Tin Sign Info

BETTY BOOP’S RED HOT JAZZ

The Fleischer cartoons from the Betty Boop era were largely music-driven gag fests. The cartoons’ nominal narratives merely provided a launch point for the animators’ often jazz-inspired flights of fancy. Like “Uncle” Max himself, stars from Paramount feature films often appeared in live-action cameos. Musical stars, including Maurice Chevalier, Rudy Vallee, Ethel Merman, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway, all appeared in Betty Boop cartoons. The exposure these shorts afforded black jazz performers in particular helped popularize the nascent American art form during the 1930s. At the time, the groundbreaking inclusion of black performers in the cartoons resulted in threats to the studio from the Ku Klux Klan.

INTERNATIONAL STAR

As has been the case with jazz, Betty Boop cartoons have traditionally found especially appreciative audiences in Europe and Asia as treasured artifacts of American culture.

Japanese audiences cheered during initial screenings of “A Language All My Own,” a 1935 short in which Betty flew to Tokyo and “booped” in Japanese. Myron Waldman, who directed that short, says he interviewed Japanese students in New York to make sure Betty’s movements and words would be culturally appropriate. Jean-Paul Sartre reportedly searched all of Paris for Betty’s films. Gertrude Stein was also said to have been a boop-o-phile.

In London, Betty enjoyed a resurgence of popularity when cartoonists obtained and restored some early Fleischer cartoons, which became favorites at the ICA moviehouses during the 1970s. Similar revivals in the United States helped spur sales of licensed Betty Boop merchandise worldwide.

Mar 7 2007
Harley
Slatington, PA

  Desperate Memory Loss Sign
★★★★☆4.0
“A great conversation piece! Draws laughs from everyone that reads it.” They can’t believe its a metal sign.

Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

THEY TRIED TO TAKE HER BOOP-OOP-A-DOOP AWAY

Betty’s flapper style and disarmingly innocent ******ity attracted passionate fans, but it also made her some enemies among moralists who felt her boop-oop-a-doop left too little to the imagination.

According to former Fleischer animator Myron Waldman, the 1933 short Boilesque” was banned in Philadelphia for being too risqué. In the same year, self-censorship arising from complaints about ****** content in films led to the brief disappearance of the garter on Betty’s left thigh, which was reportedly returned due to public demand.

A year later, just as Boop-o-mania reached its peak, a spit-curled singer named Helen Kane filed a $250,000 lawsuit charging that Betty had stolen her boop-oop-a-doop and loopy style, thereby causing her career to wane as Betty’s star rose. When the case came to trial, other performers testified that they had used “boop-oop-a-doop” and similar phrasings prior to Helen Kane; the singer lost her case.

By 1934, the overriding influence of the Hays office – creators of what was to become today’s movie rating system – caused a profound shift in the way Betty was presented to the public. Betty Boop began showing far less leg, and her décolletage was often obscured by prim buttons.

Her lecherous suitors disappeared. Eventually, Betty was nudged from the limelight by Pudgy, a cute pet pooch who was forever getting her in trouble, and the lovable Grampy, who helped Betty solve problems with his wacky inventions. As World War II loomed, the market for Betty’s films at home and abroad thinned; the series ended with the release of “Yip, Yip, Yippy” in 1939.

BETTY’S SPECIAL APPEAL

From the beginning, Betty’s act had a hypnotic effect not just on Bimbo, but on just about everyone and everything in the constantly “morphing” Fleischer universe. Not even inanimate objects were immune to Betty’s charms. Betty always managed to fend off her numerous lecherous suitors without ever quite seeming to understand their behavior toward her. “Do you like your job?” asks Betty’s harassing employer in a cartoon titled “Boop-oop-a-doop.” The lout whispers his desires in Betty’s ear as his hand caresses her thigh in sensuous strokes. First surprised, then enraged, Betty slaps his face in reply, singing, “You can feed me bread and water, or a great big bale of hay, but don’t take my boop-oop-a-doop away!”

At the hands of her Times Square-based animators, Betty achieved a realism of feminine motion said to have been acquired through careful observation of the exaggerated strutting of that neighborhood’s ladies of the night. Certainly the occasional but quite detailed glimpses of Betty’s silhouetted form (which was often revealed by having Betty pass in front of an animated light source) demonstrate the animators’ keen grasp of the feminine anatomy.

During the heyday of such risqué screen sirens as Mae West, the Fleischer animators felt free to allow freak gusts of wind to raise her skirt – decades before Marylin Monroe straddled a subway grate.

BETTY BOOP’S RISE TO FAME

It’s true – the first truly female animated star began her career as a dog. She was originally created as a feminine canine foil to play opposite Bimbo, a diminutive dog who had been the Fleischer Studios’ answer to Mickey Mouse before Betty came along. But even in her first appearance in “Dizzy Dishes,” the as-yet unnamed character clearly possessed uniquely feminine charms never before seen in cartoons – and only rarely attempted since.

