A boo-hoo over Betty
QUESTION
Was Betty Boop based on a real person? Which cartoon characters are modelled on real people? The animated sex symbol Betty Boop, created by Max Fleischer, was modelled on U.S. singer helen Kane.
Following a string of appearances at New York City’s 44th Street Theatre during the Twenties, Kane rose to fame after a solo performance at Paramount Theatre in Times Square, spicing up her rendition of the song That’s My Weakness Now with scat lyrics.
The first Betty Boop cartoon, 1930’s Dizzy Dishes, featured an unnamed female character with a poodle’s ears and nose. But as she sang boop-oop-a-doop lyrics (voiced by Margie hines), the similarity to Kane was striking.
After the character was changed into a human in later cartoons, with the droopy poodle ears transformed into hoop earrings, Kane sued the animation studio.
She filed a $250,000 suit, charging unfair competition and wrongful appropriation. The judge ruled against her after finding Kane had appropriated ‘booping’ from esther Jones, an African-American singer who performed at harlem’s Cotton Club and was nicknamed Baby esther due to her childish style of singing.
Other celebrities who inspired animated characters were The Beatles. It was planned they would voice the four vultures in Disney’s 1967 film The Jungle Book. Though the rock band’s schedule didn’t leave time for recording their lines, this didn’t stop the vultures from having a physical and vocal resemblance.
Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts. The main characters of Disney’s The Lion King were based on the actors who voiced them. Prominent comparisons include Rowan Atkinson as the hornbill Zazu and Jeremy Irons as the villainous Scar. It was the first time the studio’s animation artists had been encouraged to create characters in this way.
The Simpsons regularly feature cartoon versions of famous people. The musclebound, monotone-voiced i d action ti movie i star Rainier Wolfcastle shares a lot of characteristics with Arnold Schwarzenegger, including dabbling in politics. Moe, the owner of homer’s favourite tavern and purveyor of Duff beer, was based on the stand-up comedian Rich hall.
Moe is one of the major characters outside the Simpsons family and is still featured on the show nearly 30 years after its debut. In that time, Rich hall has found international success and in his act has acknowledged the deliberate similarities with Moe. Iain Milne, Cramlington, Northumberland.
QUESTION Does Volkswagen sell more sausages than cars?
VOLKSWAgeN makes its own Currybockwurst, a pork sausage infused with spices. It sells more sausages annually than Volkswagen brand cars.
The car firm began producing food for its workers at its Wolfsburg plant when it opened in 1938 because of the factory’s remote location. It started producing sausages in 1973, the year before the Mark 1 golf was launched. The Currybockwurst is sold online, in supermarkets and football stadiums.
The butchers in a small subsection of the VW factory at Wolfsburg produce up to 20,000 sausages a day — it produced 6.81 million in 2018.
In contrast, the company sold 6,244,900 passenger vehicles with the Volkswagen badge last year, though the Volkswagen group (which includes Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda) sold 10.9 million vehicles in total. J. B. Simmonds, Blackpool, Lancs.
QUESTION What is the Calvinist theory of double predestination?
DOUBLe predestination is the notion — not found anywhere in the Bible — that god not only knows everything, but also ordains everything. The logical conclusion of this belief is that god determines even before people are born who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. An individual can’t do anything to alter what god has h ordained. however, the Bible teaches god loves everyone (John 3:16), Jesus died paying for our sins (Isaiah 53:6) and desires all people p to be saved (2 Peter 3:9). J. Bowman, Leicester.
QUESTION Q Was there a ban on ringing church bells during World War II? If so, was an exception made for St Paul’s Cathedral on New Year’s Eve 1941?
FURTheR to the earlier answer, my mother lived in the east end of London throughout the war and remembers the church bells being rung after the victory of el Alamein in November 1942.
There was a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral and my mother asked a gI: ‘Do you want to see the King?’
They went to St Paul’s and saw george VI. My mother told me she was surprised to see that he was wearing make-up.
Stephen Sanders, London E2.
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