Bimbo is a fat, black and white cartoon pup created by Fleischer Studios.

He is most well known for his

role in the Betty Boop cartoon series, where he featured as Betty's main love interest.A precursor design
of Bimbo, originally named Fitz, first appeared in the Out of the Inkwell series.

Bimbo was initially inspired by animation director Dick Huemer's work on Mutt and Jeff, who, when
working on the Out of the Inkwell series, decided to give protagonist Koko the Clown a canine
companion. Bimbo has the distinction of being the first known cartoon character in history to ever have
fully animated dialogue, as seen in the 1926 short My Old Kentucky Home, where a prototypical Bimbo
says "Follow the ball and join in, everybody!

Bimbo later became the protagonist and star of Fleischer's Talkartoons series, positioned as a rival to
Disney's Mickey Mouse, making his first named appearance as Bimbo in Hot Dog (1930), though Bimbo's
design would not become standardized until around 1931. The name Bimbo was chosen because in the
1920s the word was mostly associated with men who liked to fight.

He starred in several famous cartoon shorts of the 1930s, most notably Swing You Sinners!, Minnie the
Moocher and Bimbo's Initiation.

Bimbo became a less prominent character after his girlfriend Betty Boop gained unexpected stardom
and popularity with fans, with the Talkartoons cartoon retooled to give her top billing as the Betty Boop
series in 1932.

After Hays Code censorship rules began to strictly get enforced in 1934, Bimbo disappeared from future
Fleischer cartoons of the era, due to the implications of an anthropomorphic dog dating a human
girlfriend being considered too risqué.

About 56 years after his first absence from cartoons, Bimbo made a reappearance in 1989 as a major co-
star in the TV special The Betty Boop Movie Mystery. Then in First Publishing's 1990 comic Betty Boop's
Big Break with more of his original personality intact as a love interest of Betty. He has continued to
appear in various Betty Boop merchandise since then and has been reestablished as a mainstay of the
series.

In 2016, he appeared in Dynamite's Betty Boop comic mini-series as Betty's best friend with a secret
crush on her.