Making Stars: Betty Boop's Toddler Talent Show is a Surreal Trip

Is it worth your time?

If you have a weird fascination with the early days of animation, sure. It’s short, it’s strange, and it’s a relic of a time when Hollywood thought singing babies were the peak of comedy. If you’re sensitive to 1930s-era caricatures, just skip it. You won't miss anything crucial.

Betty Boop is technically the host here, but she’s mostly just window dressing. The real focus is on the parade of infants doing stuff that babies definitely cannot do. It’s got that jittery, rubber-hose animation style that makes everything feel like it's vibrating at a high frequency. ⚡

I found myself staring at the background details more than the actual "stars" of the show. There’s a specific look to these old Fleischer cartoons—the way the lines wiggle—that feels so much more tactile than anything on a screen today. It’s messy, sure, but it has soul.

The pacing is absolutely frantic. One minute a kid is doing a bit, and the next, we’re onto another one before you can even process what the first one was trying to be. It’s almost like the animators were just throwing things at the wall to see what stuck. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just… a lot.

Comparison to other stuff

It’s a far cry from the more narrative-driven stuff like Star of Midnight, which feels like a different universe entirely. Even compared to Day Dreams, this feels like an experimental sketch rather than a story. It’s less about a plot and more about showing off what they could make ink and paint do on a page.

• The babies have way too many teeth.
• The sound design is basically just someone playing a piano as fast as humanly possible.
• I’m still not sure what the deal with the racial caricatures was, but it definitely aged like milk.

I’ve seen plenty of shorts from this era, like The Office Boy, which feel a bit more grounded in a recognizable world. Making Stars feels like it’s set in a void. Just a stage, a curtain, and an endless supply of talented infants.

It’s the kind of thing you watch once, go, "Huh, that was weird," and then never think about again until you’re deep into a YouTube hole at 2:00 AM. It doesn't try to be anything profound. It’s just Making Stars, doing its weird little thing. 👶