Popeye the Sailor (Warner DVD series)

Popeye the Sailor is a fictional cartoon character

Character (arts)

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

created by Elzie Crisler Segar

E. C. Segar

Elzie Crisler Segar was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of Popeye, a character who first appeared in 1929 in his comic strip Thimble Theatre. Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest it was "SEE-gar". He commonly signed his work simply Segar or E...

, which first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. He also appeared in a number of animated cartoon

Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

s in the cinema and on TV.

In 1933, 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...

's 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...

adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for 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...

. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount's own 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...

—continued production through 1957. The cartoons are now owned by Turner Entertainment

Turner Entertainment

Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. (commonly known as Turner Entertainment Co.) is an American...

, a subsidiary of Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

, and distributed by sister company Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

Entertainment.

History

In November 1932, King Features signed an agreement with 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...

, run by producer Max Fleischer

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 his brother, director 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...

, to have Popeye and the other Thimble Theatre characters begin appearing in a series of animated cartoons. The first cartoon in the series was released in 1933, and Popeye cartoons, released by Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

, would remain a staple of Paramount's release schedule for nearly 25 years.

The plotlines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler than those presented in the comic strips, and the characters slightly different. A villain, usually Bluto, made a move on Popeye's "sweetie," Olive Oyl. The bad guy then clobbered Popeye until Popeye ate spinach, giving him superhuman strength. Thus empowered, the sailor made short work of the villain.

Many of the Thimble Theatre characters, including Wimpy, Poopdeck Pappy, and Eugene the Jeep, eventually made appearances in the Paramount cartoons, though appearances by Olive Oyl's extended family and Ham Gravy were notably absent. Popeye was also given more family exclusive to the shorts, specifically his look-alike nephews Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye.

Fleischer Studios

Popeye made his film debut in Popeye the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor (1933 cartoon)
Popeye the Sailor is a 1933 Fleischer Studios animated short, directed by Dave Fleischer. While billed as a Betty Boop cartoon, it actually starred Popeye the Sailor in his first animated appearance.-Summary:...

, a 1933 Betty Boop
Betty Boop
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...

cartoon (Betty only makes a brief appearance, repeating her hula

Hula

Hula is a dance form accompanied by chant or song . It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form....

dance from Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle
Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle
Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle is a 1932 Fleischer Studios Betty Boop animated short, directed by Dave Fleischer. It is now public domain.-Plot:...

). It was for this short that Sammy Lerner

Sammy Lerner

Samuel "Sammy" Lerner was a Romanian-born songwriter for American and British musical theatre and film.-Career:...

wrote the song "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man". I Yam What I Yam
I Yam What I Yam
I Yam What I Yam is a Popeye theatrical cartoon short, starring William "Billy" Costello as Popeye, Bonnie Poe as Olive Oyl and Charles Lawrence as Wimpy...

became the first entry in the regular Popeye the Sailor series.

For the first few cartoons, the opening-credits music consisted of an instrumental of "The Sailor's Hornpipe

The Sailor's Hornpipe

The Sailor's Hornpipe is a traditional hornpipe melody.- History :The usual tune for this dance was first printed as the "College Hornpipe" in 1797 or 1798 by J. Dale of London....

," followed by a vocal variation on "Strike Up the Band (Here Comes a Sailor)," substituting the words "for Popeye the Sailor" in the latter phrase. After that the "I Yam What I Yam" tune was used as the theme song. As Betty Boop

Betty Boop

Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...

gradually declined in quality as a result of the Hays Code being enforced in 1934, Popeye became the studio's star character by 1936.

The character of Popeye was originally voiced

Voice acting

Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...

by William "Billy" Costello, also known as "Red Pepper Sam." When Costello's behavior allegedly became a problem because of the MPAA Code, he was replaced by former in-betweener animator

Animator

An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...

Jack Mercer

Jack Mercer was an American animator, storyman and voice actor. He is best known as the voice of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor...

, beginning with King of the Mardi Gras in 1935. Jack Mercer copied Costello's gravelly voice style familiar to audiences. Olive Oyl was voiced by a number of actresses, the most notable of which was Mae Questel

Mae Questel

Mae Questel was an American actress and vocal artist best known for providing the voices for the animated characters, Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. She began in vaudeville, and played occasional small roles in films and television later in her career, most notably the role of Aunt Bethany in 1989's...

