Jasmine Amy Rogers - "Where I Wanna Be"
Jasmine plays Betty Boop in Boop! The Musical, which is currently on Broadway in Chicago at the CIBC Theatre until Dec. 24th. They need to bring this to NY. She bodied this. Those little nuances in her vocality. So much personality wrapped in a bright, strong, playful performance.
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No one asked but I do have a wall dedicated to to playbills in my room.
I have Six, Boop, and Emmet Otter up there but I need to find my signed program for Newsies (I was in it, had the main cast sign it) then I’ll have like 4 on my wall.
I basically have five up there once I get the Addams Family one — Theater Kid Math
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I saw the Betty Boop musical in Chicago.
The premise of the show is that Betty, overwhelmed and exhausted by fame, wants to take a vacation where no one knows who she is. She gets her wish thanks to one of Grampy’s wacky inventions that transports her to 2023. Unfortunately, Betty attracts attention wherever she goes.
Non-Spoiler thoughts: I really liked the show. I hope the songs are released online soon. It reminded me of the Barbie movie. The show is a lot of fun and very camp. I hope they don’t change too much if it goes to Broadway, because the campiness is what makes it so enjoyable and the actress who plays Betty is perfect for the role.
Full plot Summary and Spoilers below:
Betty travels to 2023 and meets a young girl who is a major Betty Boop fan. The girl immediately takes her home to her aunt, who is a campaign manager, and Betty meets the girl’s nanny, Duane, who is Betty’s love interest. The little girl has trauma, because both her parents died, and she latches onto Betty due to her own low self-confidence. Betty is able to fix her. Duane takes Betty on a date to a jazz club, where Betty sings on stage and becomes instantly famous. Meanwhile, Grampy travels to 2023 to find Betty, because without her their world is falling apart. He is distracted from his task, because he has fallen in love with a scientist, he met 40 years ago (they are the same age now). Once it’s revealed that Betty is a famous cartoon woman the entire world wants her. An evil politician uses Betty’s fame to boost himself in the polls. When Betty confronts him about this, he tries to uhhh sexually assault her, but Betty is able to stop him. Then Betty helps the aunt run for mayor and the aunt wins. Then just when Betty and Duane have fallen in love, Grampy catches up with her and tells her she must come home. Betty does and is sad. But it’s all ok in the end because Grampy’s girlfriend creates a device that allows everyone to travel through dimensions to visit each other.
It's an insane plot. I wouldn’t change a thing. Positive and Negative thoughts:
• Betty arrives in 2023 at NYC ComicCon (they mention it by name). There are a lot of pop culture references here and at first, I was scared the whole show would be like this, but it was just for the one song.
• They used a mix of screens and set pieces to bring the 1920s cartoon world of Betty Boop to life. I wish they did a little more surreal stuff in the background like in the cartoons, but the level they did for the show is good enough to not be distracting.
• Lots of little shoutouts to the cartoons. They mention the time Betty ran for President. Even the choreography is a shoutout, as I recognized some dances Betty does from the cartoons.
• The Pudgy puppet was so cute and the audience clapped every time it did anything.
• Betty’s love interest being a trumpet player who likes jazz is a good base for a character, but he could’ve been a little more interesting.
• This relates to the previous point, but in the end when the 2023 characters visit Betty in the cartoon world, my friend and I were hoping that the love interest would turn into Bimbo or Koko. Bimbo and Koko are not mentioned in the show, but they are alluded to in some background set pieces.
• Speaking of the love interest, there’s a dumb YOU LIED TO ME plot, but it gets resolved quickly.
• Was the Grampy has sex plotline necessary?
• Betty is god btw. Her 1920s cartoon world starts to collapse because without her no one has a reason to exist. Betty is even able to manipulate some elements of the 2023 world. For a while, I thought the show was going to end with Betty merging her two worlds together.
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Listening to that recording of Jasmine Amy Rogers singing 'Where I wanna be' and realizing that–
The song mentions Cab Calloway, who was used for a few Betty Boop cartoons.
Betty mentions New York and it seems that this is the place where she wants to be. The Fleischer Brothers studio that made her cartoons were first stationed in New York City (I remembered this from Game Theory's video about them for Bendy and the Ink Machine). So yeah, no wonder she would feel at home in NYC.
She mentions Miami, and when I just double checked to make sure point 2 was correct.... there apparently was also a Fleischer Bros HQ in Miami, Florida. (Assuming its the same Miami).
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