Made Of Pen and Ink

There was a time when animated cartoons were promoted with full-page ads in the trade newspapers. It’s been a while since we posted some, so let’s pass along a few for the Fleischer studio’s greatest creation—Betty Boop.



Betty started out as a great character, even when she was dog-ish. Dizzy Dishes, Snow-White, Betty Boop, M.D., Minnie the Moocher, all great cartoons. She put in an appearance in Bimbo's Initiation, another enjoyable, creative cartoon. There are others, too.

Critics, starting with Leonard Maltin I guess, blamed enforcement of the Production Code in 1934 for the decline of Betty. But there was more to it than that. By 1934, flappers were a thing of the past. Their lifestyle belonged in the ‘20s when you couldn’t (legally) get booze, not in a time when you couldn’t get employment.

Dave Fleischer and the writers had to do something. So we got Pudgy. We got Grampy. We got Buzzy Boop. Then we got Sally Swing. This is from Paramount's internal newsletter in 1938.



Sally Swing’s invention made sense. Boop-oop-a-doop songs were passe. Swing and jitterbugging were now in. Why not have a character who reflected that?

The problem was Sally could sing and dance and...well, that’s about it. Betty had a personality. Sally Swing was one-note. (And her hair colour changed from Myron Waldman's drawing above).



But let's go back to the start of 1933. Betty was big. There was merchandise (and department store promotions). There was a radio show. There was a comic strip. There was a lawsuit filed by Helen Kane claiming Max Fleischer and Paramount stole her act and put it in Betty. On the screen, Betty had run for president, complete with impressions of Herbert Hoover and Al Smith. Theatres had “Betty Boop Booster” clubs to try to attract kids to Saturday matinees; at least one in Shreveport did.

Sidney Skosky's "Tintypes" column in the New York Daily News of January 16, 1933 was devoted to Betty and her best-known voice, the likeable Mae Questel.

BETTY BOOP. She's the handiwork of 100 artists working full time for five weeks when you see her on the screen. Plus that she's the voice of Mae Questel, who also works from four to five weeks.
For the synchronization takes that long. It is started when the animation is completed. An actual orchestra is used for the synchronization—music, sounds, singing, etc. It is done with the aid of a metronome which the performing artists follow meticulously.
It was eighteen months ago that Betty Boop emerged from the inkwell of Max Fleischer. Then she was merely one of the characters. But she booped her way to stardom.
Although the cartoon appears for only a short time on the screen, it necessitates tedious work. Fleischer took a year to finish his first six-minute subject. It consisted of 12,000 separate drawings.
The penciled lines were then traced over on celluloid and filmed in. Then they were photographed by a still camera. Synchronization followed and the finished product was ready for exhibition.
The same process still is followed, but instead of one artist, 100 are used. Fourteen chief artists draw the key scenes. The other action scenes are put in the hands of subordinate sketchers.
Next time you're watching one of these cartoons notice how many times a certain scene in passes review again and again as the action flies by. Those are the key scenes.
Betty Boop enjoyed only mild popularity until Mae Questel got the job. Then she became a favorite with the movie fans. Miss Questel almost looks like Betty Boop.
She is 5 feet 1 inch in height, has black, bobbed hair and sparkling eyes, and talks like Helen Kane.
In fact she began her theatrical career in an amateur impersonation contest in a Bronx theatre and won a prize for mimicking the boop-a-doop gal.
Up to that time she had been teaching elocution privately. So the voice you hear in that animated cartoon is that of an elocution teacher.
But after she won that amateur contest Mae deserted the classroom for the stage. She started out in vaudeville doing a single and later appeared with Waite Hoyt and Fred Coots when that act played the Palace. She also played in Nancy Carroll's flicker "Wayward." Played the role of the cute, fresh chorine.
It was when Max Fleischer was looking for a new Betty Boop—he had tried a number but they all failed—that she was sent to him. She was found to be perfect for the part. She was Betty Boop.
Fleischer will tell you she isn't Betty Boop, but that Betty Boop is Mae Questel. That's how good he believes she is.
In her job she must sing in German and French. She speaks French, German, Polish and Spanish. She got a medal at school for Spanish. She can and does do impersonations of Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Fannie Brice, Lyda Roberti, Rudy Vallee and others. There's no telling when, as Betty Boop, she may be called upon to do any of those characters.
She doesn't care that the audience only hears her but doesn't see her. She doesn't insist on being that type of a star. Now, however, all her friends and her boy friend call her Betty Boop. She's only 19, went to Morris High School, and is Russian-Polish.
She buys her clothes wholesale and is not individualistic in her style. Blue is her favorite color, for it brings out the color of her eyes. She has a scar on her right cheek, hardly perceptible. She received it when she fell down a flight of stairs when a kid.
She wears flannel nightgowns and sleeps alone. On cold wintry nights she wears woolen socks in bed.
She smokes, takes a drink now and then, and chews gum constantly. Often while she is recording a number for the cartoon she forgets herself and keeps chewing gum.
Her voice is the remarkable thing about her, which is why she's so good in a job where she's only a voice. The ability to change her voice allowed her to take eleven parts in one reel.
When she goes to the movies she likes to see those animated cartoons. Mae Questel's favorite is not Betty Boop. Just tell her where Mickey Mouse cartoon is playing and she'll be there.

By the way, Mae was 24 when the story was written.



Betty still has an audience today. Canadian David Foster has composed a musical that is apparently coming to Broadway. Why not? Betty sang in her cartoons, including on a theatre stage (1932's Stopping the Show). And her name is based on a line from Helen Kane’s famous song “I Wanna Be Loved By You.”

I don’t have time to watch cartoons much these days, but I took about eight minutes today to immerse myself in a 91-year-old animated short—Betty’s Snow-White. I defy anyone to say it’s not a brilliant cartoon. Bravo Betty.