In Touch With The Origin, Inspiration, and Creation Of The Cartoon Character Betty Boop

By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

There was a play performed at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City titled “Boop! The Musical.” Before coming to New York City, the play first debuted in a theater in Chicago, Illinois from November 19, 2023, to December 24, 2024, and then made its way to New York City to the Broadhurst Theater on March 11, 2025. It opened on April 5, 2025. It was nominated for 11 Drama Desk Awards, winning three, and nominated for three Tony Awards. It closed on July 13, 2025, after 25 previews and 112 regular performances. The actress who played Betty Boop was African American. Who was Betty Boop? What is her story? The story is about these musical words, “boop boop-a-doop,” made popular during the Jazz Age.

Esther Lee Jones, African American, was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1919-1920, or 1918-1921, her birth date has been a subject of discussion because there is no specific data on the birth date. Jones’ age is a subject of controversy. Esther became a trained scat singer, dancer, and acrobat who performed regularly at nightclubs in Harlem and all over the United States during the Jazz Age. She began performing on the stage at the age of four and was managed by her parents, William and Gertrude Jones. She was a child entertainer who danced, made funny faces, rolled her eyes, and sang a phrase, “boop-boop-a-doop.” She had stage names like Baby Esther, Little Esther, and Li’l Esther. At the age of seven, she was performing under the name of Baby Esther when Russian American talent agent, Lou Bolton, stepped in as her manager. Baby Esther’s performances at the Everglades Nite Club in New York City earned her a following, and she performed on a regular basis. In her cabaret act in April 1928 at the Everglades Nite Club, Jones was singing in her baby voice the phrase, “boop-boop-a-doop,” when white jazz singer Helen Kane decided to adopted Jones’ singing and scatting style. Jones’ performance inspired Kane to incorporate it into her own act. An act that would be immortalized in the Betty Boop cartoons.

Helen Kane (August 4, 1904 – September 26, 1966) was a singer and actress whose career had a launching point at the Paramount Theater in Times Square. She was singing “That’s My Weakness Now,’ when she interpolated the scat lyrics “boop-boop-a-doop” into the song and she became a stage star for several years singing in various Broadway shows, nightclubs, and recorded songs.

Max Fleischer, the owner of the Paramount Theatre and Studio, was inspired by Helen Kane’s baby voice for scatting lyrics and her signature phrase “boop-boop-a-doop” that he made a caricature of her in the Talkartoons cartoon “Dizzy Dishes.” He hired Mayron “Grim” Natwick, an American artist, animator, and film director to create the original design of the Betty Boop cartoon character. Natwick put Betty Boop in short dresses and garters as a flapper girl. Max Fleisher then put sound to the character’s voice, giving her a playful and flirtatious nature, and that coupled with her physical appearance, made her a sexualized persona, and the Betty Boop cartoon character began to make money. That did not sit well with Helen Kane because she felt that she was the inspiration and image of Betty Boop, and no income was coming to her from Max Fleisher. She sued. It became Kane v. Fleischer, and the lawsuit exposed the real Betty Boop’s true origin.

Kane filed a $250,000 lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount “for exploiting her image, charging unfair competition and wrongful appropriation in the Betty Boop cartoons. She contended that Betty Boop’s “boop-boop-a-doop” style constituted a deliberate caricature that gave her unfair competition.”

This was no jury trial, just the judge. The trial opened in May 1934 in the New York State Supreme Court. The lawyer for Kane called in various witnesses and Betty Boop films were viewed by the judge. The Defense called Lou Bolton to testify. He testified that Kane attended Esther Lee Jones’ performance at the Everglades Nite Club in April 1928, where she had a front-row seat with her booking agent, Tony Shayne, and Bolton. According to Bolton, Little Esther was actively scat singing and delivering her “Boops” in April 1928 at that performance. Helen didn’t introduce her “Boops” until the premier of the hit Broadway show “Good Boy” on September 5, 1928, in which she introduced her signature song, “I Wanna Be Loved By You.” Kane did not officially record the song until September 20, 1928. Bolton produced a sound film featuring Baby Esther practicing in her baby voice and scatting. The judge ruled against Kane based on the evidence presented in the trial that the “baby” technique of singing did not originate with Kane, and she walked away without a dime.

Esther Lee Jones’ career continued from 1928 through 1934. She toured and performed in Paris, Frances, Germany, Stockholm, Sweden, South America (Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, and Montevideo). At the time of the trial in May 1934, she was performing in Louisville, Kentucky. There is as much controversy about her death as it is about her birth. Some say Baby Esther died in 1984 from liver and kidney complications, and others believed she died shortly after the Kane vs. Fleischer trial concluded.

She is truly a “hidden figure” that has come back to a light shone on her from a play, “Boop: The Musical.” She is the origin and the inspiration for the creation of the cartoon character, Betty Boop.