1960s Popeyes

[Sveven Dvorking]

Were there any Popeye cartoons released in the 1960s? If so, why doesn't Cargoon Networm air them? I am sure the 1950s Popeyes are not any better.

[Joe Tully]

Nope. The Popeye series died out in 1957. You can often catch some of the 50's Popeyes on the Popeye show, which airs at 2:30 AM tonight/tomorrow morning, whichever you want to call it.

[Sveven Dvorking]

So there are no 1960s Popeyes...

They recently had a late night Acme Hour with 13 color Popeyes, most of them from the 1950s.

[Rob]

Of course there are those God-awful 1960s Popeye cartoons made for television. But we really don't want to talk about those. BLECCHHHH!

[J Lee]

The made-for-TV Popeyes from 1960-61 are an inconsistant lot, to say the least. King Features Syndicate contracted with Paramount to do them, plus three of the KFS comics -- Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith and Krazy Kat -- and Paramount then farmed out some of the work to other studios.

Five different directors at six different animation houses did the over 200 made-for-TV Popeyes (you got a lot of bang for your animation buck in 1960), with Paramount itself doing only about 50 to 60 of them. Seymour Kneitel was the director on those, and they're probably the best of the lot -- the characters stay on model and stay true to their theatrical roots, Kneitel & Co. even bring back the original Swe' Pea and Poopdeck Pappy for a couple of go-rounds, and Winston Sharples' familiar music (cribbed mainly from 1957's "Patriotic Popeye") is on the soundtrack. CN could take these, stick Paramount logos and the correct opening music (used only on the pilot `toon) on these and they wouldn't be that much out of place from the later theatrical releases.

The ones you would think would be the best due to the talent involved -- the ones done by ex-Disneyites Jack Kinney and his brother Dick, along with several other ex-Mouse Factory animators -- are the ones most people associate with the KFS Popeyes, and not in a favorable way. The Kinneys, working for Format Films in Los Angeles, did about half the TV ones, and while a few are decent, the bulk of them show that everyone involved with the project was either bored and/or had no interest in the characters. The canned music was bad, the characters often went off model (though Jack Kinney loved to give Brutis/Bluto very realistic hairy knuckles for some reason), and the plots at times were virtually non-exsistant -- there's one with Popeye and the gang on a golf course that consisted mainly of Jack Mercer saying "Play the ball as it lies" on the soundtrack for about five minutes.

The ones done in Prague by Gene Deitch are probably the most interesting as far as storylines go -- at least they were trying, unlike the Format Films people. The animation and music are about on the same level as Dietch's concurrent work on the Tom and Jerry series, meaning the characters kind of look like Popeye, Olive and Bluto, but tend to move funny and get kind of squishy in the action scenes.

The main difference in watching the two series is where Deitch's T&Js look particularly ugly and cheap running after an H-B Tom and Jerry or even a Chuck Jones one, in this group the awkward -- but full -- animation is a breath of fresh air compared to all but the Paramount KFS Popeyes. But Deitch's best work for KFS was on the Krazy Kat series, for which he did all but two or three of the 50 made.

Dietch also directed a series that was then animated in England by Halas and Batchlor. The animation is more limited and the stories done for these were more juvenile, but they're still better than the Format Films bunch.

Aside from Kneitel's Popeyes, some of the veterans from UPA's abandoned New York studio also did a handful of Popeyes (and a few Beetle Baileys) out of NYC. I remember Chris Ishii as having directed them, but I believe someone else actually handled the job. Anyway, the stories are passable in this bunch and some of Sharples' music is used, but the animation is very, very limited and the characters are off-model most of the time.

The absolute bottom of the barrel, wretched, rancid burn-these-films-before-they-blind-any-more-innocent-people KFS Popeyes are the ones done by producer Larry Harmon and director/former tennant of the Chuck Jones family Paul Fennell. These bozos had just finished making a series of animated Bozo cartoons (Harmon owning rights to the clown), and both series feature the same terrible animation, scripts, music, with a good dose of rhyming dialogue thrown in at times.

Future Filmation vet Hal Sutherland animated on these, which is approprate, because they are to Popeye what Sutherland's "Porky and Daffy Meet the Groovie Goolies" were a decade later to Warner Bros. animation.