, who also voiced Betty Boop. Questel eventually took over the part completely until 1938. William Pennell was the first to voice the Bluto character from 1933 to 1935's "The Hyp-Nut-Tist", after which Gus Wickie

Gus Wickie

Gus Wickie was a baritone singer and voice actor. He was the voice of Bluto in the Fleischer Studios Popeye cartoons from 1933 until his death in 1938. His final performance was as the "Chief" in Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh.-External links:...

voiced Bluto until his death in 1938, his last work as the "Chief" in Big Chief Ugh-A-Mug-Ugh.

Thanks to the animated-short series, Popeye became even more of a sensation than he had been in comic strips. During the mid-1930s, polls taken by theater owners proved Popeye more popular than Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

, and by 1938, polls showed that the sailor was Hollywood's most popular cartoon character, leaving Mickey in a third place (The second place was taken over by Donald Duck

Donald Duck

Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...

). Despite this, Popeye would lose that place in the 1940s, when Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

emerged and became even more popular than Popeye was. In 1935, as Popeye was able to surpass Mickey Mouse in popularity, Paramount added to Popeye's popularity by sponsoring the "Popeye Club" as part of their Saturday matinée program, in competition with Mickey Mouse Clubs. Popeye cartoons, including a sing-along special entitled Let's Sing With Popeye
Let's Sing with Popeye
Let's Sing With Popeye is a 1934 Screen Songs animated short, produced by Fleischer Studios and directed by Dave Fleischer. It was later re-released by Official Films in the 1950s....

, were a regular part of the weekly meetings. For a 10-cent membership fee, club members were given a Popeye kazoo

Kazoo

The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...

, a membership card, the chance to become elected as the Club's "Popeye" or "Olive Oyl," and the opportunity to win other gifts.

The original 1932 agreement with the syndicate called for any films made within ten years and any elements of them, to be destroyed

Wiping

Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

in 1942. This would have erased all Fleisher films, which are considered the best of the series. King was not sure what effect the cartoons would have on the strip; if the effect was very negative, King was very eager to erase any memory of the cartoons by destroying them. However, the films were not destroyed, either through oversight or because of their success.

The Popeye series, like other cartoons produced by the Fleischers, was noted for its urban feel (the Fleischers operated in New York City, specifically in Broadway), its manageable variations on a simple theme (Popeye loses Olive to bully Bluto and must eat his spinach and defeat him), and the characters' "under-the-breath" mutterings. The voices for Fleischer cartoons produced during the early and mid-1930s were recorded after the animation was completed. The actors, Mercer in particular, would therefore improvise

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

lines that were not on the storyboards or prepared for the lip-sync (generally word-play and clever puns). Even after the Fleischers began pre-recording dialog for lip-sync shortly after moving to Miami, Mercer and the other voice actors would record ad-libbed lines while watching a finished copy of the cartoon. Fleischer Studios produced 108 Popeye cartoons, 105 of them in black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

. The remaining three were two-reel (double-length) 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...

adaptations of stories from the Arabian Nights billed as "Popeye Color Features": Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 27, 1936 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave...

(1936), Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 26, 1937 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed...

(1937), and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Specials series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on April 7, 1939 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max, and directed by Dave Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc., with David...

(1939).
The Fleischers moved their studio to Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

in September 1938 in order to weaken union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

control and take advantage of tax breaks. The Popeye series continued production, although a marked change was seen in the Florida-produced shorts: they were brighter and less detailed in their artwork, with attempts to bring the character animation closer to a Disney style. Mae Questel, who started a family, refused to move to Florida, and Margie Hines

Margie Hines

Margie Hines is an American film actress. She is best known for her work as a voice artist at Fleischer Studios, where she voiced Olive Oyl in the Popeye the Sailor cartoons from 1938 to 1943....

, the wife of Jack Mercer, voiced Olive Oyl through the end of 1943. Several voice actors, among them Pinto Colvig

Pinto Colvig

Vance DeBar "Pinto" Colvig was an American vaudeville actor, radio actor, newspaper cartoonist, prolific movie voice actor, and circus performer whose schtick was playing clarinet off-key while mugging....

(better known as the voice of Disney's Goofy

Goofy

Goofy is a cartoon character created in 1932 at Walt Disney Productions. Goofy is a tall, anthropomorphic dog, and typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled fedora. Goofy is a close friend of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck...

), succeeded Gus Wickie as the voice of Bluto between 1938 and 1943.

