 |
|
Íàïèñàíî øî ðåñòàâðèðîâàíû. Íî ôñå ðàâíî - êà÷åñòâî íå ñóïåð-ïóïåð.
=========
Popeye: When Popeye Ruled the World
The Disc Content:
As a life-long Popeye fan, I was excited when a second volume of Popeye cartoons was announced, following the almost perfect When Popeye Ruled The Seven Seas compilation. Now over 60 years old, Popeye was first featured in EC Segar’s Thimble Theater comic strip in 1929, and quickly moved onto his own series of classic, brilliantly animated shorts produced by the Fleischer brothers Max and Dave for Paramount Pictures, beginning with his first appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon in 1933. The Fleischer cartoons were a great success leading to a series of three two-reeler Technicolor featurettes (the basis of the Seven Seas disc), and a renewed deal with Paramount, which spawned the Superman animated film series and two full-length features, Gulliver’s Travels (1939) and Hoppity/Mr Bug Goes To Town (1941). It was after the box-office failure of these two ambitious films that things began to go sour between the Fleischers and Paramount. Money had to be recouped, but the Fleischers’ budgets had swallowed most of it up, and what little was left was going into their new Miami animation studio. Paramount’s answer was to drop Max and Dave, ship the studio back to New York, change its name to Famous Studios and offer any artist interested continued work, but at a reduced rate of pay. Although the Superman cartoons continued for a while and finally stopped before they became totally worthless, the Popeye series limped into the 1950s, but the magic of those early cartoons was gone, through both lack of morale and any real artistic merit. Unfortunately, it is from this period that these cartoons come from, though it’s not all bad...
Garden Gopher: An okay opener for the new collection, but it is immediately clear that this is not the Fleischer’s Popeye, or even that of EC Segar! Battling a pesky gopher for control of his garden plants, Popeye’s usually self-assured character is demoted to sidekick, and it is even the gopher who eats the spinach and saves poor Popeye from an angry bull!
Insect To Injury: Some very Japanese looking ants make a play for Popeye’s new house in another pest-themed short. This one actually does have some terrific gags (check out Popeye’s fence after the first "ant attack" and their way out of the trash can) as well as some of the better animation on the disc.
Cookin’ With Gags: Olive Oyl makes her first appearance in this collection in this cartoon which pitches Popeye against Bluto on a picnic date with Olive, and the many ways they try to outsmart each other. Despite the front titles including their original Paramount logos, the end credits are missing from this print.
Private Eye Popeye: This is another print where the title cards have been taken from re-edited versions, this time from the AAP copies. In this one, Popeye’s on the trail of a greasy butler in a whodunit that soon turns into just another succession of punches and gags.
Popeye For President: The Seymour Kneitel-directed cartoons from this period did try to retain some of the original atmosphere from the original Max and Dave Fleischer days. Here Popeye and Bluto are both up for President and find that they each have to charm Olive for the winning vote...
Out To Punch: This is one of the cheapest looking cartoons on this volume with yet another Popeye-Bluto contest, but this time where it belongs – in the ring! Unfortunately for Popeye, Bluto has sabotaged the sailor’s training to boost his chances on the big night, although Popeye fights back with another can of the green stuff.
Shuteye Popeye: These later shorts played on themes that every other cartoon character has also faced. It’s the old bedtime story here, with Popeye’s sleep disrupted by an irate mouse who does all he can to stop the sailor’s snoring. This time the tables are turned when it’s the mouse who guzzles the spinach, leading to a pretty flat and unsatisfying conclusion.
A Haul In One: A more UPA-inspired short style-wise with some nice gags and animation. Olive is moving home and recruits the assistance of Popeye and Bluto to help out. Of course, each one must "help out" faster and better than the other, until the inevitable spinach moment arrives and the Bluto-problem is given a surprisingly quick and easy solution.
Taxi Turvy: Popeye and Bluto run rival cab firms chasing the same fare. As one of the earlier cartoons in this collection there is a little more attention to detail and not so much corner cutting as in later entries in the series. Although again the print used suffers from some wear and tear, this is one of the best looking selections both artistically in the animation and in the video transfer.
