Betty Boop

Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character appearing in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop series of films produced by Max Fleischer and released by Paramount Pictures. more...

Home
Action Figures
Animation Art, Characters
Animation Art
Animation Characters
Betty Boop
Bags, Cases
Boxes
Figures
Jewelry, Watches
Other
Pins
Signs
Casper The Ghost
Curious George
Dr. Seuss
Felix the Cat
Garfield
Ghostbusters
Hanna-Barbera
Other Hanna-Barbera
Scooby-Doo
The Flintstones
Hello Kitty
King Features
Muppets
Other Animation Characters
Peanuts
Cups, Mugs
Figurines
Other
Pins
Plush Items
Pink Panther
Popeye
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Sesame Street
Shrek
Smurfs
South Park
SpongeBob SquarePants
The Simpsons
Tom & Jerry
Walter Lantz/Woody...
Warner Bros.
Bugs Bunny
Daffy Duck
Marvin the Martian
Other Warner Bros. Items
Pepe Le Pew
Porky Pig
Powerpuff Girls
Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote
Sylvester
Tasmanian Devil
Tweety
Ziggy
Japanese, Anime
Apparel & Accessories
Bronze Age (1970-79)
Collections
Comics
Figurines
Full Runs
Golden Age (1938-55)
Graphic Novels, TPBs
International
Magazines
Modern Age (1980-Now)
Newspaper Comics
Original Comic Art
Other Comics
Platinum Age (1897-1937)
Posters
Silver Age (1956-69)
Supplies

With her overt sexuality, Betty was a hit with theater-goers, and despite having been toned down in the mid-1930s, she remains popular today for this portrayal of sexuality.

History

Origins

Betty Boop was the first female flapper cartoon. She made her first appearance on August 9, 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. She was little like her soon-to-be-famous self, however. Grim Natwick, a veteran animator of both Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' studios, was largely responsible for creating the character, which he modeled on Helen Kane, a singer and contract player at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons. In keeping with common practice, Natwick made his new character an animal, in this case, a French poodle. Beginning with this cartoon, the character's voice was performed by several different voice actresses until Mae Questel got the role, in 1931, and kept it for the rest of the series.

Natwick himself later conceded that Betty's original look was quite ugly. The animator redesigned her in 1932 to be recognizably human in the cartoon Any Rags. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her poodle fur became a bob haircut. She appeared in ten cartoons as a supporting character, a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons she was called "Nancy Lee" and "Nan McGrew". She usually served as studio star Bimbo's girlfriend. She was not officially christened "Betty Boop" until the 1932 short Stopping the Show that same year. This was also the first cartoon to be officially part of the Betty Boop series and not a Talkartoon.

Although some claim that Betty's first name was established in the 1931 Screen Songs cartoon Betty Co-ed, this "Betty" was, in truth, an entirely different character. Though the song itself may have led to Betty's eventual christening, any references to Betty Co-ed as a Betty Boop vehicle have been made in error. (The official Betty Boop website describes the titular character as a "prototype" of Betty.) In all, there were at least 12 Screen Songs cartoons that featured either Betty Boop or a similar character.

Betty as sex symbol

Betty's development was still incomplete, however. Max Fleischer's brother, Dave, further altered the character, making her sexier and more feminine. Betty's famous personality finally came into play in the 1932 short, Minnie the Moocher, to which Cab Calloway and his orchestra lent their talents. In the film, Betty runs away from her over-bearing parents only to get lost with costar Bimbo in a cave haunted by a walrus (rotoscoped from Calloway). The ghost's scary musical number impels Betty to flee back to the safety of home. The portrayal of Betty's parents as seemingly being Orthodox Jews has led many to assume that Betty herself was intended as an overtly Jewish character . However later episodes, such as the 1936 short 'Be Human,' introduced Betty's Grandpa, who was portrayed very much as an 'old timer' in the style of such characters from Wild West films.

Read more at Wikipedia.org