In 1941, with World War II becoming more of a source of concern in the United States, Popeye was enlisted into the U.S. Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, as depicted in the 1941 short The Mighty Navy. His regular costume was changed from the dark blue shirt, red neckerchief, and light blue jeans he wore in the original comics to an official white Navy sailor suit, which Popeye continued to wear in animated cartoons until the 1970s. Popeye periodically appeared in his original costume when at home on shore leave, as in the 1942 entry Pip-Eye, Pup-Eye, Poop-Eye, An' Peep-Eye, which introduced his four identical nephews, and in the 1950 and 1952 Famous cartoons Popeye Makes a Movie and Big Bad Sindbad, which featured clips from 1937's Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves and 1936's Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor respectively. (See: List of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoons (Fleischer Studios).)

Famous Studios

In May 1941, Paramount Pictures assumed ownership of Fleischer Studios, which had borrowed heavily from Paramount in order to move to Florida and expand into features (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...

and 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...

). By the end of the year, Max and Dave Fleischer were no longer on speaking terms with each other, communicating solely by memo. Paramount fired the Fleischers and began reorganizing the studio, which they renamed Famous Studios

Famous Studios

.

With Famous Studios headed by Sam Buchwald, 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:...

, 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...

and Dan Gordon, production continued on the Popeye shorts. The early Famous-era shorts were often World War II-themed, featuring Popeye fighting Nazis

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

and Japanese soldiers, most notably the 1942 short You're a Sap, Mr. Jap
You're a Sap, Mr. Jap
You're a Sap, Mr. Jap is a 1942 one-reel animated cartoon short subject released by Paramount Pictures. It was the first cartoon featuring Popeye the Sailor in a series produced by Famous Studios, which took over the Popeye theatrical franchise from the Fleischer Studios. It is one of the...

. As Popeye was popular in South America, Famous Studios set the 1944 cartoon We're on our Way to Rio in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, as part of a "good neighbor" policy between the US government and the rest of the continent during the war.

In late 1943, the Popeye series was moved to Technicolor production, beginning with Her Honor the Mare. Though these cartoons were produced in full color, some films in the late-1940s period were released in less-expensive two-color (usually) processes like Cinecolor

Cinecolor

Cinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two color film process, based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and Alan M...

and Polacolor. Paramount had begun moving the studio back to New York that January, and Mae Questel reassumed voice duties for Olive Oyl. Jack Mercer was drafted into the Navy during World War II, and scripts were stockpiled for Mercer to record whenever he was on leave. When Mercer was unavailable, Harry Welch stood in as the voice of Popeye (and Shape Ahoy had Mae Questel doing Popeye's voice as well as Olive's). New voice cast member Jackson Beck

Jackson Beck

Jackson Beck was an American actor best known as the announcer on radio's The Adventures of Superman and the voice of Bluto in the Famous era Popeye theatrical shorts.-Career:...

began voicing Bluto within a few years; he, Mercer, and Questel would continue to voice their respective characters into the 1960s. Over time, the Technicolor Famous shorts began to adhere even closer to the standard Popeye formula, and softened, rounder character designs – including an Olive Oyl design which gave the character high heels and an updated hairstyle – were evident by late 1946. (See List of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoons (Famous Studios).)

Theatrical Popeye cartoons on television

Famous/Paramount continued producing the Popeye series until 1957, with Spooky Swabs
Spooky Swabs
Spooky Swabs is a Popeye theatrical cartoon short, starring Jack Mercer as Popeye and Mae Questel as Olive Oyl. Produced by Paramount Cartoon Studios and directed by Isadore Sparber, it was released in 1957 and is the final cartoon in the Popeye series of theatrical cartoons released by Paramount...

being the last of the 125 Famous shorts in the series. Paramount then sold the Popeye film catalog to 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...

(a.a.p.), which was bought out by United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

in 1958 and later merged with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

, which was itself purchased by Turner Entertainment

Turner Entertainment

in 1986. Turner sold off the production end of MGM/UA shortly after, but retained the film catalog, giving it the rights to the theatrical Popeye library.