Bride And Gloom: The big day finally arrives – Popeye and Olive are to be married! Popeye is on cloud nine, but Olive’s dream turns into a nightmare when she imagines that the marriage is doomed from the start, especially when little twin Popeyes arrive and, not knowing their own strength, "playfully" destroy the house! When Popeye turns up the next day for the wedding, Olive has had a change of heart, closing this collection with more of a whimper than a bang.
==========
Popeye The Sailor: When Popeye Ruled The Seven Seas
The Disc:
Okay, from the outset I have to confess that I’m biased when it comes to the spinach guzzling sailor-man and always have been, since I became a slave to taping every original black-and-white Popeye short from television. I still have the two three-hour tapes chock full of these amazingly inventive cartoons – probably my favorite character series. When I heard that I was to be assigned the review of the new Popeye disc, I was frankly feeling as indestructible as the sailor on a can full of the green stuff! These were not just the cartoons that I had on tape, but the three, pretty hard to find full color two-reel featurettes of the late 1930s – some of the finest character animation the Fleischer Studio did this side of Superman!
First created in 1929, Popeye became a quick favorite in Elzie C. Segar’s Thimble Theater comic strip, which ran ten years prior to Popeye’s introduction based around Olive Oyl’s family. With Popeye came the rest of the popular gang: hamburger aficionado Wimpy, Popeye’s "infink" Swee’Pea, Eugene the Jeep, Alice the Goon and Brutus, who had designs on Olive! Popeye was soon the star of the Thimble strips and was spotted by animation producer Max Fleischer and his director brother Dave as a possible replacement for the Betty Boop cartoons that they were releasing, but which had become hampered by the new Hays Code, which ordered Betty’s risqué routines be toned down. Although the Boop shorts continued to be made, Popeye made his cinematic debut in a Betty cartoon, Popeye The Sailor. Max had gone to King Features to ask about the animation rights to the character and they were surprised that anyone would want to animate a character as ugly! Fleischer assured them that the more ugly he was, the funnier it would be, and a deal was soon arranged. The 1933 Boop cartoon introduced the sailor-man as well as his famous theme I’m Popeye The Sailor Man and his well-known catchphrases "Well, blow me down" and "I am what I am"!
Mae Questel, who was also the voice for Betty, took on double-duty at the Fleischer Studio by speaking for Popeye’s sweetheart Olive Oyl too. Her only competition was a can of spinach, but for Popeye, it wasn’t so easy. Following the sailor to the screen was Bluto, another original comic strip cast member, who became the main thing standing between Popeye and Olive. In the later Famous-era shorts, Bluto was "replaced" by Brutus, a composite heavy combined from various tough guys found in the comic strips, since King Features didn’t do their homework correctly and thought that the Fleischers owned the Bluto copyright!
The general consensus is that if you’re watching a Brutus cartoon, it’s not the real deal, but with Popeye up against Bluto, it’s classic Fleischer stuff (of course, several of the cartoons here make that even more confusing, since the character also appears as Sinbad and Ali Baba)! Baritone Gus Wickie provided Bluto’s grunts, while Popeye’s comments and hilarious ad-libs were created originally by William Costello, the popular "Red Pepper Sam" on radio. Costello, a little too flushed with his own success, was replaced by Studio in-betweener Jack Mercer, who developed the voice to what we know as Popeye today and continued the role for over 30 years! All the characters translated very well to film due mainly to their unusual designs and their natural adaptation to movement. Popeye – and the Fleischers – were a big hit, and the sailor and his friends soon had their own cartoon shorts series.
