Popeye The Sailor Man 1933-1943

In 1933, a squint-eyed sailor with outsized forearms danced a hula with Betty Boop--and began one of the great series in American cartoon history. Popeye had made his debut in Elzie Segar's comic strip "Thimble Theater" four years earlier, and the jump to animation only increased his popularity: by 1938, he rivaled Mickey Mouse. During the '30s, when Disney was creating lushly colored, realistic animation, the Fleischer Studio presented a gritty black-and-white world that was ideally suited to the bizarre misadventures of Popeye, Olive, and Bluto. The animators ignored anatomy, with hilarious results: Olive Oyl's rubbery arms wrap around her body like twin anacondas, and her legs often end up in knots. Exactly what Popeye and Bluto saw in this scrawny, capricious inamorata was never clear, but they fought over her endlessly.

As the series progressed, the artists grew more sophisticated: in "Blow Me Down" (1933), Olive does some clumsy steps to "The Mexican Hat Dance;" one year later, in "The Dance Contest," she and Popeye perform deft spoofs of tango, tap, and apache steps. The stories are little more than strings of gags linked by a theme: Popeye and Bluto as rival artists; Popeye and Olive as nightclub dancers or café owners. But the minimal stories allow the artists to fill the screen with jokes, over-the-top fights, and muttered asides from the characters. Cartoon fans have waited for years for the "Popeye" shorts to appear on disc, and the Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938 was worth waiting for. The transfers were made from beautifully clear prints with only minimal dust and scratches. The set is loaded with extras, including eight "Popumentaries," numerous commentaries, and 16 silent cartoons. It's a set to treasure.



During the late 1930's, the Fleischers' Popeye the Sailor cartoons rivaled even Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse shorts in popularity, and this second collection makes it easy to understand why. In contrast to the realistically animated characters in Disney's lavishly beautiful shorts, Popeye, Olive and Bluto were rubber-limbed and broadly comic. These cartoons aren't badly animated: notice the fun the artists have with Olive's precarious balance in "A Date To Skate" (1938) or the way the trio struggles to act refined in "It's The Natural Thing To Do" (1939). The Fleischers' approach to animation was just broader and cartoon-ier than Disney's. But the period of 1938-1940 represented the last hurrah of the Popeye shorts.

To accommodate the large staff needed for the studio's first feature, Gulliver's Travels (1939), producer Max Fleischer moved the studio from New York to Miami. The run-down apartment houses and gritty streets of the early Popeye cartoons gave way to suburban houses and gardens. The backgrounds and supporting characters in "Popeye Meets William Tell" (1940) look like leftovers from Gulliver, and the film lacks the élan of the shorts made just a year earlier. The studio would close and be re-organized under new management after the failure of Hoppity Goes to Town in 1941. Like the cartoons in the previous set, Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938, these transfers were made from beautiful masters with only minimal dust and scratches. In addition to four "Popumentaries," the extras include a rare, partial pencil test from "Females Is Fickle" (1940) and a 1938 "Popular Science" short showcasing the animation process at the Miami Studio. A must-have for cartoon lovers.




By 1941, Fleischer Studio was tottering on the brink of disaster. The failure of their second feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (which opened three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor) coupled with a bitter quarrel between Max and Dave Fleischer and a mounting debt to Paramount led to the closure of the Miami Studio. Executives at Parmount fired the Fleischer brothers, installed new management, changed the studio name to Famous, moved operations back to New York City, and cut the artists' pay. Not surprisingly, the quality of the cartoons fell. A number of the shorts in this collection are domestic comedies, with Popeye babysitting the incorrigible Poopdeck Pappy or his four identical and uninteresting nephews. It's an incongruous role for the rough and tumble sailor, and films like "Problem Pappy" and "Me Musical Nephews" recall the joyless cartoons that turned Betty Boop into a hausfrau a few years earlier.

Popeye, like Bugs Bunny, is a winner, and he isn't funny as a straight man or a fall guy. These films also lack the original vision that characterized the Fleischers' best work. "Nix on Hypnotricks" feels like an inferior remake of the classic Popeye-Olive-Bluto short "A Dream Walking," while "The Hungry Goat" borrows heavily from Tex Avery's "Tortoise Beats Hare." The war-themed cartoons feature outrageous racial charicatures of the Japanese that make Warner Bros.' "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" look almost flattering. Unlike the Disney and Warners characters, who made fun of the Nazis, Popeye fought the Japanese almost exclusively. The cartoons in Popeye the Sailor, Vol.3 rank as curiosities that are more interesting to historians of animation and American popular culture than to viewers looking for laughs.

