Betty Boop, the first major female animated screen star, epitomized the irresistible flapper in a series of more than one hundred highly successful cartoons in the 1930s. From her debut as a minor character in the 1930 Talkartoons short feature "Dizzy Dishes," she quickly became the most popular character created for the Fleischer Studio, a serious animation rival to Walt Disney. Unlike Disney's Silly Symphonies, which emphasized fine, life-like drawings and innocent themes, the Fleischer films featuring Betty Boop were characterized by their loose, metamorphic style and more adult situations designed to appeal to the grown members of the movie-going audience. According to animation historian Charles Solomon, Betty Boop "was the archetypal flapper, the speakeasy Girl Scout with a heart of gold—already something of an anachronism in 1930." Although her appearance rooted her to the Jazz Age, Betty Boop's popularity remained high throughout the decade of the...