History of Betty Boop in Timeline

May 1928

Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified that Kane had witnessed an African-American child performer, Baby Esther (Esther Jones), using a similar vocal style in an act at the Everglades Restaurant club in midtown Manhattan, in "April or May 1928". Under cross-examination Bolton said that he had met with Kane at the club after Esther's performance, but could not say when she had walked in. Bolton also stated that Paramount's lawyers had paid him $200 to come to New York. Esther's name was given in the trial as Esther Jones. (During the trial, Lou Bolton, who was Esther Jones' manager, also testified his belief that she was probably in Paris. ) An early test sound-on-disc film (lost after the trial), was produced, which featured Esther performing in this style and introduced as evidence. In the film, Esther sings three songs that had earlier been popularized by Helen Kane – "Don't Be Like That", "Is There Anything Wrong with That?", and "Wa-da-da" – which writer Mark Langer says "was hardly proof that Helen Kane derived her singing style from Baby Esther". Jazz studies scholar Robert O'Meally stated this evidence, though, "might very well have been cooked up by the Fleischers to discredit Kane, whom they later admitted to have been their model for Betty Boop." O'Meally also questioned if some sort of deal existed between Paramount and Bolton, and questioned if Esther were ever paid for her presumed loss of revenue.

August 09, 1930

Betty Boop made her first appearance in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, released on August 9, 1930, the seventh installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. Inspired by a popular performing style, the character was originally created as an anthropomorphic French poodle. Clara Bow is sometimes given credit as being the inspiration for Boop, though Fleischer told his artists that he wanted a caricature of singer Helen Kane. Kane later sued Fleischer over the signature "Boop Oop a Doop" line. Betty Boop appeared as a supporting character in ten cartoons as a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons, she was called "Nancy Lee" or "Nan McGrew"—derived from the Helen Kane film Dangerous Nan McGrew (1930)—usually serving as a girlfriend to studio star Bimbo.

1932

Minnie the Moocher defined Betty's character as a teenager of a modern era, at odds with the old-world ways of her parents. In the cartoon, after a disagreement with her strict parents, Betty runs away from home, accompanied by her boyfriend Bimbo, only to get lost in a haunted cave. A ghostly walrus (rotoscoped from live-action footage of Calloway) sings Calloway's song "Minnie the Moocher", accompanied by several other ghosts and skeletons. This haunting performance sends the frightened Betty and Bimbo back to the safety of home. "Minnie the Moocher" served as a promotion for Calloway's subsequent stage appearances and also established Betty Boop as a cartoon star. The eight Talkartoons that followed all starred Betty, leading her into her own series beginning in 1932. With the release of Stopping the Show (August 1932), the Talkartoons were replaced by the Betty Boop series, which continued for the next seven years.

May 1932

In May 1932, Helen Kane filed a $250,000 infringement lawsuit against Fleischer Studios, Max Fleischer and Paramount Publix Corporation for the "deliberate caricature" that produced "unfair competition", exploiting her personality and image. While Kane had risen to fame in the late 1920s as "The Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl", a star of stage, recordings, and films for Paramount, her career was nearing its end by 1931, and Paramount promoted the development of Betty Boop following Kane's decline. The case was brought in New York in 1934. On April 19, Fleischer testified that Betty Boop purely was a product of his imagination and detailed by members of his staff.

1933

Since she was largely a musical novelty character, the animators attempted to keep Betty's cartoons interesting by pairing her with popular comic strip characters such as Henry, The Little King and Little Jimmy, hoping to create an additional spin-off series with her pairing with Popeye in 1933. None of these films, though, generated a new series. When the flapper/jazz era that Betty represented had been replaced by the big bands of the swing era, Fleischer Studios made an attempt to develop a replacement character in this style in the 1938 Betty Boop cartoon Betty Boop and Sally Swing, but it was not a success.

1934

Betty appeared in the first "Color Classic" cartoon Poor Cinderella, her only theatrical color appearance in 1934. In the film, which was filmed in Cinecolor, she was depicted with red hair as opposed to her typical black hair.

July 01, 1934

No longer a carefree flapper from the date the code went into effect on July 1, 1934, Betty became a spinster housewife or a career girl who wore a fuller dress or skirt. Additionally, as time progressed, the curls in her hair gradually decreased in number. She also eventually stopped wearing her gold bracelets and hoop earrings, and she became more mature and wiser in personality, compared to her earlier years. Right from the start, Joseph Breen, the new head film censor, had numerous complaints. Breen ordered the removal of the suggestive introduction that had started the cartoons because Betty Boop's winks and shaking hips were deemed "suggestive of immorality". For a few entries, Betty was given a new human boyfriend named Freddy, who was introduced in She Wronged Him Right (1934). Next, Betty was teamed with a puppy named Pudgy, beginning with Betty Boop's Little Pal (1934). The following year saw the addition of the eccentric inventor Grampy, who debuted in Betty Boop and Grampy (1935).

