Betty Boop made her first appearance on August 8, 1930
in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the sixth installment in
Fleischer's Talkartoon series. She was little like her
soon-to-be-famous self, however. Grim Natwick, a veteran
animator of both Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' studios,
was largely responsible for creating the character, which
he modeled on Helen Kane, a famous singer, who also performed
as an actress at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed
Fleischer's cartoons. In keeping with common practice,
Natwick made his new character an animal, in this case,
a French poodle. Beginning with this cartoon, the character's
voice was performed by several different voice actresses
until Mae Questel got the role and kept it for the rest
of the series in 1931.
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