| Buzzy Boop at the Concert | |
| Director: | Dave Fleischer Animation Direction: Thomas Johnson (uncredited) |
| Music: | Sammy Timberg (uncredited) |
| Animator: | Thomas Johnson Harold Walker Uncredited Animation: Frank Endres Otto Feuer Lod Rossner[1] |
| Studio: | Fleischer Studios |
| Producer: | Max Fleischer |
| Starring: | Margie Hines[2] Jack Mercer |
| Distributor: | Paramount Pictures |
| Color Process: | Black-and-white |
| Runtime: | 7 minutes |
| Language: | English |
Buzzy Boop at the Concert is a 1938 Betty Boop film starring Betty's young tomboy cousin Buzzy Boop.[3] It was directed by Dave Fleischer and Thomas Johnson and was released on September 16, 1938.
For years, it was considered a lost film, until a copy resurfaced in Russia in 2019.[4] The film was subsequently restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and uploaded to their official YouTube channel.[5]
Betty Boop takes her reluctant cousin Buzzy to a concert hall to watch a live music recital starring the opera singer Madame Shrill, nicknamed the Soprano Supreme. As she performs the song "The Last Rose of Summer" onstage, the uneventful nature of the concert puts the orchestra, the piano player, and the audience (Betty included) to sleep.
Buzzy, in an attempt to liven up the concert, comes up to the stage and convinces Shrill to change her opera recital into a dance-filled performance accompanied by swing music. This successfully turns the situation around as the cartoon ends with Betty and the rest of the audience giving a thunderous applause to Buzzy and Shrill's performance in the concert.
Buzzy Boop at the Concert was considered a lost film for decades, until an English copy of the film was found in Russia in 2019. It was soon preserved and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The restoration's funding was provided by ASIFA-Hollywood in collaboration with the Packard Humanities Institute. The restoration premiered at the UCLA Festival of Preservation in 2022.[6]