For many years, Betty Boop was a favorite cartoon character with a loyal following. However, her position in the marketplace during recent times had been challenged by Snoopy, the Muppets, and the Smurfs.

This situation changed dramatically when I created a "Betty Boop for President" campaign in 1980 that was financed by vested interests in her merchandising potential.

Actress Victoria D'Orazi played the title role because she looked and sounded a bit like the original Ms. Boop. Her supporting cast included a six-piece Dixieland band led by renowned jazz clarinetist Artie Baker, and a dozen dancers, singers, and entertainers.

Betty Boop's platform became an instant success with the news media:

1. Take congressmen off salary and put them on a straight commission basis.
2. Sell ambassadorships to the highest bidders.
3. Place a suggestion box on the White House fence.
4. Transform the Capitol Rotunda into a roller disco.
5. Draft all congressmen first, for infantry duty.
6. To erase the post-office deficit, print Bo Derek's photograph on postage stamps.
7. Raise the marriage-license fee to $500 to eliminate uncertainty.
8. Install a lie detector in the White House and truth serum in the Senate drinking fountain.
9. Sell the gold in Fort Knox and replace it with bituminous coal to back our money reserves.
10. Base personal income taxes on body weights, with the entire family paying $2 a pound per person.

Alan Abel, How to Thrive on Rejection
Copyright © 1984 by Spencer Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted 23 January 1998

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