[BobChief]

...were the sound effects in the Kinney toons! Particularly the "boom"!! (Being Format, this one would also show up in some of Klynn/Hendricks' work back at Warners)

Oh, and the new arrangement of the theme (wasn't that done by the same guy who did the music for Deitch's T&J's?)

At least some of them were known to include Popeye giving a 'moral' of sorts at the end, sung with a 'remember this well' stare, punctuated with two hearty blows on the ol' pipe, followed by him smiling and winking. Is it me, or were these used in some Deitch or other toons as well as Kneitel's?

[J Lee]

The Kneitel Popeyes were the ones that had the endings you're thinking of, which of course were a throwback to the ones done over the years by Fleischer/Famous, only without using the same stock animation pose over and over again. Dietch's occassionally used the "morals" ending with the Popeye theme, but not in that stock pose.

The "new" opening title music was done originally for the Format Films' series out of LA, though the Kinneys' pilot cartoon ("Barbeque for Two") also used the 1952-57 Paramount opening title music. They also put Popeye in his 1930s sailor outfit in that cartoon and went back to Olive's original hair-do for the first two or three cartoons, but despite that burst of fidelity to the originals series, most of the Format Films' Popeyes have a "We're just in it for the paycheck" quality to them. Format at the same period was working on their prime-time Alvin and the Chipmunks series for CBS, to go up against The Bugs Bunny Show on Tuesday nights in 1961, and that's probably where most of their efforts were directed.

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by J Lee
The Kneitel Popeyes were the ones that had the endings you're thinking of, which of course were a throwback to the ones done over the years by Fleischer/Famous, only without using the same stock animation pose over and over again. Dietch's occassionally used the "morals" ending with the Popeye theme, but not in that stock pose.


One Jack Kinney Popeye, "Uncivil War" (which was actually about traffic safety), did use the "singing Popeye" clip from the Paramount KFS toons at the end, only Popeye wasn't singing on the soundtrack, so it didn't match up at all.

[Joe Tully]

There was also The Popeye Hour on TV thru the late 70s and 80s. And also Popeye and Son in the 80s. But I don't think that those were great achievements either.

[Jon Cooke]

Just in case anyone was wondering, the reason CN doesn't broadcast the 1960s made-for-TV Popeyes discussed in this thread is because those cartoons are owned by King Features Syndicate (along with the 1980s Hanna-Barbera Popeye series and Popeye and Son ).


-Jon

[Sogturtle]

The few UPA Popeyes that I recall were about as John described them... But of particular note and relevance to this board, is the credited director, that I recall was former Warner/future MGM director Abe Levitow. The one that comes to mind right now (title forgotten) involved a blazing summer afternoon, and Popeye building a swimming pool... And Brutus stealing the pool from him! Seems like there were five animators credited, amongst them some Warner/MGM alumni.

The Jack Kinney/Format ones got to be sooooo bad to my warped little mind that I would wander off to eat something till it all blew over!! It's partularly notable that Format failed to put any of their animators names on the toons... Evidently to place all the BLAME on director Kinney and his storyman. Ditto on the Format company name!!

[J Lee]

Tim --

As I recall, most of the Format Films Popeyes did name the culpri...er, the animators involved -- at least I can remember ex-Disney and future Warners animator Volus Jones' name on the animator credits for Kinneys cartoon (no suprise because he was a member of Kinney's animation unit doing the Goofys and Donalds in the 1940s and 50s). The Gene Deitch ones out of Prague and London carried only Deitch's name and that of producer William Snyder (Huh? In the worker's paradise of Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia in 1960 the animators failed to gain their proper recognition while the capitalist lackey producer of cheap cartoons and his bourgoise immigrant director received all the credit? It's time for the proleteriat to arise and shake off the chains of the oppressors, to ... what's that? Stage a walk-out and we'll put your names on the Larry Harmon Popeye cartoons and ruin your reputations for life? Once again, comrades, the oppressive powers of the corporate interests have unfairly beaten down the rights of the majority...)

[John Doe]

Originally posted by Jon Cooke
Just in case anyone was wondering, the reason CN doesn't broadcast the 1960s made-for-TV Popeyes discussed in this thread is because those cartoons are owned by King Features Syndicate (along with the 1980s Hanna-Barbera Popeye series and Popeye and Son ).



