Why do people like this cartoon character?
It’s because she’s got Hello Kitty eyes, of course.
Next question.
Hello Kitty actually has little button eyes.
That’s what I was about to say, too. Regarding the OP, I haven’t the foggiest. My sister went through a Betty Boop phase and I know someone who owns a muscle car with a BB decal, and I still don’t understand it either.
Besides, we all know that Felix the Cat is the best cartoon icon from the silent-film era.
Betty Boop was , in her day, extremely sexy – she showed a lot of leg for her time, well up past her garter. She frequently lost clothing, or had it blown out of the way, or walked in front of candles, giving an “x-ray” shot of her. In one cartoon she goes topless (although hidden by a lei) and in another you actually get a fleeting glimpse of her without even that. She was beset by openly lustful villains (one explicitly squeezing her breast, others referring to what they’d like to do not-so-obliquely. Eventually, they cleaned her up, which made her dull.
She was also in wonderfully creative and surrealistic cartoons which had musical interludes by the foremost jazz musicians of their day – Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and others. If you haven’t seen the 1930s-vintage Betty Boops, you really should. Great suff. Or read Leslie Cabarga’s book The Fleischer Story. Or visit one of the kajillion Betty Boop sites.
It’s more than the character. The cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers (especially in the early 30s) were awesome. They often featured music from jazz legends like Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway, had incredibly imaginative and deftly surreal sequences (leaving Disney’s stuff from that period in the dust), and there wasn’t anyone else like her–sexy, assertive, resourceful, risque, and a very funny singer. Her version of Snow White (years before Walt’s) is probably my favorite animated short of all time. Even when they tamed her (lengthen her dress, gave her a puppy sidekick), her shorts were still worth seeing. Terrific stuff.
Well, I’m a Helen Kane fan, so I like even faux-Kane. And the pre-Code Boops were indeed filthy and bizarre.
You can feed me bread and water
Or a great big bale of hay
But don’t take my boop-boop-a-doop away!
You can download a couple of Calloway Boops here: Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine
Ok. That’s nice to know. An odd non-sequitor. Unless… No. Naturally you wouldn’t mistakenly miss-remember Betty Boop - the series with the little Miss who could never miss a a chance for vocal tuning; where everyone and everything grooved to an ever-present beat; where the most torrid, salacious of jazz music of the day was featured; and where the main character had a well-known trademark voice that got her into legal troubles with Helen Kane - as being a silent-era cartoon. Because if so, there goes my blood-pressure.
Well, in the words of Eddie Valiant, she’s “still got it.”
Betty Boop was popular initially because the cartoons rocked and she was sexy as hell. And even after she was “cleaned up” she remained helluva sexy for her time. Look up the Hayes Code to find out what a sick-fuck censorious time it was. Even cleaned up, she was a callgirl strutting among the all-nun all-the-time female characters of her time. But she was still “clean” enough to be a handle for mainstream audiences to reference issues like hotties and sexy women who liked to dance, drink and hang around with guys for immortal porpoises. Thus, she became an avatar of female sexiness, which explains her continued success.
Betty Page serves a similar purpose nowadays.
Betty started life as a dog (literally). She was Bimbo the dog’s girlfriend in her first cartoon Dizzy Dishes (available on YouTube). After a few cartoons as an animal (bestiality has never appeared more attractive!) she was changed into a girl, and the doggie ears were morphed into earrings.
In my opinion she’s still the sexiest creation ever to grace the cartoon screen, although the babe in Tex Avery’s wolf cartoons runs ger a close second (Swing Shift Cinderella, Shooting of Dan McFoo, etc). Jessica Rabbit, eat your heart out!
Oh, yes, one other thing about Betty – she was, for the incredibly longest time, the only headlining female cartoon character. No other female cartoon character was the lead. Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck and Olive Oyl were there, but they were supporting roles (kinda sad in Olive’s case – she and her family had been the main characters in the comic strip “Thimble Theater” before that wizend one-eyed sailor took over the strip. But Olive was never the leadin the animated cartoon).
For a brief time Famous Studios, the lineal descendent of Fleischer Studios (who gave us Betty) had a Little Lulu cartoon, but I think they got tired of paying royalties and thought they could do better, and they created Little Audrey. She didn’t last long, either.
Disney didn’t have a continuing series with a female lead. Neither did Warner Brothers. Or MGM or the briefly-lived Columbia caroons or Hanna Barbera or the other companies through the 1950s and 1960s. I don’t think it was until the 1970s that we started getting female leads – Josie and the Pussy Cats. Sabrina (in her earliest incarnations).
There had been fwemale characters – Witch Hazel and Natasha Fatale and Lois Lane. Female characters got their own comi books (Audrey and Little Dot and Little ulu and Lois Lane and others), but they didn’t carry animated cartoons until really late, except for Betty Boop (and brief incursions by Lulu and Audrey). It’s that same “males only” rule that gave us the recently-threaded “cows with guy voices and charactwers/Bulls with udders” phenomena. Betty was a welcome exception.
Okay, but my question is: why is her head shaped like a squash?
This question crystalizes my ‘problem’ with Betty Boop, she may have a hot body but she has the head of the Elephant man, large misshapen and ugly. Compared to her head, her voice is just a minor annoyance.
Wow, looks like you two paraphrased the same article.
Nope, just described the same reality. My account comes from years wasted watching Betty Boop cartoons, and from reading the Leslie Cabaqrga book I cite above.
Exactly. I always thought she looked like she had a pelvis where her skull should be.
Betty Boop’s head, I agree, doesn’t agree with me. She’s a 1930’s caricature of “little-girl-like” cute (which explains her voice, too). She’s got those chubby little-girl cheeks that are, I guess, supposed to be irresistably pinchable andcute. Doesn’t work for me – I keep anting to pinch the wrong cheeks. Because they put that baby’s head on a babe’s body.