On the 16th of January 1932, seventy five years ago, the Max Fleischer Talkartoon Boop-oop-a-Doop was released.
Betty Boop was modeled by Grim Natwick, after singer / actress
Helen Kane.
He used a image of a sheet cover he had found of her and took Kane's physical features and blended them with a poodle. That's why Betty looks more like a dog then a human being in the first cartoons. In Boop-Oop-a-Doop Betty is formed as the beloved Boop-boop-a-doop girl as we know her.
Helen Kane made a lot of recordings with Leonard Joy and his Orchestra around 1930. It's funny to listen to, because her voice sounds like Betty's ( or is it the other way around?). Betty's voice was done by Mae Questel, who made some records too as Betty Boop.
By 1932, with Boop-Oop-a-Doop as a good example, Betty's character was completely modified, no longer a poodle, but a femme fatale as we know her.
Her cartoons were labeled Talkartoons. She also made Screen Songs, films concentrated on a song, to sing along with the bouncing ball.
When you watch these early Betty Boop cartoons, you will be astonished about the rather open sexual themes. In the mid 1930s, with a more stricter censorship laws for films, her garter, short skirts and decolletage were gone and she became a cartoon figure suitable for little children.
A Betty Boop Screen Song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lVAi323RQQ
