![]() ![]() Whether the Fleischers meant Betty Boop to be Jewish or were simply sprinkling Yiddishkeit for fun remains unclear. The “ Betty Boopedia” site declares there’s “little doubt as her Jewishness.” But her ethnic origins haven’t been lost to history. She’s also become something of feminist, hipster and LGBTQ icon. She became a retro classic and one of the most licensed characters in entertainment history. She eventually found a new form of success in the 1980s, when the merchandizing gold rush gave her a global exposure far greater than her cartoons ever did. In the following decades, her popularity declined, and despite a scattershot presence on TV, in movies and in comic strips, she never regained it. Gone were the Yiddishisms in her cartoons. When the Hays Code was enforced in 1934 and Boop went from vilde chaya to shaina maidel, her ethnic flavor was curbed too. On her 90th birthday, the Jewish origin story of Betty Boop.And in “Big Boss” it’s on the front of a police van. ![]() In 1932’s “ I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You,” it appears on a speedometer that pops out of Koko the Clown’s tuches. In “Dizzy Dishes,” it’s written on a ham thrown into the face of a hook-nosed restaurant patron with an Eastern European accent. The word “kosher” in Hebrew is a repeating gag. In 1931’s “ The Bum Bandit,” a melodramatic worm laments, “Oy yoy yoy yoy yoy yoy yoy!” In 1932’s “ Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle,” a darker-skinned Betty and her Pacific Islander tribe greet Bimbo the dog with “Ah, landsman! Shalom aleichem!” In 1933’s “ SOS,” a fish with a schnoz asks “ vhat can ve do?” and in the same year’s “ Betty Boop’s Big Boss,” her boss mutters a Yiddish-sounding “ pfui,” 1931’s “ Minding the Baby” and 1932’s “ Any Rags” and “ Betty Boop for President” show familiar scenes of tenement life, including dilapidated board fences, narrow alleys between mid-rise buildings strewn with clotheslines and accented neighbors yelling out windows. In other cartoons she’s unmistakably from the Depression-era Lower East Side. Either way, Boop is clearly a first-generation American child of European immigrants, something the Fleischers knew from personal experience. Some have claimed that the father wears a yarmulke, but it’s a bald spot, with a single hair sticking out like an antenna. Their ethnicity is ambiguous the accents are more German than Galician and the foods aren’t kosher. She likely was inspired, in part, by white Broadway star Helen Kane, who even tried suing the Fleischers (it’s possible that Kane borrowed from Esther, so there might be some DNA in there). She even voiced Boop’s cameo in 1988’s “ Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”Ĭontrary to the popular social media memes and widespread erroneous reporting, Betty Boop was not based on Baby Esther (Esther Lee Jones) or other Black performers, though she clearly reflected Jazz Age culture. It was Questel who gave Boop her distinctive sound, tinged with a New York accent. Photo by Getty Imagesīoop was originally voiced by actress Margie Hines and later by Mae Questel, a Jewish actress from the Bronx and Boop lookalike. ![]() She became the most famous sex symbol in animation (at least until Jessica Rabbit), dubbed in her theme song “Queen of the Animated Screen.” Mae Questel, a Jewish actress of the Bronx, was known as the voice of Betty Boop. Her “boop-oop-a-doop” became the catchphrase of the vibrant, independent American woman of the Jazz Age. Given the name Betty Boop, she became the lead of the Talkartoons and in 1932 was given her own series, which continued until 1939 and included 90 cartoons. She was brought back and soon made fully human, the first such female character in animation. She was fun, sassy, sexy and she stole the show. Though she was part poodle, it didn’t matter. She a singer in a strapless minidress with her garters peeking out. 9, 1930, included an unnamed side character, created by Max Fleischer and animator Grim Natwick. The seventh cartoon, “ Dizzy Dishes,” first shown on Aug. ![]()
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