Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3

Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3 is the third of a series of DVD sets released by Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...

collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye

Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...

cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. This two-disc DVD set was released on November 4, 2008.

This collection includes 32 black-and-white cartoons, and covers the transition in production from Fleischer Studios

Fleischer Studios

Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...

to Famous Studios

Famous Studios

Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...

. Eighteen of the shorts on the set having been produced by Fleischer, with 14 by Famous. All shorts produced from 1941 to 1943 are included, save for the first two Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

Popeye shorts - Her Honor the Mare and The Marry-Go-Round - produced at the end of 1943.

Because some of the wartime cartoons contain material which may be considered politically incorrect

Politically incorrect

The phrase "politically incorrect" may refer to:* Someone or something which does not meet a standard of political correctness* Politically Incorrect, a late-night U.S. political talk show* Politically Incorrect, a German political blog...

today, each disc in this collection includes a title card disclaimer which summarizes that the cartoons depict ethnic and racist stereotypes that may be offensive to modern audiences. This disclaimer is similar to the one in the Volume One collection.

Background

The Popeye cartoons included in this collection were produced during a transitional period at the Fleischer (later Famous) studio. the studio had relocated in 1938 from New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

to Miami in order to produce its first feature film, Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels (1939 film)

Gulliver's Travels is a 1939 American cel-animated Technicolor feature film, directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios. The film was released on Friday, December 22, 1939 by Paramount Pictures, who had the feature produced as an answer to the success of Walt...

(1939). While Gulliver and the continued stream of Popeye shorts were successful, the high overhead, larger number of employees, and increased debt to distributor Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

brought upon by production of Gulliver required the Fleischers to begin production on several new projects. These included a second feature, the unsuccessful Mister Bug Goes to Town

Mister Bug Goes to Town

Mr. Bug Goes to Town, also known as Hoppity Goes to Town and Bugville, is an animated feature produced by Fleischer Studios and released to theaters by Paramount Pictures on December 5, 1941...

(1941) , and several new series of short cartoons, including the unsuccessful Gabby

Gabby (cartoon)

Gabby was a Max Fleischer animated cartoon series distributed through Paramount Pictures. Gabby was the town crier in the 1939 animated feature Gulliver’s Travels produced by Fleischer. Paramount and Fleischer saw fit to give Gabby his own Technicolor cartoon series, eight entries of which were...

, Stone Age, and Animated Antics series and the popular Superman

Superman (1940s cartoons)

The Fleischer & Famous Superman cartoons are a series of seventeen animated Technicolor short films released by Paramount Pictures and based upon the comic book character Superman....

cartoons.

The Popeye cartoons changed in tandem with the Fleischer studio. During this time, the Popeye cartoons had changed. The familiar "ship-door" opening title card design which had been used since its inception in 1933 was retired following 1941's Child Psykolojiky. Subsequent Fleischer Popeye cartoons featured a closeup of Popeye's pipe in the opening credits, which zoomed out to reveal a full headshot of the character. When sold to television in 1956, TV syndicator Associated Artists Productions

Associated Artists Productions

Associated Artists Productions was a distributor of theatrical feature films and short subjects for television. It existed from 1953 to 1958. It was later folded into United Artists. The former a.a.p. library was later owned by MGM/UA Entertainment and then Turner Entertainment. Turner continues...

was required to remove all references to Paramount; therefore, on television, the 1941-1942 Popeye cartoons' title cards were altered, with a generic title design introducing the short (and covering the initial "Paramount presents" title card) and giving way to the pullback from the close-up of the pipe to the Popeye headshot.

With the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

preparing for possible entry into World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

in mid-1941, the Fleischer staff had Popeye enlist in the US Navy. Both Popeye and Bluto were redesigned with white US Navy uniform, a look the character retained well into the 1960s. Military themes and storylines dominated the Popeye cartoons for the rest of the early 1940s, with caricatured versions of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, Hirohito

Hirohito

, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...

, and various Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

military men and spies as regular villains from 1942 to 1944.

In May 1941, Paramount Pictures assumed full ownership of Fleischer Studios, making its sibling owners Max

Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...

and Dave Fleischer

Dave Fleischer

David "Dave" Fleischer was an American animator film director and film producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his two older brothers Max Fleischer and Lou Fleischer...

employees of Paramount. The Fleischer brothers' personal and professional relationship deteriorated by the end of 1941, and Paramount forced the Fleischers to resign at the end of 1941. The studio continued as "Fleischer Studios" until the formal end of the corporation's contract with Paramount in May 1942. The final Fleischer Popeye cartoon was Baby Wants a Bottleship (1942).

The studio was renamed Famous Studios

Famous Studios

in 1942 with several longtime Fleischer employees in charge, including Sam Buchwald as producer, and Seymour Kneitel

Seymour Kneitel

Seymour Kneitel was an American animator. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios.-Early years:...

and Isadore Sparber

Isadore Sparber

Isadore Sparber was an American storyboard artist, writer, director and producer of animated films. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios. His work appeared with different versions of his name including Izzy Sparber, I...

as directors. The first Famous Studios Popeye cartoon was the war-themed You're a Sap, Mr. Jap (1942). This cartoon and the following Popeye entry, Alona on the Sarong Seas, retained the title design from the late-period Fleischer cartoons, but omit Max Fleischer's name and do not yet mention the Famous Studios name.