The black-and-white Popeye shorts were shipped to both South Korea and Tawain (Hong Ying) in 1985, where artists retraced them into color. The process was intended to make the shorts more marketable in the modern television era, but prevented the viewers from seeing the original Fleischer pen-and-ink work, as well as the three-dimensional backgrounds created by Fleischer's "Stereoptical" process. Every other frame was traced, changing the animation from being "on ones" (24 frame/s) to being "on twos" (12 frame/s), and softening the pace of the films. These colorized shorts began airing on Superstation WTBS in 1986 during their Tom & Jerry and Friends 90-minute weekday morning and hour-long weekday afternoon shows. The retraced shorts were syndicated in 1987 on a barter basis, and remained available until the early 1990s. Turner merged with Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

in 1996, and Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

(through its Turner subsidiary) therefore currently controls the rights to the Popeye shorts.

For many decades, viewers could only see a majority of the classic Popeye cartoons with altered opening and closing credits. a.a.p. had, for the most part, replaced the original Paramount logos with their own. In 2001, the Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network (United States)

Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...

, under the supervision of animation historian Jerry Beck

Jerry Beck

Jerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....

, created a new incarnation of The Popeye Show
The Popeye Show
The Popeye Show is a Cartoon Network TV show that premiered on November 11, 2001. Each episode would include three unedited Popeye theatrical shorts from Fleischer Studios and/or Famous Studios. The show was narrated by Bill Murray , would give the audience short facts about the history of the...

. The show aired the Fleischer and Famous Studios Popeye shorts in versions approximating their original theatrical releases by editing copies of the original opening and closing credits (taken or recreated from various sources) onto the beginnings and ends of each cartoon, or in some cases, in their complete, uncut original theatrical versions direct from such prints that originally contained the front-and-end Paramount credits.

The series, which aired 135 Popeye shorts over forty-five episodes, also featured segments offering trivia

Trivia

The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...

about the characters, voice actors, and animators. The program aired without interruption until March 2004. The Popeye Show continued to air on Cartoon Network's spin-off network Boomerang

Boomerang (TV channel)

Boomerang is a 24-hour American cable television channel owned by Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner. Boomerang specializes in reruns of animated programming from Time Warner's extensive archives, including pre-1986 MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...

. The restored Popeye Show versions of the shorts are sometimes seen at revival film houses for occasional festival screenings. The Popeye Show is currently airing on Cartoon Network in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

as well as in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. In the U.S., a daily half-hour block of Popeye can be seen on the Boomerang network from time to time; however, the Fleischer Popeye shorts shown on this block are mostly the 1980s colorized versions, and most of the title cards thereof have been edited to hide the a.a.p. logo.

Original television cartoons

In 1960, King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

commissioned a new series of cartoons entitled Popeye the Sailor, but this time for television syndication. Al Brodax

Al Brodax

Al Brodax is an American film and television producer. He was sometimes credited as "Al Broadax."-Career:At the age of eighteen, Brodax enlisted in the US Army and served in World War II...

served as executive producer of the cartoons for King Features. Jack Mercer

Jack Mercer

Jack Mercer was an American animator, storyman and voice actor. He is best known as the voice of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor...

, Mae Questel

Mae Questel

, and Jackson Beck

Jackson Beck

Jackson Beck was an American actor best known as the announcer on radio's The Adventures of Superman and the voice of Bluto in the Famous era Popeye theatrical shorts.-Career:...

returned for this series, which was produced by a number of companies, including Jack Kinney Productions

Jack Kinney

Jack Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts.Jack Kinney attended John Muir Junior High School in Los Angeles, California , and attended John C. Fremont High School there with Roy Williams...

, Rembrandt Films (William L. Snyder and Gene Deitch

Gene Deitch

Eugene Merril "Gene" Deitch is an American illustrator, animator and film director. He has been based in Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia and the present-day Czech Republic, since 1959. Since 1968, Deitch has been the leading animation director for the Connecticut organization Weston...

), Larry Harmon Productions

Larry Harmon

Lawrence Weiss , better known by the stage name Larry Harmon and as his alter-ego Bozo the Clown, was a Jewish American entertainer.-Biography:...

, Halas and Batchelor

Halas and Batchelor

Halas and Batchelor was an animation company founded by John Halas and his wife, Joy Batchelor. The company started as a small animation unit that created commercials for theatrical distribution...

, Paramount Cartoon Studios (formerly Famous Studios), and Southern Star Entertainment (formerly Southern Star Productions). The artwork was streamlined and simplified for the television budgets, and 220 cartoons were produced in only two years, with the first set of them premiering in the autumn of 1960, and the last of them debuting during the 1961–1962 television season. Since King Features had exclusive rights to these Popeye cartoons, 85 of them were released on DVD as a 75th anniversary Popeye boxed set in 2004.

