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| Popeye, the Sailor Man; Official Thread | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 7 2006, 06:53 AM (2,116 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Oct 24 2012, 08:59 AM Post #121 |
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One day I picked up a book at my local used book store, "Popeye: An Illustrated History of E.C. Segar's Character in Print, Radio, Television and Film Appearances, 1929-1993" by Fred M. Grandinetti, McFarland & Company, 1994. It's nearly 300 pages of info about... well, the title explains it, right? Popeye was a favorite of mine as a kid, the B&W Fleischers. I remember seeing the 1960s made-for-TV version, too, which I liked well enough. Oddly enough, the 1950s Famous cartoons never appealed to me, even then. Just in case you're not hip to all this, here's a brief, brief history: 1919: Elzie Segar takes over the Thimble Theatre comic strip, featuring Ham Gravy, Castor Oyl, and company. 1929: The strip introduces Popeye, the Sailor Man, who eventually becomes its star, along with Castor's sister, Olive. 1933: Max Fleischer, creator of Betty Boop, begins a series of Popeye cartoons that become wildly popular. 1942: Paramount fires Fleischer from his own studio and seizes control, continuing to churn out Popeye cartoons until 1957. 1961: With the success of old Popeye cartoons on TV, King Features Syndicate churns out a couple hundred more of them, on the extreme cheap, over the next couple of years. 1980: A live-action version of Popeye with Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall comes to the screen. No other Popeye cartoons concern us. So anyway, I read that across this fine nation of ours, there were local TV hosts for Popeye cartoons in the '50s and early '60s; we had cartoon hosts, too, in NE Ohio, including Barnaby, Professor Jack, Woodrow the Woodsman, Cap'n Penny, and Franz the Toymaker & Raggedy Ann. I can't remember any of them showing Popeye; I remember just a half hour Popeye show with nothing but cartoons. Growing up, as the cartoons disappeared from TV most of the time, I got bootleg VHS tapes so's I could show the cartoons on my Friday night movies to the kids. EVERYBODY loves Popeye. The early Fleischers, where everybody (including animals and flowers) bounce up and down as they walk and talk, are hugely popular. We have all three of the DVD sets Warners issued, a complete set of Popeye 1933-1943, and have been watching Popeye cartoons chronologically (roughly one every 3 weeks). We just watched What - No Spinach, originally released in June 1936, the 35th Popeye cartoon, so obviously we have a long way to go (the 3 DVD sets include the first 123 Popeye cartoons). Several Popeye cartoons (a few of the Fleischers, a handful of 1950s Famous, and the three beautiful Technicolor Popeye 2-reelers of the 1930s) have been in the public domain for ages, and are available from a huge variety of sources, although the VCI set is one to get if you want them. The Technicolor Popeyes are available as part of the Warners sets (which number 8 discs in all between the 3 sets) and are beautifully restored. Hopefully, Blu-ray is coming. More on Popeye forthcoming; I've been doing a lot of watching lately... |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Frank Hale | Oct 24 2012, 11:04 AM Post #122 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Cap’n Jack McCarthy and Ray Heatherton, the Merry Mailman, in NY, in full half hour shows, and dropped in randomly amongst other kiddie fodder. Happy memories. They were all UM&M and NTA reissues, of course, so it was wonderful to see the credits restored on the Warner DVD’s (another thing for which we have George Feltenstein to thank.) It was blindingly obvious to me even then that the b&w Fleischers were terrific and the Famous Studio ones were terrible. By the mid-to-late 40’s the product had become unwatchable, along with those god-awful Harveytoons. From that standpoint I wasn’t too upset to see the DVD series go on hiatus. |
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| Laughing Gravy | Oct 24 2012, 11:46 AM Post #123 |
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Little Addie started coming to our Friday night movies when she was barely 5, and even then she went wild for Popeye and they're absolutely her favorites (she's a ripe ol' six now). It's a shame there isn't some form of sanity that would allow a kid's channel where these aren't considered "too violent" or "two not in color" to show. With a kiddie host, of course. One with puppets. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Oct 24 2012, 12:47 PM Post #124 |
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Mouth Breather
