“ In interviews, Natwick has remarked that the original inspiration for Betty Boop was a song sheet he saw of a performer named Helen Kane. He held up the drawing next to the pretty girl design, and asked, ‘Which would you rather have as your girlfriend? A girl? Or a dog?’ Dave laughed and agreed that the pretty girl was the right choice.”, “Exhibit: Grim Natwick In New York,” AnimationResources.Org - Serving the Online Animation Community, 19 January 2018. Grim quickly sketched Betty Boop’s head on a four-legged canine body. But Dave Fleischer objected, insisting that since Bimbo was a dog, his girlfriend should also be a dog. Grim streamlined and refined his caricature of Kane for the part. A few weeks later, Dave asked Grim to design a girlfriend for Bimbo to star as the “fair young maiden” in a cartoon adaptation of the popular song, ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’.

Grim exaggerated Kane’s wide eyes and rosebud mouth, creating a slightly coarse, but strikingly original design. Fleischer had found a sound-alike, and planned to use her in the upcoming Talkartoon, “Dizzy Dishes”. “One day, Dave Fleischer handed Grim a photograph of singer, Helen Kane and asked him to design a caricature. “The moral of the story is: stop sharing stuff without looking up context. The photo was taken in 2008 by Russian studio Retro Atelier. She is a Russian model known as Olya, in character as Betty Boop.

The woman at the right of the photo in the meme is not Esther Jones, or Helen Kane.

Betty boop dog form