For these cartoons, Bluto's name was changed to "Brutus," as King Features believed at the time that Paramount owned the rights to the name "Bluto." Many of the cartoons made by Paramount used plots and storylines taken directly from the comic strip sequences-as well as characters like King Blozo and the Sea Hag. The 1960s cartoons have been issued on both VHS and DVD.

On September 9, 1978, The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Syndicate. Starring the popular comic strip character Popeye, the series aired from 1978 to 1983 on CBS.-Production:...

debuted on the CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

Saturday morning lineup. It was an hour-long animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, which tried its best to retain the style of the original comic strip (Popeye returned to his original costume and Brutus to his original name of Bluto), while complying with the prevailing content restrictions on violence. In addition to providing many of the cartoon scripts, Mercer continued to voice Popeye, while Marilyn Schreffler

Marilyn Schreffler

Marilyn Schreffler was an American actress, who provided voice-overs for several animated TV programs, mostly for Hanna-Barbera Productions.-Life:Born in Concordia, Kansas, and had an affinity for cartoons since age 6...

and Allan Melvin

Allan Melvin

Allan Melvin was an American character actor who appeared in several television shows, including the roles of Corporal Henshaw on The Phil Silvers Show; Alice's boyfriend Sam the Butcher on The Brady Bunch; and Archie Bunker's friend Barney Hefner on All in the Family and Archie Bunker's...

became the new voices of Olive Oyl and Bluto, respectively. (Mae Questel actually auditioned for Hanna-Barbera to recreate Olive Oyl, but was rejected in favor of Schreffler.) The All-New Popeye Hour ran on CBS until September 1981, when it was cut to a half-hour and retitled The Popeye and Olive Show. It was removed from the CBS lineup in September 1983, the year before Jack Mercer's death. These cartoons have also been released on VHS and DVD. During the time these cartoons were in production, CBS aired The Popeye Valentine's Day Special – Sweethearts at Sea on February 14 (St. Valentine's Day, of course), 1979. In the UK, the BBC aired a half-hour version of The All-New Popeye Show, from the early-1980s to 2004.

Popeye briefly returned to CBS in 1987 for Popeye and Son
Popeye and Son
Popeye and Son is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Entertainment, and aired for one season and thirteen episodes on CBS. Maurice LaMarche supplied the voice of Popeye in this series, succeeding Jack Mercer in that role...

, another Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

series, which featured Popeye and Olive as a married couple with a son named Popeye Jr., who hates the taste of spinach but eats it to boost his strength. Maurice LaMarche

Maurice LaMarche

Maurice LaMarche is an Emmy Award winning Canadian-American voice actor and former stand up comedian. He is best known for his voicework in Futurama as Kif Kroker, as Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters, Verminous Skumm and Duke Nukem in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Big Bob Pataki in Hey...

performed Popeye's voice; Mercer had died in 1984. The show lasted for one season.

In 2004, Lions Gate Entertainment

Lions Gate Entertainment

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...

produced a computer-animated

Computer animation

Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....

television special, Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy
Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy
Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy is a 2004 computer-animated direct-to-video film produced by Mainframe Entertainment for Lions Gate Entertainment...

, which was made to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Popeye. Billy West performed the voice of Popeye; after the first day of recording, his throat was so sore he had to return to his hotel room and drink honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

. The uncut version was released on DVD on November 9, 2004; and was aired in a re-edited version on Fox

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

on December 17, 2004 and again on December 30, 2005. Its style was influenced by the 1930s Fleischer cartoons, and featured Swee'Pea, Wimpy, Bluto (who is Popeye's friend in this version), Olive Oyl, Poopdeck Pappy and the Sea Hag as its characters. On November 6, 2007, Lionsgate Entertainment re-released Popeye’s Voyage on DVD with redesigned cover art.

Popeye has made brief parody appearances in modern animated productions, including:

A typical Popeye style rescue was spoofed in The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

episode "Jaws Wired Shut
Jaws Wired Shut
"Jaws Wired Shut" is the ninth episode of The Simpsons thirteenth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 27, 2002. In the episode, Homer gets his jaw injured by running into the fist of Drederick Tatum's statue. As a result, Homer's jaw is wired shut, making...

".
In The Critic
The Critic
The Critic is an American prime time animated series revolving around the life of film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by actor Jon Lovitz. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, both of whom had worked as writers on The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994,...