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Small children love black and white cartoons, but somewhere around the fifth grade they seem to lose interest. At least my grand kids did -- but then after they saw their first Looney Tunes, nothing less would do. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| CliffClaven | Oct 25 2012, 12:06 AM Post #125 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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In the 1960s a San Francisco station (then KRON) had Mayor Art, who dressed in turn-of-the-century duds and presided over a "city council" of kids who affected party-favor top hats. Each Popeye cartoon was introduced by having the kids yell "Blewie! Blewie!" He'd toss in a single Max Fleischer Superman each day. The good mayor would also turn up on other KRON shows doing straight interviews and hosting duties. KTVU-2 out of Oakland had Captain Satellite, who'd show Columbia toons ranging from ancient Scrappys and Krazy Kats to postwar Fox & Crow, plus those oddball Li'l Abners. For modern toons he had Funny Company, Spunky and Tadpole, the trés cheesy Marvel Super Heroes, and curious serials produced from cut-up foreign animated features (plus one Czech epic about live action boys in a land of stop-motion dinosaurs). Following the good captain was a Three Stooges show hosted by Sir Sedley, a ventriloquist with a large cast of puppets and actual story lines. Channel 44 had a show called "Captain San Francisco," inexplicably hosted by one Sergeant Sacto. Sarge was a relaxed young deejay sitting behind a faintly outer-space desk, pleasantly introducing Looney Tunes and chatting with folks plugging an ice show or some such. Vague but insistent memories of Marshall Jay, who had a dog who'd enter the set with him and then lie down and sleep through the show. Don't remember much except a cartoon serial about "Q.T. Hush", and a cowboy theme song: "I'm poor but I'm happy, Rich but I'm broke. And the good lord knows the reason: I'm just a cowpoke." (Yodeling) |
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| Laughing Gravy | Oct 25 2012, 02:11 PM Post #126 |
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The three Warner Bros. Popeye collections include the first 123 Popeye cartoons, 1933-1943, including the rarely seen Betty Boop cartoon that introduced Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl as animated characters. In addition, there are several hours of bonus material and cartoons. Here's a breakdown of the extras spread across the eight discs in the 3 sets. There are four major documentaries, including: I Yam what I Yam: The Story of Popeye Forging the Frame: The Roots of Animation 1900-1920 Out of the Inkwell: The Fleischer Story Forging the Frame: The Roots of Animation 1921-1930 All of them feature some well-known cartoonists and experts (Jules Feiffer, Jerry Beck, Mark Evanier, et al) and a lot of clips and archive material; the four documentaries range from 30 to 45 min. each. Also on the discs are so-called "Popumentaries", 5 or 6 minute mini-docs on characters and creators. The full list: Mining the Strip: Elzie Segar and Thimble Theatre Me Fickle Goyl, Olive Oyl: The World's Least Likely Sex Symbol Wimpy the Moocher: Ode to the Burgermeister Sailor's Hornpipes: The Voices of Popeye Blow Me Down! The Music of Popeye Popeye in Living Color: A Look at the Color Two-Reelers Me Lil' Swee'pea: Whose Kid is he Anyway? Et tu, Bluto? Cartoondom's Heaviest Heavy Eugene the Jeep: A Breed of his Own Poopdeck Pappy: The Nasty Old Man and the Sea O-Re-Mi: Mae Questel and the Voices of Olive Oyl Men of Spinach and Steel: Superman and Popeye Directing the Sailor: The Art of Myron Waldman Popeye: The Mighty Ensign Pip-eye, Pup-eye, Poop-eye an' Peep-eye: Chips off the Old Salt In connection with the two documentaries on silent animation, there are five full-length cartoons that are sorely missing musical accompaniment; you'll have to supply your own: Colonel Heeza Liar at the Bat (1915) Krazy Kat goes A-wooing (1916) Mutt & Jeff in Domestic Difficulties (1916) Bobby Bumps puts a Beanery on the Bum Felix in Feline Follies (1919) There are 13 Out of the Inkwell Shorts: The Tantalizing Fly (1919) The Clown's Little Brother (1920) Modeling (1921) Invisible Ink (1921) Bubbles(1922) Jumping Beans (1922) Bedtime (1923) Trapped (1923) The Cartoon Factory (1924) A Trip to Mars (1924) Koko Trains 'em (1925) Koko Back Tracks (1927) Koko Needles the Boss (1927) Finally, there's a nice selection of special attractions, including: Let's Sing with Popeye (a mid-1930s cartoon for Popeye matinees, with a "Follow the Bouncing Ball" rendition of Popeye's theme song) Paramount Presents Popular Science (1938; a look behind the scenes at Fleischer's Miami studio) The Mechanical Monsters (1941; a Superman cartoon) Fleischer art gallery Females is Fickle pencil test Stealin' ain't Honest storyboard reel vintage Popeye theme song recording (audio) interview with Jack Mercer (audio) Finding his Voice (1929 Fleischer documentary on talking pictures) I watched all of this over the past few days, except the Koko cartoons... I'm savin' them for later. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| mort bakaprevski | Jun 9 2016, 10:39 AM Post #127 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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And here 'tis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ccAThoaHQuE |
| "Nov Shmoz Ka Pop." | |
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