-Jon Since "Popeye and Son" was mentioned, I have a question. Because the show was made in 1987, a few years after Jack Mercer passed away, who did the voice of Popeye?

[Sogturtle]

John~

Yeah I remember Volus Jones name on the credits too. Just couldn't remember which of the ersatz-Popeye-studios employed him. Here in my city the only Popeye cartoons that aired at all from the mid Sixties till the mid-1980's were the made-for-TV-Popeyes. Loved all things Popeye as a kid, even those toons... Thus I watched the made-for-TV '60s Popeyes all-my-goofy-life... And yet I conspicuously made a point of NOT taping these...EVER!! (maybe somewhere on some of my few timer-operated tapes...).

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
The few UPA Popeyes that I recall were about as John described them... But of particular note and relevance to this board, is the credited director, that I recall was former Warner/future MGM director Abe Levitow. The one that comes to mind right now (title forgotten) involved a blazing summer afternoon, and Popeye building a swimming pool... And Brutus stealing the pool from him!


"Popeye's Cool Pool"

[Jon Cooke]

Originally posted by John Doe
Since "Popeye and Son" was mentioned, I have a question. Because the show was made in 1987, a few years after Jack Mercer passed away, who did the voice of Popeye?


Popeye's voice was done by Maurice LaMarche on Popeye and Son.

I don't recall when or where I saw this, but this made-for-TV Popeye's plot sticks out in my mind: a king becomes jealous of Swee' Pea's popularity... so he decides to eat Swee' Pea in a stew and therefore become as popular as the tot. Seriously. I don't remember the outcome of the cartoon (although, I'm sure Swee' Pea didn't get eaten). Was that a '60s Popeye or it may have been a 1980s H-B Popeye. That had to have been the oddest plot for a Popeye cartoon ever.


-Jon

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by J Lee
Tim --

As I recall, most of the Format Films Popeyes did name the culpri...er, the animators involved -- at least I can remember ex-Disney and future Warners animator Volus Jones' name on the animator credits for Kinneys cartoon (no suprise because he was a member of Kinney's animation unit doing the Goofys and Donalds in the 1940s and 50s).


It's been many years since I've seen any of Jack Kinney's Popeyes, but I can remember the names of some of the "animation directors":

Ken Hultgren (The worst; characters very off-model.)

Rudy Larriva (Pretty much on-model.)

Eddie Rehberg (His Popeye had very thick eyebrows.)

Harvey Toombs (Pretty much on-model.)

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by Jon Cooke



Popeye's voice was done for Maurice LaMarche on Popeye and Son.


LaMarche also did the voice in an episode of "The Critic" in which the critic's father fantasized about being Popeye. ("I streaks like a comet/And drinks til I vomit/I'm Franklin the Sailor Man!")



I don't recall when or where I saw this, but this made-for-TV Popeye's plot sticks out in my mind: a king becomes jealous of Swee' Pea's popularity... so he decides to eat Swee' Pea in a stew and therefore become as popular as the tot. Seriously. I don't remember the outcome of the cartoon (although, I'm sure Swee' Pea didn't get eaten). Was that a '60s Popeye or it may have been a 1980s H-B Popeye. That had to have been the oddest plot for a Popeye cartoon ever.


"Swee'pea Soup", directed by Gene Deitch. Popeye used his pipe to turn the pot Swee'pea was being cooked in into a rocket. When Swee'pea fell back to Earth, King Blozo caught him, thus regaining his popularity.

[Sveven Dvorking]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
But of particular note and relevance to this board, is the credited director, that I recall was former Warner/future MGM director Abe Levitow

I do not remember Abe Levitow having any directed WB cartoons. Can someone give me an example of what he directed? I don't know much about animators, but I never knew he directed for WB.

[Jon Cooke]

Originally posted by Sveven Dvorking


I do not remember Abe Levitow having any directed WB cartoons. Can someone give me an example of what he directed? I don't know much about animators, but I never knew he directed for WB.

Levitow directed "Really Scent", "Unnatural History", and "A Witch's Tangled Hare". He also co-directed a few cartoons with Chuck Jones, including "Baton Bunny", "Nelly's Folly", and "Lickety-Splat!".