, Jay Sherman's father Franklin flashes back to saving his wife Popeye style with alcohol instead of spinach.
Popeye appeared in the Drawn Together
Drawn Together
Drawn Together is an American animated television series, which ran on Comedy Central from October 27, 2004 to November 14, 2007. The series was created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, and uses a sitcom format with a TV reality show setting...

episode "The Lemon-AIDS Walk" voiced by Billy West
Billy West
William Richard "Billy" West is an American voice actor. Born in Detroit but raised in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Billy launched his career in the early 1980s performing daily comedic routines on Boston's WBCN. He left the radio station to work on the short-lived revival...

.
In the Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...

episode "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives", it is implied that Popeye's unique behavior and speech patterns are the result of a stroke; as well as his massive forearms being composed of tumors rather than muscle.
Popeye co-stars in a short from Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy is an American cartoon web series created by Seth MacFarlane.-Background:The series, which consists of comic cartoon shorts unrelated to each other, is released on YouTube. The series, which aired several episodes a month, was originally sponsored by...

giving Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

a hard time about him not singing his hit song, "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...

".
Popeye appeared in the Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...

episodes "The Sack," "Squaw Bury Shortcake," and "Yancy the Yo-Yo Boy" voiced by Dave Coulier
Dave Coulier
David Alan "Dave" Coulier is an American stand-up comedian, impressionist, television and voice actor, and television host. He is well-known for his role as Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom Full House, which ran from 1987 to 1995....

(which he was known to perform often during his co-starring role on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

sitcom Full House
Full House
Full House is an American sitcom television series. Set in San Francisco, the show chronicles widowed father Danny Tanner, who, after the death of his wife, enlists his best friend Joey Gladstone and his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis to help raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and...

).
Popeye appeared in the South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...

Imaginationland
Imaginationland
"Imaginationland" is a three-part episode of the American animated television series South Park.*Episode I*Episode II*Episode III...

three-parter as one of the members of The Council of Nine. Popeye's appearance in one scene evoked that of the character Karl in the movie Sling Blade
Sling Blade
Sling Blade is a 1996 American drama film set in rural Arkansas, written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars in the lead role. It tells the story of a mentally impaired man named Karl Childers who is released from a psychiatric hospital, where he has lived since killing his mother...

, as Popeye sharpened a blade, much as Karl sharpened a lawnmower blade near the end of Sling Blade.

Background

These cartoons were originally produced by Fleischer Studios (by arrangement with Elzie Segar and King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate

) and distributed to theaters by Paramount Pictures. In 1942, Paramount took over Fleischer Studios and the animation studio was reorganized into Famous Studios which took over the Popeye series.

In 1956, Paramount sold the black and white cartoons to television syndicator Associated Artists Productions

Associated Artists Productions

for release to television stations. Shown with a.a.p. logos replacing the Paramount logos (with one Paramount reference in the copyright line remaining), these cartoons were enormously popular.http://www.calmapro.com/popeye/history.php?section=popeye_tv¤t=history The color Popeye cartoons were sold to a.a.p. in 1957 at which point the theatrical Popeye series was discontinued. In 1958, a.a.p. was sold to United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

. UA was absorbed into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

to create MGM/UA in 1981.

In 1983, MGM/UA Home Video

MGM Home Entertainment

MGM Home Entertainment is the home video and DVD arm of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-History:The home video division of MGM started in 1979 as MGM Home Video, releasing all the movies and TV shows by MGM. In 1980, MGM joined forces with CBS Video Enterprises, the home video division of the CBS television...

attempted to release a collection of Popeye cartoons on Betamax

Betamax

Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...

and VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

tapes titled The Best of Popeye, Vol. 1, but the release was canceled after MGM/UA received a cease and desist

Cease and desist

A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....

letter from King Features Syndicate, which claimed that they only had the legal rights to release the collection on video.http://replay.web.archive.org/20020802050324/http://www.cartoonresearch.com/comments.html After Ted Turner

Ted Turner

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

's unsuccessful attempt in 1986 to absorb MGM/UA, Turner sold the production and distribution operations and kept the MGM film library including the a.a.p. library. Time Warner bought Turner in 1996. While King Features owned the rights, material, comics, and merchandizing to the character, King Features did not have ownership to the cartoons themselves.

