Helen Kane Lawsuit

Helen Kane lawsuit

In May of 1932, Helen Kane filed a $250,000 lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount Publix Corporation for the "deliberate caricature" that produced "unfair competition" that exploited her personality and image. While Kane had risen to fame in the 1920s as "The Boop-Oop-A-Doop Girl" star of stage, recordings, and films for Paramount, her career was pretty much over by 1931. Interestingly, Paramount promoted the development of Betty Boop following Kane's decline. The case ended up dragging on for more than two years. As Kane's claims seemed on the surface to be valid, it was proven that her appearance was not unique, as both she and the Betty Boop character bore a resemblance to Clara Bow, another major Paramount star. However, the largest evidence against Miss Kane's case was her claims to the origins of her singing style. While an outgrowth of jazz "scat singing," testimony revealed that Kane had witnessed an African American performer, Baby Esther, using a similar vocal style in an act at the Cotton Club nightclub in Harlem some years earlier. An early test sound film was discovered of Baby Esther performing in this style, disproving Kane's claims.

Betty tamed

Betty Boop's best appearances are considered to be in the first three years due to her "Jazz Baby" character and innocent sexuality, which was aimed at adults. However, the content of her films was affected by the National Legion of Decency and the Production Code of 1933. The Production Code guidelines imposed on the Motion Picture Industry placed specific restrictions on the content films with references to sexual innuendo. This greatly affected the content of the films of Mae West at Paramount, as well as the Betty Boop cartoons until the end of the series.

No longer a carefree flapper, from mid-1934 on, Betty became a husbandless housewife/career girl, wearing a fuller dress or skirt. For a few entries, she was given a boyfriend, "Freddie," who was introduced in She Wronged Him Right (1934) and appeared in five more cartoons. Next, Betty was teamed with her cute puppy, "Pudgy", beginning with Little Pal (1934). The following year saw the addition of the eccentric inventor Grampy, who debuted in Betty
Boop and Grampy (1935).

While these cartoons were tame compared to her earlier appearances, their self-conscious wholesomeness was aimed at more of a juvenile audience, which contributed to the decline of the series. Much of this decline was also due to the lessening of Betty's role in the cartoons in favor of her co-stars. This was a similar problem experienced during the same period with Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, who was becoming eclipsed by the popularity of his co-stars Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto, not to mention Fleischer's biggest success, Popeye.

Being 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 additional spinoff series as with her pairing with Popeye in 1933. However, none of these films generated new series. While the period 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, which was not a success.

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), she drives an open convertible labeled, "Betty Boop's Swing Band", while driving 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 one more 1939 entry, Yip Yip
Yippy, which was actually a Boop-less one shot cartoon.

TV and DVD

In 1955, Betty's 110 cartoon appearances were sold to television syndicator UM&M TV Corporation, which was acquired by National Telefilm Associates (NTA) the following year. NTA was reorganized in the 1980s as Republic Pictures, which is presently a subsidiary of Viacom, the parent company owning Paramount. Ironically, Paramount, Boop's original home studio (via sister company Republic), now acts as theatrical distributor for the Boop cartoons they themselves originally released. Television rights are now handled by Trifecta Entertainment & Media, which in 2009 took over from CBS Television Distribution, successor to various related companies, including Worldvision Enterprises, Republic, and NTA.

The only exception to the above is Popeye the Sailor, which was sold to Associated Artists Productions with the rest of the Popeye cartoons. a.a.p. would eventually merge with United Artists Television, which itself became MGM/UA Television in 1981 as part of the merger between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists. MGM/UA's considerable library was bought by Turner Entertainment in 1986. Turner would merge with Time Warner 10 years later, and today, Turner/Warner Bros. holds the rights to Popeye the Sailor and all the rest of the a.a.p. and pre-1986 MGM library.

Betty Boop appeared in two television specials, The Romance of Betty Boop (1984) and The Betty Boop Movie Mystery (1989) and both specials are available on DVD as part of the Advantage Cartoon Mega Pack. She has made cameo appearances in television commercials and the 1988 feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While television revivals were conceived, nothing materialized from these plans.

While the animated cartoons of "Betty Boop" have enjoyed a remarkable rediscovery over the last 30 years, official home video releases have been limited to the VHS and LaserDisc collector's set of the 1990s. In spite of continued interest, no official DVD releases have occurred to date (Lionsgate Home Entertainment, under license from Republic, owns the video rights to the Boop cartoons). Ironically, the image of Betty Boop has gained more recognition through the massive merchandising license launched by the heirs of Max Fleischer, with audiences today unaware of Betty's place in cinema and animation history.

Comic strips

The Betty Boop comic strip by Bud Counihan (assisted by Fleischer staffer Hal Seeger) was distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1934 through 1937. From 1984 through 1988, a revival strip with his co-star Felix the Cat, Betty Boop and Felix, was produced by Mort Walker's sons Brian, Neal, Greg and Morgan.