Popeye The Sailor - 1938-1940
It's smooth sailing as our favorite sailor navigates through a storm of challenges, with a gale of giggles facing a sea of challenges from bullies to babysitting. Popeye's secrets to survival: performance-enhancing spinach and a sense of humor. Jaunty music, wisely used, is the icing on the cake. He's seen working on ship in only one of the 31 adventures, "Mutiny Ain't Nice" where, after suspecting a coup planned by the crew, he announces he won't be "fired" ...and then shoots himself from a cannon. Pun intended, as usual!---like when upending a table to throw at a foe, he points out, "ah, the tables have turned." (In a train race fight, similarly: "the timetables have turned!") Casual quips are treasureable-- to a huge dragon: "Grandma, what big teeth you've got"; he chastises a bull for being "bull-headed"; and "Back to the merry-go-round!" he says while tossing a live horse in the air. When Goons tie him up and throw rocks at him-"I got roped into this" and "They're tryin' to rock me to sleep."
Most satisfying are the complicated, whimsical visuals: bursting pipes twisted around each other like pretzels, Aladdin's cave with an escalator, furniture tossed in the air lands in perfect arrangement.
Following the release of a 1933-38 set, these sharp, creative black-and-white originals are delightful. Like Popeye's oft-seen fist fights, there's a one-two punch here: fun dialogue and highly imaginative visuals. Those fisticuffs are fewer here, as variations with plot were tried (Popeye as Shakespearean actor, penny arcade man, supportive instructor, meeting William Tell). Sly quips and muttered reactions, the commentary tracks tell us, were often ad-libbed. Settings, movement, animated "inanimate" objects, background details --- some satisfyingly absurdist - are brilliant to behold.
The ambitious longer (20 minutes) short for theatres casts Popeye as Aladdin. Rubbing the lamp, he always catches the genie at an odd moment: shaving, eating, etc. In Arabia, in love, in color, blushing red and turning green, he remarks, "I never made love in Technicolor before."
13 of 31 episodes have commentary tracks. Hosted by cartoon historians, present -day animators, observations from the Popeye voice actor from the color made-for-TV stuff years later (plus previously taped comments by studio veterans) they are generally rewarding. They're informative, clear, well-thought-out, specific, and full of professional but down-to-earth admiration. Often, they talk a lot about individual animators' styles.
Other extras: "popumentaries" profiling Popeye's long-lost dad (age 99); the dog-like mythical but mischievous creature Eugene The Jeep, who can disappear at will and lives on orchids. We learn of characters'' origins in the original Thimble Theatre comic strip, and their odd appeal.
A 45-minute documentary covers the long history of the dedicated, pioneering Fleischer brothers behind Popeye and others. One becomes sad to hear that the close pair had a falling out and stopped speaking forever. A behind-the-scenes visit to the factory-style production rooms as dozens of artists painstakingly draw and color thousands of individual pictures then filmed separately as backgrounds are moved by hand to create each cartoon. One almost feels guilty for all the labor-intensiveness and dedication for a seven-minute piece. Pointing out the fine points of the now-seeming Stone Age of animation makes us not just appreciate it all but truly marvel at it as merrily we roll along.
The same creators did serious Superman cartoons and one is included -- with evil robots and increasingly complicated action/danger scenes. One extra has experts philosophizing about Popeye as a super-hero prototype, analyzing his appeal as a man of increasingly moral qualities, escapist anything-is-possible fantasy for boys, object of American admiration in the Depression. They take cartoons seriously here.
Some information gets repeated: William Randolph Hearst's directive to soften the character as he got more of a following with impressionable kids, that animation techniques were ahead of their times, the effects of the New York mindset and the studio moving to Florida (gritty city stuff disappears from cartoons and all gets gentler and prettier). Four or five commentators tell us that brilliant actress Mae Questel, who voiced Popeye's gal pal Olive Oyl and Betty Boop wouldn't go and had to be replaced. A separate profile of her work is short but well done.
And, yes, more: rough storyboard pics, sketches of a teen-aged Max Fleischer, his family's reminiscences. There are two audio-only items: an interview with longtime Popeye voicer Jack Mercer is charming but brief (he got the part by clowning around doing funny voices at work-he's been an artist at the studio) and then a vintage record of the theme song. As Popeye might say, "It's speculartacular and good, too. Heh-heh-heh-heh."
Subtitles (just English); commentaries; Superman cartoon and looks at other characters from the studio and its origins; documentary shorts; 2 audfio-only pieces and sketches.