-Jon

[J Lee]

Abe Levitow directed my favorite Pepe LePew cartoon "Really Scent" (favorite because it actually shows some originality, unlike the previous nine years of Jones' LePew series), along with several other WB toons' including "A Witch's Tangled Hare," and "Unnatural History," and a couple of co-direction jobs with Chuck Jones. He left Warner Bros. around the end of 1959 to become supervising director for UPA and its new owner Henry B. Saperstein on their made-for-TV Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy cartoon series.

He directed the UPA 1962 movie "Gay Purr-ee" (whose script Mike Barrier said ended up being for Chuck Jones what the ending to "The Heckling Hare" was for Tex Avery at Warner Bros.) and "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol," which was his best work at UPA. He then supervised "The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo" for NBC which ran during the 1964-65 season on Saturday nights (and employed one Robert McKimson after the WB studio closed). When NBC canceled that series, Levitow went back to work for Chuck Jones at MGM, taking over directing chores on the bulk of the Tom & Jerry series.

BTW -- My personal favorite UPA released effort was Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lilly?" but that's fodder for another thread.

[Sogturtle]

John and Jon~

Let's not forget Levitow also co-directed the quirky little "Martian Through Georgia" with the Chuck-ster. BUUUUUUT of far more importance was that he helped Jones direct the one and only bonafide animated feature ever MADE by MGM... The much neglected "The Phantom Toolbooth" (1970).

Chuck really thought a lot of his talents...

[J Lee]

Levitow also had a signature style of animation, both in the Jones unit and on his own at Warners and in UPA's "Gay Purr-ee" -- characters with very bony arms and long fingers, who gesture a lot straight out at the audience. As for the other UPA stuff, the budget limitations made a unique style of full animation out of the question, though they were better animated that at least three of the six units doing the made-for-TV Popeyes at the same time.

[Greg Method]

I also liked the eye expressions and details Abe gave characters. That's kind of how I first able to see which parts Abe worked on in "Baton Bunny" and which ones Chuck did (well, visually anyway).

[Greg Method]

<< LaMarche also did the voice in an episode of "The Critic" in which the critic's father fantasized about being Popeye. ("I streaks like a comet/And drinks til I vomit/I'm Franklin the Sailor Man!") >>

Although LaMarche is a regular on "The Critic" (including the new Shockwave episodes), that was still Gerrit Graham doing the Franklin-as-Popeye voice. Whether or not Maurice did the Jackson Beck-ish quasi-Bluto character in the same sequence in another question. :)

[dougc]

J.Lee noted that, "Abe Levitow directed the UPA 1962 movie "Gay Purr-ee"(whose script Mike Barrier said ended up being for Chuck Jones what the ending to "The Heckling Hare" was for Tex Avery at Warner Bros.)."
I am not familiar with the story behind Jones' script for "Gay Purr-ee." Can someone enlighten me as to what happened? (It sounds like Chuck got in hot water over this.) Didn't Chuck's wife co-write the script?
dougc
P.S. Sorry, I couldn't seem to get the quote format to work properly.

[Jack]

Didn't Chuck Jones violate his contract by working with UPA on the script, causing him to leave the studio before it closed?

BTW, I also love "Really Scent," the Pepe series worked well when they injected more than a "cat gets a stripe painted on her back and Pepe chases her through the whole cartoon" sort of plot. One has to wonder why Jones kept up the series for so long. The first five or so cartoons are great/good, the rest are mediocre with "Really Scent" being the only standout.


Jack:confused:

[J Lee]

Although UPA did "Gay Purr-ee" it was released under a distribution agreement with Warner Bros. According to Barrier, studio executives didn't know Chuck Jones had done the script for the movie until they screened it prior to release.

The WB hierarcy apparently was unhappy to find out that Jones had been working on a side project without telling them. As was the case with Schlesinger and Avery 21 years earlier, Jones was hit with a suspension in the summer of 1962 and then dismissed from his job at the studio under a contract settlement on July 23, 1962, about nine months before the studio offically closed.

Barrier also said Freleng left the studio four months later, in November, 1962, to go write "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear," for Hanna-Barbera, leaving McKimson as the only remaining original director at WB. That could be why people like Gerry Chiniquy, Phil Monroe and Hawley Pratt ended up directing several of the final Warners releases, and why Warner Bros' ended up hiring Bill Tytla as animation director on the scenes for "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," the studio's last work before it closed in the spring of `63.

