Popeye the Sailor

After some 24 years in theatrical shorts, the longest tenure of any running cartoon character to that time, Popeye was curiously stricken from Paramount Pictures' cartoon cast. However, King Features, owner of the character, revived the spinach-eating sailor man and friends for a series of televisions shorts, totaling some 220 cartoons farmed out to Paramount Pictures, Larry Harmon/UPA, Jack Kinney Studios, William Snyder & Gene Deitch, and Total Television.

These television cartoons "updated" Popeye's world by mixing 1960-topical suburban settings with use of characters, such as the Sea Hag and King Blozo, who came from the original E.C. Segar comics but were never used in Popeye's theatrical shorts; also brought in for several shorts were the Goons, hulking mute characters first seen in the 1930s, and Eugene The Jeep, another revival from the 1930s comic strip. Character designs were also changed to reflect the "back to the future" quality of the shorts, particularly in the design of Olive Oyl, while some new characters were introduced, notably Olive's troublesome niece Diesel Oyl, a female counterpart to Popeye's four nephews (curiously not revived from the 1940s-50s cartoons).

The different studios used made for an uneven quality to the cartoons. Some of the best animation came from the Snyder-Deitch shorts, especially those which utilized Britain's famous Halas & Batchelor animation studios, while the best character gags often came from the Harmon/UPA shorts, which sometimes used background music first used for Mr. Magoo cartoons.

Paramount and Kinney released the highest number of cartoons, and the differences in style and intangibles were striking. The Kinney cartoons strove to be funny, and often were, but suffered from inconsistent character designs (Ken Hultgren was the animator most frequently used and his character designs were periodically the sloppiest of the series) as well as some of the weakest soundtracks of the series, re-using the sound FX library used for "Rocky & Bullwinkle."

The Paramount shorts, meanwhile, had by far the best production values of all, in character designs, backgrounds, sound FX, and in the use of Winston Sharples' background scores; some of the animation was also quite good, even in the budget-crunched era of that time.

Given the enormity of quantity and the differing studios involved, the quality of stories tended to differ, but overall the scripts were engaging and sometimes genuinely brilliant, such as the Paramount short "It Only Hurts When They Laughs," a hilarious takeoff on Popeye and Brutus' long-running feud over Olive. The Paramount shorts tended to be the most melodramatic of the show and worked very well as such; particularly effective here was the Paramount short's treatment of Olive, who is by no means the damsel-in-distress so often portrayed in the past. Here Olive gets substantialy to flex her own muscle, such as in "A Poil For Olive Oyl," when she spots the Sea Hag sending swordfish in pursuit of Popeye at the ocean floor and downs a can of spinach for the strength to finish off Haggie. Popeye for his part had shown a mild chauvinism in 1940s and '50s cartoons (such as the hilarious 1956 short "Car-razy Drivers") but here recognizes his love's own strength and actually encourages it, in "Hamburgers A-weigh" when, after using spinach to acquire Superman-esquire power (a favorite cliché of the Popeye series from the late 1930s onward), feeds a large swig to Olive to give her the same power, so she can fight off the Sea Hag - Popeye being too much of the gentleman to strike a woman, even if it is the Sea Hag.

The 1960s shorts build on the strengths of the 1940s and '50s shorts and remain engaging cartoons in the long-running series.

Popeye, the Sailor Man, was one of the first cartoons that I remember watching in both black and white and color before I would go to school in the morning. I remember his love, Olive Oil, and the characters like the baby, the man who will you Tuesday for a Hamburger today, his rival for Olive Oyl's affections, and so on. Popeye always became strong once he ate his spinach and his muscles rippled in his shirt. He became a powerhouse and defended his honor and his girlfriend. Anyway, the silliness of Popeye was outweighed by his decency, his character, and the story lines. They would be repetitive but I don't think I ever stopped watching the show on purpose. But it was always a joy to wake up and watch Popeye before tackling kindergarten class where you needed the courage to get through the day.

I remember having as a child a video of this classic series that made me laugh. The animation is good as it is vibrantly comical based and colourful. The music and story lines are also good to the comical origins of the original Popeye comic strips and earlier cinematic debuts. The characters are lively and rich that are adaptable in any imaginative setting so no matter what the story line the basis is the rich juvenile humour and the characters. The story lines were also written well and imaginative making it a nice fit with the basis of the comics. The series was very enjoyable but sadly today nobody does good cartoons any more and cartoons such as Popeye the sailor will be artistic classics as the passion, skill and humours not found any more.

I do remember the numerous Popeye cartoons with such fondness. This series is pretty good, if not as brilliant or as funny. I will say the music is very good with a theme tune that is irresistible to sing, the voice work is outstanding from all and not only do we see the timeless original characters but also some new ones as well and they are just as likable.

On the other hand, the animation while not terrible does seem rushed and lacking in finesse in places. Also while some of the writing and sight gags are funny, some can be too predictable and not very well timed, and a lot of the story lines are very repetitive.

All in all, I like this series, but it isn't quite enough to make me forget the classic shorts. 7/10 Bethany Cox

In to the power in tin. Popeye action, comedy early childhood cartoon. Very enjoyable cartoon.