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Betty Boop

Animated cartoon character

  • 22 min read
  • 8 chapters

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Through Great Depression and Feminism

A caricature of a Jazz Age flapper, Betty Boop was described in a 1934 court case as "combin[ing] in appearance the childish with the sophisticated—a large, round baby face with big eyes and a nose like a button, framed in a somewhat careful coiffure, with a very small body of which perhaps the leading characteristic is the most self-confident little bust imaginable". She was toned down in the mid-1930s to appear more modest as a result of the Hays Code, causing her to be overshadowed in favor of other Fleischer series. Betty Boop is one of the world's best-known and most popular cartoon characters.

History

Origins

Betty Boop made her first appearance in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, released on August 9, 1930, the seventh installment in Fleischer's Talkartoons series. Inspired by a popular performing style, the character was originally created as an anthropomorphic French Poodle. Clara Bow is sometimes given credit as being the inspiration for Boop, though Fleischer told his artists that he wanted a caricature of singer Helen Kane. Kane later sued Fleischer over the signature "Boop Oop a Doop" line. The court ruled in favor of the studio, which argued that Kane's style of singing—including an infantile voice and use of the phrase "boop-boop-a-doop"—was not her own invention and was inspired by other performers such as Esther Jones, a.k.a. Baby Esther. Betty Boop appeared as a supporting character in 10 cartoons as a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons, she was called "Nancy Lee" (Barnacle Bill) or "Nan McGrew" (The Bum Bandit)—derived from the Helen Kane film Dangerous Nan McGrew (1930)—usually serving as a girlfriend to studio star Bimbo.

Within a year, Betty made the transition from an incidental human-canine breed to a completely human female character. While much credit has been given to Grim Natwick for helping to transform Max Fleischer's creation, her transition was also in part due to the work of Bernard Wolf, Otto Feuer, Seymour Kneitel, Roland "Doc" Crandall, Willard Bowsky, and James "Shamus" Culhane. By the release of Any Rags, Betty Boop was forever established as a human character. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her black poodle nose became a girl's button-like nose.

Betty was first voiced by Margie Hines. Later, several different voice actresses performed the role, including Kate Wright, Bonnie Poe, Ann Rothschild (also known as Little Ann Little), and especially Mae Questel, who began voicing Betty Boop in Silly Scandals (1931), and continued with the role until 1939, returning nearly 50 years later in Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Betty has been voiced by Cindy Robinson since 2015.

Since the character was created by an Austrian Jew and eventually voiced by a Jewish actress, Mae Questel, animation fans sometimes try to pinpoint various aspects that hint at Betty's Jewishness. The 1932 Talkartoon Minnie the Moocher featured the only appearance of Betty's parents, a strict immigrant couple, who get upset that Betty does not want to eat the traditional German foods Hasenpfeffer (rabbit stew) and Sauerbraten. Benjamin Ivry of Forward says that any of this evidence is ambiguous, as these are not kosher foods, and the accents of the parents are comical German accents, rather than Jewish.

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