Hello lovely people! Today’s story is on my personal favorite animated character aka BETTY BOOP!!! She is a very sentimental character to me because of my great grandma. Long long ago (12 years ago lol), my great grandma used to have a Betty Boop themed car from the floor matts to the steering wheel. She used to pick me up in her small Betty Boop themed car from kindergarten on the hot summer days and I would always fall asleep on the short 15 minute drive back home. Normally when a child is asleep in the car and you arrive at your destination you would pick/wake up said child to go into the destination…right? Well wrong for my great grandmother, because she just left me there in the cutely decorated car with the doors locked and the widows cracked for a breeze of course. Her morals weren’t totally off. Little 5 year old me would wake up from the blazing heat and then run into the house to my great grandma. I’d yell at her about how I could’ve been kidnapped and it would’ve been all her fault she wouldn’t have her favorite great granddaughter anymore. She’d roll her eyes and assure me no one would’ve kidnapped me but I just kept scolding her until she gave me some food. She’s lucky I was always hungry after my naps because I know I could’ve yelled her ears off. I’ll miss and love her forever, rest in peace.
Anyways, not only is Betty Boop super duper cute but she has a very interesting backstory. She’s a character based on Ester Jones and Helen Kane, jazz singers from the 1920’s in Harlem. Jones used many baby like sounds in her music, “boops” being one of them. Later Helen Kane became popular and she also used “boops” in her songs and often wore revealing clothes. Kane thought that she was the first one to use “boops” in her singing and sued Fletcher for it but evidence of Jones singing with her “boops” on camera a couple years prior proved otherwise. Max Fleischer took inspiration from Jones and Kane and in the 1930’s created an animated TV show now known as Betty Boop. At first though she was a more half human-half poodle dog character but later was finalized into a sexy young woman. Betty Boop is widely well known as one of the first “sex symbols” ever, even before Marilyn Monroe. The Great Depression was a horrible time for everyone and sometimes people needed reminders of the amazing jazz times of the 20’s and Betty Boop was exactly that. She also brought in a huge male audience which brought in a lot of money. Some would say Fleisher was a creep for making a TV cartoon of a young sexy girl with big breasts, garters, and short dresses, which he is don’t get me wrong. However, he was smart about it and released the cartoon at the beggining of the Great Depression so at least he was a paid creep.
