Cab Calloway’s 1931 jazz hit ‘Minnie the Moocher’ tells a risqué story of a woman drawn into drug use, despite later becoming associated with Betty Boop through a 1932 animated short shown to children. The article argues that the song reflects the freer, pre-Hays Code culture of the early 1930s and uses slang and themes that many mainstream listeners may not have understood.

Although a 1951 report identified a real Minnie Gayton nicknamed “The Moocher”, the article says she was almost certainly not Calloway’s inspiration. Calloway later explained that he and lyricist Irving Mills combined ideas from ‘Willie the Weeper’, ‘Minnie the Mermaid’ and ‘St James Infirmary’, creating Minnie as a fictional tough but sympathetic character; “moocher” here broadly refers to someone who lives off others.