10 Bizarre Origins Of Your Favourite Cartoon Characters

3. Betty Boop Was Originally A Dog

Yes, for real. Her boyfriend, Bimbo, was also a dog; then they changed her floppy ears to hooped earrings and made her one of the first and most famous sex symbols on the animated screen... but her boyfriend was still her dog. Erm, what? There's not many highly sexualised characters you can develop from an anthropomorphic French poodle, but that's exactly what Boop's creator, Max Fleisher, did: modelling her likeness on popular jazz singer, Helen Kane. It was only in 1932 that Bettie lost her dog snout and became a saucy human woman; flashing her knickers, spanking herself, and getting up to all sorts of surreal stuff with dogs and clowns. That's one messed up gal.