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Fifi
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Fifi |
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(An altered version of Fifi, due to copyright. She has since been restored to her "Betty Boop" look in new HD releases.) |
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(Flip's original frog counterpart Flap the Frog.) |
Fifi is a character that was created by Grim Natwick. She appeared in the Ub Iwerks Flip the Frog series, as Flip's girlfriend, replacing Flip's earlier girlfriends.
Flip's first girlfriend was a cat, she was later replaced by Flap the Frog, a frog love interest.
Under the direction of Powers' Celebrity Pictures, Iwerks was to create fresh cartoons that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would distribute. Tony the Frog was supposed to be the title of the first television show he was to produce, but Iwerks didn't like the idea, thus it was eventually changed to Flip.
Through Celebrity Productions, Inc., Ub Iwerks intended to release the series in both color and black and white. Being the first color sound cartoon series on the two-color British Multicolor System, the series garnered notice from the general public in England. The color versions of these shorts were shown in England, but not in the US, where they were manufactured.
From 1930 to 1933, Flip appeared in a number of cartoons published by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and produced by Celebrity Pictures. Beyond Flip, the serial had a large cast of recurrent characters, such as the mule Orace, Flip's dog, and a spinster who lived in the neighborhood.
As a personal acquaintance of Walt Disney in 1930, Ub Iwerks worked as an animator at the Disney Studios. After a series of disputes between the two, Iwerks departed Disney and went on to accept an offer from Pat Powers to create a cartoon studio of his own, Iwerks Studio, and get a salary of $300 a week, an offer that Disney was unable to match at the time.
Flip is a silent character sort of like Charlie Chaplin,[2] and Flip is known for using a "Boop" or "Boo" routine in his cartoon opening intro. Colorized artworks of Flip's girlfriend feature Fifi as a platinum blonde, however there is a possibility that she could be a redhead. Mary (voiced by Jane Withers) a character that looks similar to Fifi from the "Willie Whopper" series is also blonde.
It was Natwick's idea to change the concept for Flip's girlfriend, in which he made her resemble Betty Boop, a character he created for the Fleischer Studios in 1930. Flap the Frog was replaced by a human girl called Fifi.
Fifi was also animated by Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster, animators who were known for drawing and animating Betty Boop for the Fleischers. Culhane stated that Krazy Kat was not good as Felix the Cat, the loyalty to Max Fleischer, and excitement when Betty Boop became a hit, was their earnest efforts to make "Flip the Frog" a star, because Iwerks was their boss, and they liked him.
However when Max Fleischer saw other studios imitate the success of his Betty Boop character, he was upset and stated, "Since Betty Boop has reached stardom in motion pictures, it has come to my attention that other producers of animated cartoons are attempting to imitate the character created by me. I hereby serve notice that the character Betty Boop is fully protected by copyright registration and I intend to protect my interests to the fullest extent of the law against anyone attempting to use or imitate this character."
In the Looney Tunes animated series Buddy by Leon Schlesinger Productions, another Betty Boop copy-cat called Cookie also made her debut.
Fifi's design was later altered a little, and she was given longer hair but kept the spit curls. In some releases of Funny Face to avoid a copyright claim by King Features Syndicate and or the Fleischer Studios, they removed the spit curls. However in later prints that were released Fifi kept her original design.
She appeared in cartoons such as Funny Face, The Goal Rush, The Pony Express, Flip's Lunch Room and Pale Face. However the character was not successful as Betty Boop.
Gallery
Trivia
- Unlike Betty Boop, a majority of the drawn animated sequences for Fifi are drawn terribly.
- Betty is depicted as a more likeable character, whereas Fifi is made to be more mean and nastier.
- In some cartoons Fifi likes Flip, and in others she hates him.
- Because Grim Natwick drew and created the original base of Betty Boop in 1930, in actuality there should have been no problem him reusing it to create new characters.