The belief that jews ‘invented’ the famous cartoon character ‘Betty Boop’ – best-known as ‘Popeye’s’ love interest in the 1933 animated short film ‘Popeye the Sailor’ and then became a reoccurring character in the popular series of ‘Popeye’ animated cartoons thereafter – is pretty widespread (1) but yet it is complete and utter nonsense.
The claim usually goes that ‘Betty Boop’ was created by the jewish Hollywood director Max Fleischer – born Majer Fleischer in Krakow, Poland - who then headed ‘Fleischer Studios’ in 1929, which first produced an animated short film with ‘Betty Boop’ in it in 1930 called ‘Dizzy Dishes’ which was part of Fleischer Studios’ ‘Talkartoon’ series of animated short films.
So far so good, but the problem is that Fleischer only directed ‘Dizzy Dishes’; he didn’t create ‘Betty Boop’ and indeed his instructions to the animator who did - Grim Natwick (aka Myron Natwick but born Myron Nordveig [whose descent was purely Norwegian]) were vague at best and the ‘Betty Boop’ character was simply created ex nihilo by Natwick for Fleischer.
As Leonard Maltin explains:
‘The sixth Talkartoon of 1930 introduced the character that became Betty Boop. In Dizzy Dishes she was actually a hybrid of a dog and a sexy girl, with a voluptuous feminine body but dog ears and a canine nose. (Why make her a dog at all? To appeal to the natural instincts of Bimbo, himself a humanized dog.) This character was invented and drawn by Grim Natwick, a Fleischer veteran of several years with a substantial background not only in animation but in art. Animation historians, as well as Natwick’s own colleagues, agree that only he would have had the ability and the confidence to devise a female character with an even remotely realistic body. Hardly anyone else in the studio could animate it.’ (2)
Subsequently the character was slightly redrawn by Natwick eventually helped by James ‘Shamus’ Culhane (of Irish origin) and Alfred ‘Al’ Eugster (of German origin). (3) Despite desperate attempts to injected jews into the mix and downplay Natwick’s creation of ‘Betty Boop’ in 1930 by Ray Pointer (4) and a multitude of less educated attempts to claim that ‘Betty Boop’ was ‘created by a jew’. (5)
However, the truth is concisely stated by Stephen Worth who declares that:
‘In 1921 Natwick became an animator for the Hearst Film Service. Later, Grim went to work for Max and Dave Fleischer, and created Betty Boop.’ (6)
So no ‘Betty Boop’ was not a ‘jewish invention’.
References
(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/comments/18q24ls/what_are_some_things_that_were_invented_by_jews/?rdt=58394
(2) Leonard Maltin, 1980, ‘Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons’, 1st Edition, McGraw-Hill: New York, p. 96
(3) Idem.
(4) Ray Pointer, 2017, ‘The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer: American Animation Pioneer’, 1st Edition, McFarland: Jefferson, p. 116
(5) For example: https://forward.com/culture/513599/betty-boop-jewish-fleischer-studios-cartoon-depression-mae-questel/ and https://www.jta.org/jewniverse/2016/betty-boops-secret-jewish-past
(6) https://web.archive.org/web/20090520052823/http://www.cartoonhalloffame.org/2005/12/natwick-myron-grim.html