[Cronos]

I thought it was common knowledge that Betty Boop’s singing style and signature catchphrase were directly inspired by a Black jazz singer named Esther Jones while her visual appearance and look after popular white flappers of the era, primarily singer Helen Kane.

In 1932, Helen Kane sued Fleischer Studios and Paramount Publix Corporation for $250,000. She claimed they had stolen her likeness and her famous, baby-voiced “boop-oop-a-doop” singing style. But this backfired on Kane during the New York Supreme Court trial. Fleischer’s defense team proved that Kane did not invent the baby-voiced scatting style. Instead, Kane had stolen it from a young Black child performer named Esther Jones, known on stage as “Baby Esther”

Baby Esther was famous for dancing, making funny faces, and interpolating childlike scat sounds like “boo-boo-boo” and “doo-doo-doo” into her jazz routines

The upcoming Betty Boop feature film will focus on the origin and evolution of Betty Boop through the perspective of her creator, Max Fleischer.

So I think this isn’t race swapping as much as exploring the comingling of races in the jazzy twenties

[Red Badger]

If this is to be a historical docudrama and not a live action version of a Betty Boop cartoon, then it will do well.

I hope it is better than that other live-action Max Fleischer project POPEYE film starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duval from 1980............

[Uncle Miltie]

[Uncle Miltie]

Which are people familiar with?

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Betty Boop was inspired by Helen Kane.

I'm sorry to break the news to you, but Negroes didn't not invent
everything—not even peanut butter or Egyptian airplanes.

[Vermont Lt]

I like Brunson. She is a funny woman.

I doubt this would have been a movie I watched in the first place. I never liked “Betty Boop.”

At best, this would be a Netflix watch on a snowy Tuesday afternoon. And that means it would never happen.

[Captain Compassion]

It was my understanding that the first Betty Boop was black.

[DiogenesLamp]

This is nonsense. Fleischer absolutely based the character on Helen Kane, and then dragged up this other woman to "prove" he didn't.

Oddly enough, over the years i've learned more about "Betty Boop" than I ever cared to know.

Max Fleischer was caught dead to rights, and he pulled a swindle to convince a bought off court to let him get away with it.

Esther Jones is just a pawn in this story.