More was to come, with the introduction of the rival color Silly Symphonies from the Walt Disney Studio. Paramount, who was distributing the Fleischer cartoons, was pleased to hear that the Fleischers wanted to break tradition and present Popeye in a special two-reeler full color adventure. By this time Popeye was showing in some polls as being more popular than Mickey Mouse, and the solid animation and characterization in the Popeye shorts was a big part of the success. The first two-reeler release was also the first time Popeye and Olive would be seen in color. Much was made of the fact and the first film, Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor, from 1936, was a huge success. Popeye Meets Ali Baba And His Forty Thieves followed in 1937 and in 1939, just prior to the Fleischer Studio’s own foray into feature animation with Gulliver’s Travels, came the final color featurette, Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp. All three cartoons provided a showcase for Max’s special 3D camera set-up that used miniature sets as backgrounds for the animation. This "tridimensional" system gives an amazing quality of depth to the cave sequences in the Ali Baba film, but the expensive nature and animators’ problems and extra work in working out each character’s position in an imaginary 3D space proved the camera’s undoing. Disney’s later Multiplane Camera brought the realism of the third dimension to animation in a less jarring and cost-effective way.
This new Goodtimes disc brings all these featurettes together for the first time since an early LaserDisc release (although not strictly in chronological order) plus a few worthwhile added extras! Presented in reverse to their original release, first up is the Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp cartoon. Opening in 1930s Hollywood, we find Olive writing a big-hit script for herself and Popeye. We find that she’s written Popeye in as Aladdin, with a story set up that more than reflects the basics of Disney’s 1992 version. Here, instead of Bluto, we have a weedy villain who is after the titular lamp for his own good. Fortunately spinach wins out and Popeye and Olive are restored in their Hollywood haven. The featurette features some good gags, the best of which for me was the positively astounding way Ms Oyl has her toe nails polished!
Ali Baba And His Forty Thieves is a looser affair, lampooning desert adventure films. Popeye comes up against the villain, played by Bluto, and in the fight scenes the frames are absolutely filled with additional Thieves coming from all directions! Popeye’s ingenious way of opening the cave entrance ("Open sez me!") gets me every time, although the images that pulsate through Popeye’s arms when he eats his spinach (in this case a military tank!) are also clever additions.
Finally (or not if you switch these around and watch them by original release date) comes the best: Sinbad The Sailor. This was the first of the color featurettes and it’s clear that all the stops were pulled out. The details are unbelievable and the gags and situations are breathtaking for this time. None of these cartoons are particularly strong on plot, but all pack in a great many gags without upsetting the flow of the story. Colored lights were used on the three-dimensional model backdrops and shadows were hand animated over them, as Sinbad’s giant condor flies out to sea to destroy Popeye’s ship. Sinbad (a pirate-attired Bluto) is instantly taken by Olive and orders that she be brought to him. A seemingly unaware Wimpy is along for the ride in this one, with Popeye’s resorting to spinach to save the day just waiting to happen. He does take a pounding in this one though, from Sinbad and his menagerie of secret island monsters, but in the end, Popeye once again shows who is the king of the waves!
The disc also features two more original black-and-white Popeye cartoons from the era. Little Swee’Pea centers on Popeye’s adopted son and is the first time he made an appearance in one of the animated cartoons. Featuring the extensive 3D model background method, this short features the sailor-man’s attempts to take care of baby Swee Pea while Olive stays home and cleans up. They end up in the local zoo, where Swee’Pea manages to get caught up in all manner of escapades, leaving Popeye, and a handy can of the green stuff, to save the day again. It’s one of the shorts that I have on my VHS – and it’s great to see it again in this quality! Customers Wanted is another from my endless days and nights of compiling my own Popeye tapes. It’s a "highlights" short, featuring footage from two previous cartoons, Let’s Get Movin’ and The Twisker Pitcher, as well as advertising Bluto in Never Kick A Woman – a cartoon that was never made. It follows Wimpy’s visit to a penny arcade, the rivalry that ensues between Popeye and Bluto’s operations, and opportunistic Wimpy’s making the best of the situation!
It’s great to have these cartoons finally all together in this collection and give animation buffs the chance to see and collect these amazing treasures for the first time. And it’s almost as good as it sounds, but for a few unexpected surprises in the audio department...