Episode List

Popeye 1941-1943

Tech Specs

Video :844 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 640*480 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio :128 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, VBR,

Happy Birthdaze (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
The Hungry Goat (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
A Jolly Good Furlough (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
Too Weak to Work (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
Seein' Red, White 'n' Blue (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
Spinach Fer Britain (1943) Played by Jack Mercer
Me Musical Nephews (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Scrap the Japs (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
A Hull of a Mess (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
You're a Sap, Mr. Jap (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Baby Wants a Bottleship (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Many Tanks (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Pip-eye, Pup-eye, Poop-eye an' Peep-eye (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Fleets of Stren'th (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Blunder Below (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
Kickin' the Conga Round (1942) Played by Jack Mercer
The Mighty Navy (1941) Played by Jack Mercer
I'll Never Crow Again (1941) Played by Jack Mercer
Flies Ain't Human (1941) Played by Jack Mercer
Olive's $weep$take Ticket (1941) Played by Jack Mercer


Popeye 1939-1940


Tech Specs

Video :1249 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 560*416 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio :86 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,

Popeye Presents Eugene, the Jeep (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Puttin on the Act (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Wimmin Hadn't Oughta Drive (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Doing Impossikible Stunts (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Nurse-Mates (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Wimmin Is a Myskery (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Me Feelins Is Hurt (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Stealin' Ain't Honest (1940) Played by Jack Mercer
Never Sock a Baby (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
It's the Natural Thing to Do (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
Ghosks Is the Bunk (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
Wotta Nitemare (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
Leave Well Enough Alone (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939) Played by Jack Mercer
Customers Wanted (1939) Played by Jack Mercer


Popeye 1937-1938


Tech Specs

Video : 1490 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 560*400 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 82 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,

Cops Is Always Right (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
A Date to Skate (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Mutiny Ain't Nice (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Bulldozing the Bull (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
The Jeep (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Plumbing Is a 'Pipe' (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
I Yam Love Sick (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
The House Builder-Upper (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Learn Polikeness (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Let's Celebrake (1938) Played by Jack Mercer
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
Protek the Weakerist (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
The Football Toucher Downer (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
I Likes Babies and Infinks (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
I Never Changes My Altitude (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
Lost and Foundry (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
The Twisker Pitcher (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
Hospitaliky (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
My Artistical Temperature (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
Organ Grinder's Swing (1937) Played by Jack Mercer
The Paneless Window Washer (1937) Played by Jack Mercer


Popeye 1935-1936


Tech Specs

Video :1379 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 560*400 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4
Audio : 3.99 MB, 85 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,

I'm in the Army Now (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
The Spinach Roadster (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Hold the Wire (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Little Swee' Pea (1936) Played by Jack Mercer ... aka "Popeye the Sailor with Little Swee' Pea"
Never Kick a Woman (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Let's Get Movin' (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
I Wanna Be a Life Guard (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
What -- No Spinach? (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Bridge Ahoy! (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
I-Ski Love-Ski You-Ski (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Brotherly Love (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
A Clean Shaven Man (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
Vim, Vigor and Vitaliky (1936) Played by Jack Mercer
The Spinach Overture (1935) Played by Jack Mercer
Adventures of Popeye (1935) Played by Jack Mercer
King of the Mardi Gras (1935) Played by Jack Mercer
You Gotta Be a Football Hero (1935) Played by William Costello
Dizzy Divers (1935) Played by William Costello
For Better or For Worser (1935) Played by William Costello
Choose Your 'Weppins' (1935) Played by William Costello
The 'Hyp-Nut-Tist' (1935) Played by William Costello
Pleased to Meet Cha! (1935) Played by William Costello
Be Kind to 'Aminals' (1935) Played by Floyd Buckley
Beware of Barnacle Bill (1935) Played by William Costello


Popeye 1933-1934


Tech Specs

Video :1334 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 560*400 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 89 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,

We Aim to Please (1934) Played by William Costello
The Dance Contest (1934) Played by William Costello
The Two-Alarm Fire (1934) Played by William Costello
A Dream Walking (1934) Played by William Costello
Axe Me Another (1934) Played by William Costello
Shiver Me Timbers! (1934) Played by William Costello
Strong to the Finich (1934) Played by William Costello
Shoein' Hosses (1934) Played by William Costello
Can You Take It (1934) Played by William Costello
The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) Played by William Costello
Let's You and Him Fight (1934) Played by William Costello
Sock-a-Bye, Baby (1934) Played by William Costello
Wild Elephinks (1933) Played by William Costello
Seasin's Greetinks! (1933) Played by William Costello
I Eats My Spinach (1933) Played by William Costello
Blow Me Down! (1933) Played by William Costello
I Yam What I Yam (1933) Played by William Costello
Popeye the Sailor (1933) Played by William Costello