Trivia / Betty Boop

• Actor-Shared Background: Stopping the Show has Betty Boop performing on a vaudeville stage doing impressions of famous singers. Mae Questel got her start as a vaudeville singer/impressionist.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: While Betty's "Boop Oop A Doop" Character Catchphrase is sung in some of the opening titles (which was dropped later in the series), a fan might be surprised to find that it is very rarely said in the actual cartoons.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Betty Boop still appears on a lot of merchandise, despite the fact that a large number of the people buying the merchandise have probably never watched a Betty Boop cartoon in their lives (and probably would freak out if they saw any of her pre-Hays Code stuff).
• Development Hell: There have been multiple attempts to revive the brand over the decades, most of them petering out without any fanfare. The latest is a Betty Boop cartoon series that was announced in 2016 and was set to air 2018 before being pushed back to 2020 and has received no major updates since. There is also a stage show which also has had no updates about its status aside from its existence.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Four shorts from 1938 - "Honest Love and True," "Pudgy and the Lost Kitten," "Buzzy Boop," and its sequel "Buzzy Boop at the Concert" - were left out by Paramount when they sold the Betty Boop cartoons to TV. While the second and third aforementioned made their way online, "Honest Love and True" is (as of 2022) only available through a print with French text and translations. "Buzzy Boop at the Concert" was located at a Russian archive in 2019.
  • "Accordion Joe" (1930) was originally thought to be lost until Tom Stathes found the short in 2016 and was later posted to YouTube in 2023.
• Missing Episode: "In the Shade of the Old Apple Sauce" (1931).
• The Other Darrin: Mae Questel is most associated as Betty's voice actress, and she did voice the character the most, but Margie Hines, Kate Wright, Ann Rothschild, Bonnie Poe, and Harriet Lee also provided her voice in some shorts, particularly in the beginning.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There is a viral hoax that Betty was based off of a black woman named Esther Jones. This stems from the trial between Fleischer Studios and Helen Kane as to whether Betty was infringing on Kane's image. Footage of Jones performing a similar act supposedly earlier than Kane was used to swing the court case in Fleischer's favour. A photo allegedly of Jones attached to the hoax version is actually a black woman cosplaying Boop in 2008.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: In 1938, Max Fleischer allegedly drew a short of Betty Boop and Popeye having sex as a gift to artists who agreed to relocate to Fleischer Studios in Florida. It was fully-inked, and had both a music score and a vocal score. However, it was only seen once and it is unknown if the short ever actually existed.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • One of the first targets of the Hays Code, Fleischer Studios were forced to change Betty from a flirtatious flapper girl into a much more demure, conservative character and replaced most of her supporting cast for more generic sidekicks. This basically destroyed any appeal or originality she had and she was quickly overshadowed by the likes of Mickey Mouse and Popeye.
  • Part of the reason why Betty Boop has never seen a major modern revival is because the series has changed hands between major studios so many times that nobody knows exactly who currently owns the character's trademark and copyright, with Fleischer Studios, Paramount and various other companies frequently butting heads over who has the right to make new Betty films and shows.
• Screwed by the Network: The unmade 1993 MGM movie nearly ready to start full production when a change in studio management and disagreements between the license holders caused the project to be shut down overnight.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In 1993, MGM put a Betty Boop animated film in pre-production, with Bernadette Peters attached to play the title role. It would have been comedic love story about Betty and her friends going to Hollywood to become famous, as well as Betty reconnecting with her estranged father, Benny Boop. It also would have been set in the 1930s but would have had a "decidedly modern twist" to it. The film was reportedly 75 to 90 percent storyboarded and ready to begin voice over recording when it was canceled due to administrative changeover at MGM following the Giancarlo Parretti fiasco, as well as legal disagreements between the three major license holders of the franchise at the time. Various concept art and a storyboarded music scene from the film has found their way to the internet over the years.
  • In 1996, Richard Fleischer was close to getting Fred Wolf Films to greenlight the production of a new Betty Boop animated series about the character becoming an intergalactic waitress. Unfortunately, it never got of the ground due to issues with licensing and budget.
  • In 2016, it was announced that Betty would receive another animated series to be released in 2018. This time it would have been produced by Normaal Animation in association with Fleischer Studios and King Features. Even after its intended premiere date has passed, nothing came out of the show.
• Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: Despite the character being the Ur-Example of a cartoon Ms. Fanservice for men, much of her merchandise is aimed at women.