Beginning with Hull of a Mess (1942), Popeye cartoons were introduced with a new opening title design featuring the Famous Studios name and an animated Popeye tooting his pipe through a porthole

Porthole

A porthole is a generally circular, window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Porthole is actually an abbreviated term for "port hole window"...

. As with the late-period Fleischer titles, these opening titles were also excised by a.a.p. to remove references to Paramount. The early Famous Popeyes retain much of the style of the late Fleischer shorts. One 1943 entry, Happy Birthdaze, introduces a new character named Shorty, voiced by Arnold Stang

Arnold Stang

Arnold Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.-Career:...

, as both a friend and a foil for Popeye. Shorty would appear in three Popeye cartoons between 1943 and 1944 before being retired.

With the transition to Famous, Paramount downsized the staff, leaving only the key former Fleischer employees, and moved Famous back to New York City during the winter of 1943. In mid-1943, Famous dropped the expensive Superman cartoons and began producing all of their output, including the Popeye series, in Technicolor

Technicolor

. The final black-and-white Popeye cartoon was Cartoons Ain't Human (1943).

DVD listing

All Fleischer produced cartoons were directed by Dave Fleischer. Famous Studios Popeye cartoons list specific director credits.

1941

Problem Pappy
Quiet! Pleeze
Olive's Sweepstakes Ticket
Flies Ain't Human
Popeye Meets Rip Van Winkle
Olive's Boithday Presink
Child Psykolojiky (final cartoon with ship door titles)
Pest Pilot
I'll Never Crow Again
The Mighty Navy
Nix on Hypnotricks

1942

Kickin' the Conga 'Round
Blunder Below
Fleets Of Stren'th
Pip-eye, Pup-eye, Poop-eye and Peep-eye
Olive Oyl And Water Don't Mix

Special features

Popeye Popumentaries:

Directing the Sailor: The Art of Myron Waldman
Myron Waldman
Myron Waldman was an American animator, best known for his work at Fleischer Studio.Waldman was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was a graduate of the Pratt Institute, where he majored in Art. He started his first career work in 1930 at Fleischer Studio...
Popeye: The Mighty Ensign
Pip-Eye, Pup-Eye, Poop-Eye an' Peep-Eye: Chips Off the Old Salt

From the Vault: Three Out of the Inkwell

Out of the Inkwell

Out of the Inkwell was a major animated series of the silent era produced by Max Fleischer from 1918 to 1929.The series was the result of three short experimental films that Max Fleischer independently produced in the period of 1914-1916 to demonstrate his invention, the Rotoscope, which was a...

shorts:

The Clown's Little Brother (1920)
The Cartoon Factory (1924)
Koko Needles the Boss (1927)

1942

Many Tanks
Baby Wants a Bottleship (last Fleischer cartoon)
You're a Sap, Mr. Jap (first Famous cartoon) (Dan Gordon)
Alona on the Sarong Seas (Isadore Sparber
Isadore Sparber
Isadore Sparber was an American storyboard artist, writer, director and producer of animated films. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios. His work appeared with different versions of his name including Izzy Sparber, I...

)
A Hull of a Mess (Sparber)
Scrap The Japs (Seymour Kneitel
Seymour Kneitel
Seymour Kneitel was an American animator. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios.-Early years:...

)
Me Musical Nephews (Kneitel)

1943

Spinach Fer Britain
Spinach Fer Britain
Spinach Fer Britain is a 1943, anti-nazi propaganda cartoon, produced by Famous Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film centers around Popeye the Sailor trying to deliver a shipment of spinach to 10 Downing Street in London, while fighting off Nazi Kriegsmarine soldiers pursuing him...

(Sparber)
Seein' Red, White 'N' Blue
Seein' Red, White 'N' Blue
"Seein' Red, White 'N' Blue" is a 1943 American cartoon short featuring Popeye, directed by Dan Gordon. It's a World War II propaganda cartoon featuring Bluto trying to escape the draft and fighting along with Popeye against some Japanese spies, Hirohito and Adolf Hitler.-Plot:While Bluto is busy...

(Gordon)
Too Weak to Work (Sparber)
A Jolly Good Furlough (Gordon)
Ration Fer The Duration (Kneitel)
The Hungry Goat (Gordon)
Happy Birthdaze (Gordon)
Wood-Peckin (Sparber)
Cartoons Ain't Human (Kneitel)

Special features

Retrospective documentary:

Forging the Frame: The Roots of Animation: 1921-1930

From the Vault: Western Electric

Western Electric

Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...

short

Finding His Voice (1929)

Background

DVD listing

1941

1942

Special features

1942

1943

Special features

See also