A clause in the original contract between the film studios and King Features Syndicate stated that after ten years, all of the original negatives and prints of the King Features cartoons were to be destroyed

Lost film

A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

. Popeye was never enforced to that clause.http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/columbias-barney-google.html

While most of the Paramount Popeye catalog remained unavailable on VHS tape, a handful of those cartoons have fallen into the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

and were found on numerous low-budget VHS tapes and DVDs. Those cartoons were however in poor of quality (because the prints used were original a.a.p.

Associated Artists Productions

prints from the 1950s, many badly faded colors were shown). These cartoons were a handful of 1930s-40s cartoons, the Famous studios cartoons (most of which fell to the public domain after the MGM/UA merger), and all three Popeye specials.

In 1999, home video rights to the Turner film library were reassigned from MGM/UA Home Video to Warner Home Video. Through the years, both Turner and Warner were unsuccessful in convincing King Features to allow the cartoons to be issued on home video.http://www.calmapro.com/popeye/dvd.php?section=dvd_issue¤t=dvd It was reported in 2002 that Warner and King Features parent Hearst Corporation

Hearst Corporation

The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...

were working on a deal to release the Popeye cartoons on home video.http://replay.web.archive.org/20020802050324/http://www.cartoonresearch.com/comments.html Over 1,000 people signed an online petition asking Warner and King Features to release the theatrical Popeye cartoons on DVDs.http://www.calmapro.com/popeye/dvd.php?section=dvd_petition_view¤t=dvd&orderby=id

In 2006, Warner Home Video and King Features Syndicate along with KFS' parent company Hearst Entertainment finally reached agreement allowing for the release of the theatrical Popeye cartoons on home video.http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Popeye/5804 The original Paramount logos appear on these cartoons because Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

and Paramount Pictures cross-licensed

Cross-licensing

A cross-licensing agreement is a contract between two or more parties where each party grants rights to their intellectual property to the other parties.-Patent law:...

each others' logos in a deal which also involved Paramount-distributed John Wayne

John Wayne

Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

movies originally released by Warner Bros., and therefore preserving the artistic integrity of the original theatrical releases.http://animated-views.com/2007/jerry-beck-on-cartoons-then-and-now/

The DVD volumes are being released in the order the cartoons were released to theaters.

While Volume One is a four-disc set, Warner Home Video has 'retooled' its release schedule so subsequent releases are two-disc sets beginning with Volume Two. The reason speculated was that the restoration of the later black-and-white cartoons was taking longer than expected.http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Popeye-Volume-2/9048

Volume One of the series had the "Intended For Adult Collector And May Not Be Suitable For Children" advisory warning, which was exactly the same disclaimer the "Golden Collection" Looney Tunes had on volumes 3-6. Volume Two didn't have that disclaimer, but Volume Three, featuring three banned Popeye wartime cartoons, has a written disclaimer similar to the one on Volume One.
CBS/Fox Video

CBS/Fox Video

CBS/Fox Video was a home video company formed and established in 1982, as a merger between 20th Century Fox Video, formerly Magnetic Video Corporation, and CBS Video Enterprises....

(under license of MGM/UA

MGM Home Entertainment

) had planned a VHS and Beta

Betamax

release of the Fleischer and Famous Studios cartoons in 1983. However, UA was informed by King Features Syndicate that only King Features had the legal right to release Popeye cartoons on video. United Artists did not challenge King Features' claim, and the release was canceled. While King Features owns the rights to the Popeye characters, and licensed the characters to appear in the Fleischer/Famous cartoons, King Features does not have any ownership in the films themselves.

A clause in the original contract between Paramount Pictures and King Features stated that after ten years, the prints and negatives of the Popeye cartoons were to be destroyed

Lost film

, a clause the syndicate had for all of its licensed properties. The clause was never enforced for Popeye.

While many of the Paramount Popeye cartoons remained unavailable on video, a handful of those cartoons had fallen into public domain

Public domain

and were found on numerous low budget VHS tapes and later DVDs. Among these cartoons are a handful of the Fleischer black-and-whites, several 1950s Famous shorts (many of which went public domain after the MGM/UA merger), and all three Popeye Color Specials. When Turner Entertainment acquired the cartoons in 1986, a long and laborious legal struggle with King Features kept the majority of the original Popeye shorts from official video releases for more than 20 years. King Features instead opted to release a DVD boxed set of the 1960s made-for-television Popeye cartoons, which it retained the rights to, in 2004. In the meantime, home video rights to the a.a.p.

