Kitty from Kansas City
Kitty from Kansas City was a 1930 song, popularized by the singer Rudy Vallée. The song is about a Midwestern girl called Kitty and her apparent lack of intelligence, and obesity, due to a lyric: "She wasn't hard to see; she weighed 243."
Some recordings have been made by Vallée, the Imperial Dance Orchestra, and Johnny Walker.
Animated film
| Kitty from Kansas City | |
|---|---|
| Screen Songs series | |
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| Directed by | Dave Fleischer |
| Produced by |
Max Fleischer Fleischer Studios |
| Voices by |
Little Ann Little (uncredited) Rudy Vallée |
| Music by | Rudy Vallée and his Connecticut Yankees |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 31, 1931 |
| Color process | B&W |
| Running time | 7 mins |
| Language | English |
Kitty from Kansas City was the 47th part of the Screen Songs series. It includes an early (although very identical) version of Betty Boop. The title card music is a lyrical variation of the song "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile".
Kitty (Betty) was walking to a Kansas City train station, and she waited for her train to “Rudy Valley”, a place where her friend (Rudy) lives. As she waited, the train’s mail compartment sign snatches her. A mouse writes “Fe” behind mail, as a parody of the word “female”.
She reaches “Rudy Valley”, where the cartoon changes to a live-action performance of Vallée and his “Connecticut Yankees” singing and playing the song. Then, the scene goes back to the cartoon, where Kitty does some of the antics in the lyrics, the film ending with Kitty unpluggin a water stopping cork in a pond, with a parade of marine creature following Kitty.
The live-action performance (and the second cartoon sequence) have the pre-recorded soundtrack off, by about a second and a half.