Betty Boop Animations First Female Popstar

The history of cartoons first female popular character Betty Boop is much forgotten today. Even though her merchandise and action figures are still popular around the world, the character’s originality and familiarity have slowly eroded away in the back minds of audiences. Perhaps a lot of this is due to the fact that Betty Boop, while a famous cartoon character, dates back to nearly eighty years ago. Which is more than enough time for some of her biggest fans to forget about her rise towards stardom.

Betty Boop even as a cartoon character, was a head of her time. In the roaring 1930′s Betty was portraying herself as an independent working class woman, who would often times find herself in the mists of women’s rights issue or even sexual harassment. In fact, during the 1960′s when women’s rights and civil rights movement began, Betty Boops popularity rose back to stardom. The many women who sought after equal rights, began to admire the sexy and cute cartoon character who had dealt with many women’s rights issues a three decades earlier.

However, Betty Boops rise to cartoon stardom wasn’t easy or even pretty. Betty was originally created by Max Fleischer as a supporting character for the Bimbo cartoon series. Bimbo’s popularity was waning due to the competition of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. The Fleischer brothers had decided that Bimbo needed a supporting character that would help his theatrical popularity rise. Therefore, Max Fleischer created a female dog like companion for Bimbo and decided to name her Betty Boop.

Betty Boop’s first cartoon appearance was in August 9, 1930, in a cartoon called Dizzy Dishes. As female dog like character, she was a perfect fit for Bimbo. She was sassy, innocent, daring, and even sexy (at least her body was). However, there was just one big problem with Betty Boop, she was ugly! No matter how cute, sassy, innocent Betty Boop would try to be, the audience just couldn’t get over her anthropomorphic facial features.

In 1932, Max Flecisher decided it was time to change Betty Boop’s appearance. In the 1932 cartoon short Any Rags, Betty Boop was finalized to look more like a human cartoon character. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her black poodle nose became a girl’s button-like nose. Betty’s appearance had finally match her characteristics and the audience loved it.

However, that wasn’t the only change that Betty Boop had undergone. In 1931 Max Fleischer hired Mae Questel as the new voice actress for Betty Boop. For years, Mae Questel would remain as Betty’s Voice actress starting from 1931 to 1939. In fact, Mae Questel played the voice of Betty Boop’s cameo appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In 1933, Betty Boop starred in an animated a short film called Snow White. For many years critics were skeptical of this short cartoon film and did not show any true appreciation of the Betty’s Snow White until more than 60 years later. In 1994 The National Film Registry eventually bestowed it’s greatest honor by naming Snow White among the 25 greatest cartoon pictures ever made.

However, by the time the mid 1930′s rolled around, a new era of censorship was beginning to rise. In 1930 Hollywood’s chief censor Will H. Hays enforced censorship guidelines called The Motion Picture Production Code. This code (also called the Hays Code which was enforced by the Hays Office) had caused many Hollywood stars to change their appearance by forcing them to wear more clothes. And although Betty Boop was cartoon character, she was also obligated to follow these rules and for awhile, it meant that she had to wear more clothes and be less sexier than before.

Did the Hayes Code seem likely to impact Betty’s ratings and popularity? You bet. Betty was no longer the independent sexy, sassy, daring, and lovable girl anymore. More and more she became associated as a house wife that only wanted to tender and clean. As for the audience, it didn’t take long for Betty Boop to become a boring homebody rather than a sexy and daring adventurer. But luckily enough, that all quickly changed, as Betty began to ignore the Hayes Code and would revert back to her old popular self.

By 1936, Betty had became a international superstar. She became so popular in Japan, Fleischer Studios decided to give Betty Boop special Japanese performance in a film called a Language All My Own.

Although Betty was Max Fleischer’s most popular cartoon character at the time, he soon began to realize that Betty Boop needed a strong supporting character. In 1934, Fleischer didn’t waste any time in creating Betty’s new and special character a the cute and lovable pup named Pudgy. In September 21, 1934 Pudgy made his first appearance in Betty Boop’s Little Pal and quickly became popular among the audience. Ironically, over the course of the years Pudgy would eventually start receiving all the adventures and storyline, which eventually led to Betty Boop being upstaged by her own pup.

However, by the late 1930′s with a world war at stake Betty’s cartoon career began to slow down. As talks of a war begin to increasingly arise the audience were no longer looking for the sassy, daring, and adventuresome female character. The exciting days of loud bustling music and funking dancing were over. The American pop culture began looking for stronger heroes that would prepare and inspire them for the coming war in the 1940s. However for Betty, it didn’t take long for her stardom to come to an end. In August 1939, Betty Boop performed her last theatrical cartoon short Yip Yip Yippy.

In the end, Betty’s cartoon stardom lasted for almost a decade. Her career led her to many astonishing accomplishments, many which were simply overlooked. Betty Boop was the first female cartoon star who dealt with woman’s rights, sexual harassment, and let alone the first cartoon character who had to deal with sex. Even though her cartoon stardom is gone from the television and comic books, she still lives on within merchandising. But even more so, before the “Do’hs”, the “Eat My Shorts”, or the “Cowabungas”, there was the one and all famous “Boop-Oop-A-Doop!”

Long Live Betty Boop! Animations first sexiest and independent woman.