Betty Boop
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Betty Boop The best case study in animation to illustrate the powerful influence society has over the types of films that are produced is the story of Betty Boop. She was a major cartoon character before the Production Code of 1934 was put into place, and her dramatic and fatal transformation illustrates how a product created under one set of standards often withers when placed in a new set. At the same time, the Code alone cannot explain why this dizzy little flapper degenerated so quickly. Betty Boop exists today solely as a merchandising item. Betty's face and figure can be found on T-shirts, posters, and all sorts of things. Her current popularity in merchandise is somewhat puzzling, as the Fleischers released all of her short cartoons before 1940, save for a halfhearted TV special in the early 1980s and a brief cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While colorized versions of her cartoons exist, they were never given the same degree of exposure as the colorized versions of Max Fleischer's Popeye cartoons. Seen today, it is easy to see why these cartoons were often revived in the trippy 1960s. While not psychedelic by any means, they are 'off beat' with other animation. Seeing them for the first time, one can hardly believe one's eyes...