Official Website and Debbie Reynolds Online. Here is her 2009 concert schedule where you can see her in person, and there's also her engaging book, Debbie: My Life, by Debbie Reynolds and David Patrick Columbia.

Will Rogers: Movie Star Statesman

Clearly we have a dysfunctional education system in America when the spirit and memory of Will Rogers are left in the dust during the historic Obama inaugural celebrations. It can be argued remembrances of Rogers should have shared the stage with fellow national icons Abraham Lincoln, FDR and Dr. Martin Luther King, all of whom contributed abundantly to America's history, politics and popular culture.

Today we pay homage to the film legacy of Will Rogers. He was brilliant at teaching common sense to the common man during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression; a populist who manipulated the media to educate his fellow citizens about what the Washington politicians were up to - and what the barons of Wall Street were doing to Main Street. Sound familiar? So popular and influential was Rogers prior to his untimely death in 1935, that many encouraged him to run for governor, senator and even the presidency.

James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, has observed that "Our film heritage is America's living past." This precisely epitomizes the film legacy of Will Rogers. From 1918 to 1935 he starred in 71 motion pictures. In 1934, near the peak of his career, Rogers was the number one box office star in America, eclipsing the likes of Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Shirley Temple, Wallace Beery, Mae West and Bing Crosby. His success on the big screen paralleled his many achievements as a superstar of radio, the Broadway stage, personal appearances and his ubiquitous social and political commentaries in books, magazines, newspapers and lectures.

Will Rogers film career began in 1916 when he signed with Paramount to write intertitles for a silent movie called Roaring Camp, starring L. Frank Baum. This led to his screen debut for Sam Goldwyn in Laughing Bill Hyde (1918). Rogers starred in a total of 50 silent films, many for which he also wrote the intertitles in his inimitable conversational style.

In Ropin' Fool (1922) Rogers plays Ropes Reilly, a cowboy who ropes anything that moves until a lynch mob decides to use Reilly's rope for a hanging party, with Reilly as the guest of honor. Motion Picture World wrote: "Plentiful use of slow motion photography shows how it is done and dispels any possible belief that the stunts are faked. No audience can help but marvel as Rogers throws a figure eight around a galloping horse, or lassoes a rat with a piece of string, or brings to term a cat melodiously inclined." Later Rogers would wryly claim fame as America's "Poet Lariat." You can sample an excerpt from Ropin' Fool here.

Rogers starred in many silent films for the legendary Hal Roach. Among them is a series of 3 topical and timeless political satires revolving around a character called Alfalfa Doolittle (Rogers). The titles are Going to Congress, Our Congressman and A Truthful Liar. The first one was featured at the 1924 Republican National Convention in Cleveland and the Democratic National Convention in New York City. Rogers attended both conventions wearing his many hats as radio commentator, newspaper columnist and journalist.

During 1926, Rogers traveled the world on behalf of The Saturday Evening Post, as WILL ROGERS: "Unofficial Ambassador of the United States to Europe." He filed dispatches for the print media and also filmed a series of travelogues. The Tulsa Daily World wrote: "Although Rogers has had years of experience as an actor in motion pictures, he has broken away from all film traditions in photographing his own tour, and has produced 12 reels of highly original and personally planned pictures, doing, for once, all his own directing, acting, and writing of subtitles." The series of 12 travelogues were released during 1927-28 with titles like "Winging Around Europe with Will Rogers" and "Through Switzerland and Bavaria with Will Rogers." Tragically, this entire series has long been presumed lost.

When the movies learned to talk, many former screen stars were unable to make the transition. Either they couldn't adjust from an exaggerated acting style suited to silent film acting, or their voices didn't resonate with audiences. Will Rogers made the transition flawlessly, in part because he talked the way he behaved on screen, and in the same rural conversational style as expressed in the title cards (most of which he wrote). Also, audiences were familiar with his voice from his abundant radio and stage work.

