Betty Boop is noteworthy for being the first cartoon character to fully represent a sexual woman. Other female characters of the same period showed their panties regularly, like Minnie Mouse, but didn't have a full caricature of a woman's form. Betty, however, reveled in her sexuality. She wore short dresses and a garter belt. Her breasts were prominent, and she showed her cleavage. In her cartoons, other characters try to sneak peeks at her while she's changing. In Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle, she does the hula wearing only a lei and a grass skirt, a bit she repeated in her cameo appearance in the first Popeye cartoon.

Nevertheless, the animators made sure to keep the character "pure" and girl-like (officially, she was only 16 years old). As Betty tells Koko the Clown in the film Boop-Oop-A-Doop after being threatened by a salacious ringmaster, "He couldn't take my boop-oop-a-doop away!"

Her cartoons also stood out from the competition due to their upbeat jazz soundtracks. In addition to three cartoons with soundtracks by Cab Calloway, guest bands for Betty Boop cartoons included the bands of Louis Armstrong, Rudy Vallee, and Don Redman. Ethel Merman, Irene Bordoni and Reis and Dunn also appeared in a few shorts as guest performers.

The adult sensibilities of Betty's cartoons made her a hit, and a wave of merchandising soon swept the world. Meanwhile, Helen Kane, who had inspired the character in 1930, sued the Fleischer studio in 1934 for allegedly stealing her trademark look, dancing and singing style, and catchphrase. Kane lost the suit (and her boop-oop-a-doop) when the Fleischers proved that the phrase had been used by other performers before Kane.

In the end, Betty's heightened sexuality would spell her doom. The Production Code censorship laws enforced beginning in 1934 forced her to wear a longer skirt and less revealing neckline. Betty was no longer a flapper; she was a husbandless housewife with a little dog named Pudgy. The animators struggled to keep Betty's cartoons interesting by pairing her with popular comic strip characters, but none of these films were very successful (though one such pairing did propel Popeye to stardom of his own). Betty's cartoon career came to an end, at least temporarily, in 1939.

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