Associated Artists Productions

library were transferred from CBS/Fox Video

CBS/Fox Video

CBS/Fox Video was a home video company formed and established in 1982, as a merger between 20th Century Fox Video, formerly Magnetic Video Corporation, and CBS Video Enterprises....

to MGM/UA Home Video

MGM Home Entertainment

in 1986, and eventually to 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...

in 1999.

In 2006, Warner Bros. finally reached an agreement with King Features Syndicate and its parent company Hearst Corporation

Hearst Corporation

. Warner Home Video announced it would release all of the Popeye cartoons produced for theatrical release between 1933 and 1957 on DVD, restored and uncut. The studio also plans to release DVD sets of the Popeye cartoons made for television in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the rights to which are controlled by Hearst Entertainment. This is similar in most respects to the Looney Tunes Golden Collection
Looney Tunes Golden Collection
The Looney Tunes Golden Collection was an annual series of six four-disc DVD box sets from Warner Bros.' home video unit Warner Home Video, each containing about 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts...

DVD sets also released by Warner, except the Popeye shorts will be released in chronological order.

The first of Warner's Popeye DVD sets, covering the cartoons released from 1933 until early 1938, was released on July 31, 2007. Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1
Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1
Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1 is the first authorized collection of theatrical Popeye cartoons on home video. This four-disc DVD set includes 60 theatrical Popeye cartoons, and was released on July 31, 2007 by Warner Home Video...

, a four-disc collector’s edition DVD, contains the first 60 Fleischer Popeye cartoons, including the color specials Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves. Restoration timelines caused Warners to re-imagine the Popeye DVD sets as a series of two-disc sets. This DVD set was included, either erroneously or through fraud, in a batch of boxed sets sold in discount outlets for $3 or less in the summer of 2009.

A second volume of Popeye cartoons from Warner Home Video, Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2 is the second of a series of DVD sets released by Warner Home Video collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures. Originally planned as a four-disc set like Volume 1, Volume 2 was announced and...

was released on June 17, 2008.
It includes the final color Popeye special Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. Warner also released Popeye & Friends, Volume One, a single DVD featuring eight color Popeye cartoons from Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

's 1978 TV series The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour
The All-New Popeye Hour is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Syndicate. Starring the popular comic strip character Popeye, the series aired from 1978 to 1983 on CBS.-Production:...

, on the same day (Hanna-Barbera is also a division of WB).

Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3
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 collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures...

was released on November 4, 2008. It includes three seldom shown wartime Popeye cartoons: You're A Sap, Mister Jap (1942), Scrap The Japs (1942), and Seein' Red, White, and Blue (1943). A second single-disc volume of H-B produced Popeye TV cartoons was also scheduled for release titled Popeye & Friends, Volume Two, but Warner decided to cancel the release of this DVD.

DVD collections

Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1
Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1
Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1 is the first authorized collection of theatrical Popeye cartoons on home video. This four-disc DVD set includes 60 theatrical Popeye cartoons, and was released on July 31, 2007 by Warner Home Video...

(released July 31, 2007) features cartoons released from 1933 to early 1938 and contains the color Popeye specials Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 27, 1936 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave...

and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 26, 1937 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed...

.

Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2 is the second of a series of DVD sets released by Warner Home Video collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures. Originally planned as a four-disc set like Volume 1, Volume 2 was announced and...

(released June 17, 2008) features cartoons released from late 1938 to 1940 and includes the last color Popeye special Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Specials series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on April 7, 1939 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max, and directed by Dave Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc., with David...

.

Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3
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 collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures...

(released November 4, 2008)http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B23ED6 features the remaining black-and-white Popeye cartoons released from 1941 to 1943 and covers the transition from Fleischer Studios to Famous Studios producing the cartoons.

Future releases

Famous Studios (renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956) produced 108 color Popeye cartoons from 1943 to 1957 which means there may be either three or four additional volumes of Popeye 2-disc DVD sets released in the future. As of November 11, 2009, during a broadcast of Stu's Show on Shokus Internet Radio, it has been announced by animation historian and DVD production consultant Jerry Beck

Jerry Beck

that due to the present state of the United States economy

Late 2000s recession

The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession or Lesser Depression or Long Recession, is a severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world...

, and the high costs involved for restoring the remaining Popeye cartoons, there were no new DVD releases in 2010.

History

Fleischer Studios

Famous Studios

Theatrical Popeye cartoons on television

Original television cartoons

Background

DVD collections

Future releases

See also