[Sveven Dvorking]

I heard that Jones co-directed it. I never knew he got in trouble with it.

[Sveven Dvorking]

So there were Popeye cartoons in the early 1960s. But they were made for TV. That cleared things up, since my father seems so sure that there were some.

[Mibbitmaker]

Swe'Pea Soup, eh? That'd make an interesting(and disgusting) double-bill with Famous' Popeye ala Mode!

I'd love to see some of those trainwrecks again some day. Definately the pilot(as a kid I loved that that one had the original designs). Also the Deitch ones. I remember loving the sound effects they used there(much like the Tom & Jerrys CN shows nowadays).

If CN can't show them due to KFS ownership, how could they be seen(on tape or TV) ?

[J Lee]

The Deitch ones did use some of the same sound effects, and some of the same music, though there was some origial stuff (including, I guess, a Czechoslovakian riff on the Popeye the Sailor theme). The Keneitel ones sounded just about like the mid-50s Paramount cartoons, except that the same musical cues were re-used all the time, while the music on the others was ... er ... let's just say of limited tonal and hamonic quality.

As for seeing them again, I think Jerry Beck reported a few months ago that the Hearst Corp., King Features' owner, has sold a package of their made-for-TV stuff to a Spanish language satellite network for use in Latina America and the Caribbean. I forget the name, but it's not Univision, Galavision or Telemundo, the three main ones seen in the U.S.

That means if you have DirectTV or Dish Network and get the uber-package of every channel possible, you might be able to get it, but it would be in the wrong language (unless they have an SAP button for English on the station).

[Greg Method]

Well, Rhino Home Video released two official Popeye videos a year ago or so. They were licensed from King Features, but I'm not sure if they're the 1960's cartoons (like the concurrent Beetle Bailey, etc. videos) or the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

And if you're really lucky, you may still be able to find the video "Popeye in Outer Space." You can tell you're in trouble when the cartoon looks bad on the box!

[Jon Cooke]

Originally posted by Greg Method
Well, Rhino Home Video released two official Popeye videos a year ago or so. They were licensed from King Features, but I'm not sure if they're the 1960's cartoons (like the concurrent Beetle Bailey, etc. videos) or the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Those were the '80s Hanna-Barbera cartoons on the Rhino tapes. The two tapes were also released on a single DVD.


-Jon

[Sveven Dvorking]

So the 80s Popeyes were actually released on video, but the 60s Popeyes weren't. :eek: Interesting...

[Donuthole]

I love the 1960's Popeyes, especially the Gene Deitch ones and the ones set in outer space. They're corny, bizarre, neat, and sometimes funny

[Howard]

So the 80s Popeyes were actually released on video, but the 60s Popeyes weren't. :eek: Interesting...
Probably because the Hanna-Barbera Popyes look more like the comic strip Popeye than the 1960 shorts, and the animation looks less dated (that's my guess).

[nakak]

hi. um...I suggest not returning some two year old forum topic (well, it was already returned back in July, but still...) just a notice.

[JDWeil]

The Deitch ones did use some of the same sound effects, and some of the same music, though there was some origial stuff (including, I guess, a Czechoslovakian riff on the Popeye the Sailor theme). The Keneitel ones sounded just about like the mid-50s Paramount cartoons, except that the same musical cues were re-used all the time, while the music on the others was ... er ... let's just say of limited tonal and hamonic quality.

As for seeing them again, I think Jerry Beck reported a few months ago that the Hearst Corp., King Features' owner, has sold a package of their made-for-TV stuff to a Spanish language satellite network for use in Latina America and the Caribbean. I forget the name, but it's not Univision, Galavision or Telemundo, the three main ones seen in the U.S.

That means if you have DirectTV or Dish Network and get the uber-package of every channel possible, you might be able to get it, but it would be in the wrong language (unless they have an SAP button for English on the station).

From what I've seen of them, the Deitch directed Popeyes were not made in Prague but in the U.K. at Halas & Batchelor and the animation style is H&B.

[Jon Cooke]

Due to the age of this thread, I am closing it.

If you want to continue to talk about the 1960s Popeyes, you are welcome to. Just start a new thread about them.


-Jon