Review: Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus “Betty Davis”

You BETTER be gone!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

On the season finale of Mike Judge Presents, we get to hear all about the ominous Betty Davis. While not having risen to fame like prior episode subjects, Betty’s contributions are made clear not just in funk music with her dress attire, stage presence, and attitude but also in the area of jazz where her influence on Miles Davis helped the legendary musician come out with some of his best stuff. Unfortunately, a girl can only take so much and, as such, Betty has a mental breakdown and soon retires from the scene leaving fans to this day to wonder what could have been if she had just kept on going.

Our Take

By far, the best episode of Mike Judge Presents of the season. Not only did we get to see Betty’s incredible contributions to two different music scenes, we got to see her overall influence on black culture told by some excellent contributors that did a stellar job in presenting her in a light that’s slightly dimmed but still bright. I don’t know if Betty has watched this, but I hope she has because I couldn’t imagine her being disappointed with the result. I’m further impressed that the producers decided to uncover a diamond in the rough of musicians that probably could have been seen as more of prudent examples of Funkadelic, but instead, chose to focus on someone that probably hasn’t had as much focus on any sort of music documentary. From a pure animated production point of you, this is one of the best produced. Backgrounds featuring kitty cats, fun details in our interview subjects, and I’m paraphrasing the closing remarks here “there’s a fine line between genius and crazy” which is a great way to describe Mike Judge as I think he definitely has a horse in both races and thank the fuck Christ we have him. More in the season review coming next week.