I Seem To Remember Lots of Popeyes...

[Dub]

OK - I know I'm not crazy....


Well...thats obviously a lie, but still :D


Anyways - I remember being really small and seeing Popeye shorts. But they WERE NOT the ones shown on CN. I mean...the Paramounts and a few of the badly redrawn color Flieshers were, but these were different. They were shorts more atune to the Sega style of popeye artwork with the Sea Hag and Alice The Goon and the opening theme of them was longer (not as quick as the Paramount openings went by) I'm assuming they were done in the 60's.

After that - I remember ANOTHER Popeye series that i know was done by hanna Barbera in the 80's (No - not that GAWDAWFUL Popeye and Son crap) but another popeye show that showed shorts and also had the return of Alice here and there along with a little more Swee'pea.

Can anyone give me any history on these two popeye versions to at least CONFIRM they exist? What were they, who did them, and why doesnt CN air them along withthe Paramounts and B&W Flieshers? They're probaby not the best things in the world (I cant really remember - I know I liked the themesong) but they'd add variety to the regular Popeye's they show OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Especially since the majority of the Fleischer cartoons cant be shown anymore due to the japanese stereotypes and such.

Can anyone help here?

Also - is there a page on these (Or ANY Popeye cartoons for that matter) that exists?

[Joe Tully]

There have been a lot of TV Popeye's. A synopsis of Popeye's TV history is here

http://yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/saturday/sa1166.php

Since these are HB, I assume CN has rights to these but chooses not to air them. But maybe someone else will tell me otherwise.

[Popeye]

Let a Popeye fan tell you!

When the Popeye cartoons of Fleischer/Famous Studios became a massive success on 50's television, King Features Syndicate began creating new made-for-television cartoons featuring the sailor. Many of them did hark back to Segar's stories, some were inspired by them! With that notion, characters such as Alice the Goon, Roughhouse, George Geezil, and King Blozo were seen in several cartoons.

The cartoons started airing in 1960. The 200-something cartoons were not made at one studio, but at several: Format Films, Larry Harmon Pictures, and even Gene Deitch made some. Famous Studios (later named Paramount Cartoon Studios) also produced many cartoons, with veteran Popeye director Seymour Kneitel at the helm. Disney director Jack Kinney also handled some of the cartoons, including the pilot "Barbecue for Two". Jack Mercer, Jackson Beck, and Mae Questel reprised their roles from earlier shorts, as well as providing the voices for the rest of the cast.

Many on this board say that the Larry Harmon Popeyes are the worst of the series, but I feel each film has its merits. You can obviously tell when you see a Gene Deitch-directed Popeye.

Why these cartoons are not shown on CN? Well, Warner Bros. owns the rights to the Fleischer/Famous Popeyes, while King Features Syndicate owns the rights to the 60's shorts, and at this moment, they are staying within King's jurisdiction. But I heard that there are negotiations going on right now about WB getting those rights, so it is possible that we might see the 60's Popeyes air on CN. That way, I can complete my collection!

The other Popeye cartoon you are talking about was called "The All-New Popeye Hour" produced by Hanna-Barbera during the 70's. Jack Mercer once again returned to voice Popeye. And probably due to the political climate at the time (as well as pressure from parental action groups), Popeye and Bluto were no longer allowed to fight! That of course, is the reason I don't like to watch this version. It had segments including "Prehistoric Popeye", "Popeye's Treasure Hunt", and "Private Olive Oyl". Also, Popeye preached safety tips inbetween cartoons. This cartoon show recently aired on the Family Channel, but that was 6 years ago. If I were CN, I would keep this one in the vaults!

There are a few Popeye websites out there to look at, but I like this one in particular: Pastor Steve's Popeye Page

http://www.mtcnet.net/~bierly/popeye.htm

I personally talk to Steve Bierly every now and then. I traded cartoons with him, and he has all the un-PC Popeyes, including "Scrap the Japs".

Also, just put the word "Popeye" on a search engine and see how many websites pop up! I hope this helps!

[Popeye]

Originally posted by Joe Tully
[B]There have been a lot of TV Popeye's. A synopsis of Popeye's TV history is here

http://yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/saturday/sa1166.php

This is where I met Pastor Steve Bierly a couple of years ago, he still hangs out here. He can also answer your questions!

[Jon Cooke]

The Hanna-Barbera Popeye series is also owned by King Features Syndicate (the same is also the case withPopeye & Son ). That explains why we don't see those on CN. There is an entire DVD devoted to those '80s H-B Popeye cartoons... believe it or not (it is from Rhino Home Video).


-Jon

[lislebartman]

I remember being very confused earlier in life when 2 TV stations here in Chicago were broadcasting "Popeye" cartoons. One station (FOX-32) had the B & W Max Fleischer/Famous "Popeye" shorts, while WGN-9 had the way-inferior made for TV "Popeye" shorts.

Can you guess which ones I watched?

[J Lee]

Since this question has come up again, I thought I'd just repost this from the "1960s Popeye" thread from July:

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 Kneitel KFS Paramount pilot `toon and Kinney's "Barbecue for Two") 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 212 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 said Gerrold Ray 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 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.