Betty Boop: model sheets, a mouth chart, and a walk cycle.

Model sheets, a mouth chart, and a walk cycle, for Betty Boop.

Her early Fleischer shorts (1932-1935) are masterpieces of delightful surrealism; they probably are my favorite cartoons. The characters are all casually deranged, happily bonkers, just going about their business, like lunatics in an open asylum. Betty is the one sane element–she’s the asylum’s nurse–so everyone is drawn towards her, swinging and bopping along whenever she starts to sing and dance. But the shorts could have eerie elements too, as one like “Snow-White” (1933) shows.

The draconian Motion Picture Production Code (or “Hays Code”) put an end to all that, unfortunately.