July 23, 1934

The Betty Boop comic strip by Bud Counihan (assisted by Fleischer staffer Hal Seeger) was distributed by King Features Syndicate from July 23, 1934, to November 28, 1937. From November 19, 1984, to January 31, 1988, a revival strip with Felix the Cat, Betty Boop and Felix, was produced by Mort Walker's sons Brian, Neal, Greg, and Morgan. In 1990, First Comics published Betty Boop's Big Break, a 52-page original graphic novel by Joshua Quagmire, Milton Knight, and Leslie Cabarga. In 2016, Dynamite Entertainment published new Betty Boop comics with 20 pages in the alternative American graphic novel style; four issues were released.

1939

The last Betty Boop cartoons were released in 1939, and a few made attempts to bring Betty into the swing era. In her last appearance, Rhythm on the Reservation (1939), Betty drives an open convertible, labeled "Betty Boop's Swing Band", through a Native American reservation, where she introduces the people to swing music and creates a "Swinging Sioux Band". The Betty Boop cartoon series officially ended with Yip Yip Yippy (1939). While Yip Yip Yippy appears at the end of the Betty Boop series, it is actually a one-shot about a "Drug Store" mail-order cowboy "wannabe" without Betty, which was written mainly to fill the release schedule and fulfill the contract.

1954

Ownership of the Boop cartoons has changed hands over the intervening decades due to a series of corporate mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. In 1954 Paramount Pictures sold the TV rights to UM&M TV Corp, Paramount was selling off all of their library to pay off debts. UM&M TV Corp. went bankrupt before ever distributing the films, they only got as far as modifying the original masters with their TV titles. In 1955 National Telefilm Associates purchased all of the licenses & films owned by UM&M TV Corp. and made 16mm prints to distribute to TV stations. In 1985 NTA changed their name to Republic Pictures since much of their feature film library was old Republic movies. Aaron Spelling Productions absorbed the new Republic Pictures in 1994 and shortly after was acquired by Viacom, which also acquired Paramount Pictures. Then in 2006 Viacom made a corporate split into two separate companies: CBS Corporation and Paramount Pictures (the original distributor). As of 2021, Olive Films (under license from Paramount) holds home video rights and Trifecta retains television rights.

1954

While the animated cartoons featuring Betty Boop have enjoyed renewed attention over the last 30 years, official home video releases had been limited to the VHS and LaserDisc collector's sets in the 1990s. No such releases for the Betty Boop cartoons on DVD and Blu-ray were made until 2013, when Olive Films, under license from Paramount Home Entertainment, finally released the non-public domain cartoons. Although they were restored from the original internegatives, these were altered in 1954 by the now-defunct TV distributor U.M. & M., and the altered opening and closing credits appear on these discs. Volume 1 was released on August 20, 2013, followed by Volume 2 on September 24, 2013, Volume 3 on April 29, 2014, and Volume 4 on September 30, 2014.

1955

In 1955, Betty's 110 cartoon appearances were sold to television syndicator U.M. & M. TV Corporation, which was acquired by National Telefilm Associates (NTA) in 1956. NTA was reorganized in 1985 as Republic Pictures, which folded in 2012, and became Melange Pictures, a subsidiary of Paramount Global, the parent company of Paramount. Paramount, Boop's original home studio (via Melange/Paramount Global), acts as a theatrical distributor for the Boop cartoons that they originally released. Television rights are handled on Paramount's behalf by Trifecta Entertainment & Media, which in turn were inherited from CBS Television Distribution (renamed CBS Media Ventures in 2021), successor to other related companies, including Worldvision Enterprises, Republic Pictures Television, and NTA.

1955

The Betty Boop films were revived after Paramount sold them for syndication in 1955. UM&M and National Telefilm Associates were required to remove the original Paramount logo from the opening and closing, as well as any references to Paramount in the copyright line on the main titles. However, the mountain motif remains on some television prints, usually with a UM&M copyright line, while recent versions have circulated with the Paramount-Publix reference in cartoons from 1931.

1958

The rights to the "Betty Boop" character were not sold with the cartoons by Paramount, but were transferred to Harvey Comics in 1958 along with the 'Famous Studios' cartoon characters (Casper, Herman & Katnip, Baby Huey, etc.), regardless of whether they had the rights to transfer Betty Boop, according to a 2011 US Court verdict. The courts, however, were unable to come to a majority decision concerning ownership of the copyright. A trademark on the name (but not legitimately the likeness) of Betty Boop is owned by Fleischer Studios, for which the character was created in the 1930s, but which was unable to claim copyright infringement in a 2008 district court case; the merchandising rights to Betty's name were licensed to King Features Syndicate, until 2021 but since then are licensed to Global Icons Inc.

1985

Betty Boop appeared in two television specials, The Romance of Betty Boop in 1985, which was produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, the same creative team behind the Peanuts specials, and 1989's The Betty Boop Movie Mystery; both specials are available on DVD as part of the Advantage Cartoon Mega Pack. While television revivals were conceived, nothing has materialized from the plans. Her most recent television appearance was an episode of Project Runaway All Stars in February 2018.