Betty continued to evolve in the Fleischer “Talkartoon” series, and by the time “Any Rags” was released in 1932, her floppy dog’s ears had evolved into earrings, and the world’s first truly female cartoon star was fully formed. There had been female characters before Betty Boop, but by all accounts her predecessors were more or less stick-like figures in pumps who played second fiddle to male characters.

Eventually, the popularity of Betty’s baby face, little-girl voice, independent attitude and womanly charms proved powerful enough for her to star in a cartoon series of her own. Interestingly, even after Betty evolved into a human and hit the big time, Bimbo continued to appear as her nominal boyfriend, despite the fact that he remained a dog throughout his career.

BETTY BOOP History

“What is it about Betty Boop that can still haunt your dreams long after her flesh-and-blood rivals fade away?” – Chicago Tribune

“Though Betty bowed out as a headliner in 1939, her popularity remains as intact as her boop-oop-a-doop. Maybe the appeal lies in her sassy independence, in the fact that she’s the only female cartoon character who’s not a foil for a male. Call it fatale feminism.”
- Entertainment Weekly

Before Marilyn and Madonna, Betty booped and wriggled her way into hearts worldwide with her unique mix of wide-eyed innocence and powerful cartoon sensuality. Although she made her film debut as a curvaceous canine cabaret singer in the Max Fleischer short “Dizzy Dishes” on August 9, 1930, Betty Boop remains animation’s first leading lady and a glamorous international icon.

The other day my husband and I were out doing earns and it was lunch time. He suggested that we stop some where for lunch since we still had a lot of earns still to run. I suggested how about a A&W root beer and hot dogs for lunch.  I told him about the time my sister worked at A&W has a car hop. Boy did that bring back the memories for both of us.

Little did I know that the A&W we use to know are no longer around it’s either drive thur or go in. What ever happen to the good old days. The A&W Root Beer place we found was in a Kentucky fried Chicken place. I guess that progress. I still have the first A&W root beer mug that our daughter drank out of. That’s why we started collecting all the old retro tin signs that we love to help remember when.

Tin is a metal mineral that is very soft and malleable. Because of these properties, tin is hardly ever used on its own. Instead, it is combined with other metals to either form alloys or to act as a protective covering.Pewter is a tin alloy consisting of over 90% tin. The remaining metals in pewter could be silver, lead and bismuth. Nowadays, the lead content of pewter has been drastically reduced as awareness in the harmful effects of lead increases. Being a tin based alloy, pewter is also highly malleable but not as soft due to the adding of antimony and copper. This extra strength that pewter has over tin makes it very good candidate for creating works of art. Pewter vases, picture frames, souvenirs and artwork can be found almost anywhere in the world. Elegant versions of tin containers are pewter containers that can be used for storing jewelry, expensive cigars or be made into musical boxes.

The added shininess of pewter due to the mixing of silver into the tin content gives the pewter container an added elegance.The tin cans that we are used to are metal containers covered in tin. Since tin will not rust or react with food, it forms a protective barrier that keeps the food inside safe. Production costs can also be kept low due to the easy handling of tin when making tin cans. Ease of manufacturing allows factories to produce not just tin cans but also tin containers in many shape and sizes. Tall cylindrical tin spaghetti containers add a touch of art to the kitchen shelf. Cookies boxed in tin containers give out the feel of receiving a special gift when handed over to someone. Even biscuits were sold in airtight tin containers once upon a time. Modern biscuits in tin containers are wrapped in plastic first as the tin container can still allow some air inside.Tin containers are also taken to school in the form of tin lunchboxes and tin pencil cases. These tin accessories are often brightly colored and sometimes even embossed with popular themes or cartoon characters. Even the tin signs that people love to hang on there walls come from this. So next time you think about tin you will remember that it not just tin that’s in it.

John Deere History

In 1836, John Deere, a blacksmith recently transplanted from Vermont, set up shop in the small Rock River town of Grand Detour, Illinois. Deere, who was enterprising and innovative, met many disheartened farmers who were discouraged by their efforts to cultivate the sticky Midwestern soil.Deere was convinced that the soil would shed itself from a plow that was highly polished and properly shaped. In 1837, using a discarded saw blade, he forged such a plow. His “self-polishing” plow grew in popularity, and as it did, so did the company that bears his name.Today, visitors to the John Deere Historic Site features the home John Deere built, a gift shop, and an archaeological exhibit that shows the site of John Deere’s original blacksmith shop.

Any where you look in the United states and Canada you will find all kinds of John Deere equipment all over from lawn mowers to small and large farm tractors. People that are John Deere fans have everything from John Deere tin signs, lawn sprinklers, bird houses, and even stepping stones. To visit the john Deere historic site here is the address for all fans.

John Deere Historic Site
8334 S. Clinton St.
Grand Detour
Dixon, Illinois
61021-9406
Ph. 815-652-4551