In A Connecticut Yankee (1931) Will Rogers interprets Mark Twain's character from A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. The New York Times wrote approvingly: "Will Rogers suits the title role of the film ... so well that when one picks up the book one instantly visualizes this recruit from the saddle and the plains." Photoplay named Rogers "Actor of the Month" in honor of his performance. Director David Butler made this and four other pictures with Rogers between 1932 and 1935: Business and Pleasure, Down to Earth, Handy Andy and Doubting Thomas.

Henry King directed Will Rogers In the first screen version of State Fair (1933). Again the New York Times raved about Rogers work, and Photoplay once again cited him as "Performer of the Month." The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture.

Among his finest cinematic achievements were three films directed by the great John Ford; Doctor Bull (1933), Judge Priest (1934) and Steamboat Round the Bend (1935). In Doctor Bull, more drama than comedy, Rogers plays an old-fashioned country doctor underappreciated by the rural community.

Rogers had powerful personal opinions about health care in America at the time: "There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills. All doctors should make enough out of those who are well able to pay to be able to do all work for the poor free. One thing that a poor person should never be expected to pay for is medical attention and not from an organized charity but from our best doctors. Your doctor bill should be paid like your income tax, according to what you have."

Director John Ford once called Judge Priest, "My favorite picture of all time." The New York Times had this to say about the film after its exclusive premiere at Radio City Music Hall: "The photoplay which Fox has assembled around Dr. Will Rogers, the eminent newspaper columnist, presents the cowboy Nietzsche in one of the happiest roles of his screen career ... and let it remind you that Will Rogers, although he bears the burdens of the nation on his shoulders, continues to be a remarkably heart-warming personality." Of course, off screen, Rogers had very strong opinions on the American legal system, often quipping: "Personally I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of the Legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of a conscience is what makes him a lawyer."

Unfortunately, Judge Priest and some of Rogers other classic films suffer today from racial stereotypes and racial humor, making them offensive to many modern viewers. Nonetheless, they do represent rural life in America during the 1930s. You can watch Judge Priest in its entirety here, courtesy of the Internet Archives.

Steamboat Round the Bend was released to a mourning nation and critical acclaim in September 1935, three weeks after Rogers death on August 15th. When filming was completed, he had taken off on his ill-fated Alaskan expedition with pioneer aviator Wiley Post.

The final scene originally written to conclude the picture was cut prior to the films release. The scene showed Will Rogers waving to Captain Eli as his boat faded out of the picture. The scene cut was a close-up of Will waving farewell, and the studio feared the audience would leave the theater crying as if he were waving to them.

You can watch the original trailer for Steamboat Round the Bend here.

In Old Kentucky (1935), directed by George Marshal, was Will Rogers' final film and was released in November, three months following his death. The Literary Digest had this to say: "The same absence of morbidity which made audience reaction to Steamboat Round the Bend so remarkable, when that picture was shown soon after his death early this fall, is apparent now. Audiences in the West and New England are flocking to the film and reacting to it much as though the comedian were still alive."

In addition to feature films, Will Rogers would frequently be caricatured in cartoons and occasionally appeared as himself in short subjects and newsreels. For example, he often lent his voice and talent in support of FDR's struggle to overcome the depression. Here is Will Rogers in a 1933 newsreel urging citizens to get behind FDR's New Deal programs designed to cure the depression: "The NRA system has got to work, or else - or else there ain't gonna be nothin' if it don't work." Sound familiar? FDR credited Rogers with bringing his fellow Americans "back to a sense of proportion." In the WB Merrie Melodies cartoon I Love Mountain Music (1933) a caricatured Will Rogers quips: "Well folks, all I know is what I read in the papers."

You can learn more about Will Rogers' remarkable career and contributions to American history and culture by visiting the Will Rogers Memorial Museums - and you can purchase many of his films here.

And here you can enjoy one of Will Rogers' most original and amusing silent short subjects Big Moments From Little Pictures (1923). Rogers impersonates famous stars in famous films, including Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand, Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, and Ford Sterling and his Keystone Kops. At the end of part one, click here to enjoy part two.