1985

Marking Betty Boop's 55th birthday, in 1985, she made her first appearance as a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. The balloon held more than 15,000 cubic feet (420 m ) of helium and was 67 feet (20 m) tall. The balloon did not finish the 1986 parade due to collapsing near Times Square. The balloon appeared again in 1987 then returned for occasional use in the 1990s.

1993

In 1993, plans were made for an animated feature film of Betty Boop, but they were later cancelled. The musical storyboard scene of the proposed film can be seen online. The finished reel consists of Betty and her estranged father performing a jazz number together called "Where are you?" Jimmy Rowles and Sue Raney provide the vocals for Betty and Benny Boop.

1994

Betty Boop's popularity has continued into popular culture. In the Green Acres episode "School Days", Oliver quips that Lisa "has a lot of Betty Boop in her". In Drawn Together, Betty is the inspiration for Toot Braunstein. Rapper Betty Boo based her voice and image on Betty Boop. The 1933 Betty Boop cartoon Snow-White (not to be confused with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) was selected for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress in the National Film Registry in 1994. Betty appears in the Ink and Paint club scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Betty is parodied in the Animaniacs episode "Girl with the Googily Goop", with the Boop character called "Googi Goop". The episode, made predominantly in black and white, is also a parody of "Little Red Riding Hood". Googi was voiced by one-time Betty Boop voice actress Desirée Goyette. Beatress Johnson, a character in American Mary, has had extensive plastic surgery to resemble Betty Boop. Betty Boop appeared with model Daria Werbowy in a commercial for Lancôme's Hypnôse Star Mascara, directed by Joann Sfar. In March, 2017, Betty appeared with fashion designer Zac Posen in an animated promotional short produced by King Features Syndicate, Fleischer Studios (its subsidiary) and Pantone.

1998

In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Betty Boop was voiced one more time by Mae Questel before her death in 1998. The character appears in a scene with detective Eddie Valiant. At the end, she appears in the crowd with a group of other cartoon characters who all sing "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!".

2005

Several life-size statues of Betty exist, one example was displayed in San Diego's Comic-Con Museum in 2024 and another – sans head – has been in a Norfolk, Virginia, gift shop. The head, valued at $2,000, was stolen in 2005 and never recovered.

2010

In 2010, Betty Boop became the official fantasy cheerleader for the upstart United Football League. She was featured in merchandise targeted towards the league's female demographic.

April 2011

In April 2011, Funny or Die parodied the character in a trailer spoof for a film called Boop, with Rose McGowan as Betty.

August 14, 2014

Producers Steven Paul Leiva and Jerry Rees began production on a new Betty Boop feature film for the Zanuck Company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The script by Rees detailed Betty's rise in Hollywood in the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was to be a musical with music by jazz musician Bennie Wallace and lyrics by Cheryl Ernst Wells. Wallace and Wells had completed several songs and 75% of the film had been storyboarded when, two weeks before voice recording was to begin with Bernadette Peters as Betty, the head of MGM, Alan Ladd Jr., was replaced by Frank Mancuso, and the project was abandoned. On August 14, 2014, Simon Cowell's Syco and Animal Logic announced they were developing a feature-length film based on the character.

May 2022

In May 2022, animator and archivist Steve Stanchfield released The Other Betty Boop Cartoons, Volume 1 through his label Thunderbean Animation, consisting of the public domain Betty Boop cartoons not included in the Olive Films sets. It also included the recently-discovered 1938 cartoon Honest Love and True.

November 19, 2023

A musical entitled Boop! The Musical, with music by David Foster, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead and book by Bob Martin, made its pre-Broadway debut at the CIBC Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, from November 19, 2023, to December 24, 2023. Direction and choreography were by Jerry Mitchell, and the musical starred Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop, with Faith Prince as Valentina, Ainsley Melham as Dwayne, Erich Bergen as Raymond, Stephen DeRosa as Grampy, Angelica Hale as Trisha and Anastacia McCleskey as Carol.

2025

Betty Boop is a cartoon character designed by Grim Natwick at the request of Max Fleischer. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She was featured in 90 theatrical cartoons between 1930 and 1939. She has also been featured in comic strips and prolific mass merchandising throughout the decades, and two television specials in the 1980s. In 2025, Boop! The Musical debuted on Broadway.

March 11, 2025

The show began preview performances on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on March 11, 2025, and opened officially on April 5 with the same cast and creative team. Reviews were mixed-to-positive. It was nominated for 11 Drama Desk Awards, the most of any 2025 production, winning 3, and was nominated for three Tony Awards. It closed on July 13, 2025, after 25 previews and 112 regular performances.

January 01, 2026

Under US copyright law, the earliest appearances of Betty Boop entered the public domain on January 1, 2026. However, Fleischer Studios still retains trademark rights on Betty Boop's name and image, which unlike copyrights, do not expire unless it ceases to be used by the rights holder. Paramount Pictures still own the copyright to current versions of the character.