============
Popeye: Fists of Fury
1. The Crystal Brawl [7:53]
2. Spooky Swabs [6:06]
3. I Don't Scare [6:10]
4. Spree Lunch [6:05]
5. Popeye's 20th Anniversary [7:34]
6. Floor Flusher [6:07]
7. Nearlyweds [6:17]
8. Parlez Vous Woo [6:13]
9. Soaky Toys Commercial [1:00]
========
=========
Popeye: When Popeye Ruled the World
The Disc Content:
As a life-long Popeye fan, I was excited when a second volume of Popeye cartoons was announced, following the almost perfect When Popeye Ruled The Seven Seas compilation. Now over 60 years old, Popeye was first featured in EC Segar’s Thimble Theater comic strip in 1929, and quickly moved onto his own series of classic, brilliantly animated shorts produced by the Fleischer brothers Max and Dave for Paramount Pictures, beginning with his first appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon in 1933. The Fleischer cartoons were a great success leading to a series of three two-reeler Technicolor featurettes (the basis of the Seven Seas disc), and a renewed deal with Paramount, which spawned the Superman animated film series and two full-length features, Gulliver’s Travels (1939) and Hoppity/Mr Bug Goes To Town (1941). It was after the box-office failure of these two ambitious films that things began to go sour between the Fleischers and Paramount. Money had to be recouped, but the Fleischers’ budgets had swallowed most of it up, and what little was left was going into their new Miami animation studio. Paramount’s answer was to drop Max and Dave, ship the studio back to New York, change its name to Famous Studios and offer any artist interested continued work, but at a reduced rate of pay. Although the Superman cartoons continued for a while and finally stopped before they became totally worthless, the Popeye series limped into the 1950s, but the magic of those early cartoons was gone, through both lack of morale and any real artistic merit. Unfortunately, it is from this period that these cartoons come from, though it’s not all bad...
Garden Gopher: An okay opener for the new collection, but it is immediately clear that this is not the Fleischer’s Popeye, or even that of EC Segar! Battling a pesky gopher for control of his garden plants, Popeye’s usually self-assured character is demoted to sidekick, and it is even the gopher who eats the spinach and saves poor Popeye from an angry bull!
Insect To Injury: Some very Japanese looking ants make a play for Popeye’s new house in another pest-themed short. This one actually does have some terrific gags (check out Popeye’s fence after the first "ant attack" and their way out of the trash can) as well as some of the better animation on the disc.
Cookin’ With Gags: Olive Oyl makes her first appearance in this collection in this cartoon which pitches Popeye against Bluto on a picnic date with Olive, and the many ways they try to outsmart each other. Despite the front titles including their original Paramount logos, the end credits are missing from this print.
Private Eye Popeye: This is another print where the title cards have been taken from re-edited versions, this time from the AAP copies. In this one, Popeye’s on the trail of a greasy butler in a whodunit that soon turns into just another succession of punches and gags.
Popeye For President: The Seymour Kneitel-directed cartoons from this period did try to retain some of the original atmosphere from the original Max and Dave Fleischer days. Here Popeye and Bluto are both up for President and find that they each have to charm Olive for the winning vote...
Out To Punch: This is one of the cheapest looking cartoons on this volume with yet another Popeye-Bluto contest, but this time where it belongs – in the ring! Unfortunately for Popeye, Bluto has sabotaged the sailor’s training to boost his chances on the big night, although Popeye fights back with another can of the green stuff.
Shuteye Popeye: These later shorts played on themes that every other cartoon character has also faced. It’s the old bedtime story here, with Popeye’s sleep disrupted by an irate mouse who does all he can to stop the sailor’s snoring. This time the tables are turned when it’s the mouse who guzzles the spinach, leading to a pretty flat and unsatisfying conclusion.
A Haul In One: A more UPA-inspired short style-wise with some nice gags and animation. Olive is moving home and recruits the assistance of Popeye and Bluto to help out. Of course, each one must "help out" faster and better than the other, until the inevitable spinach moment arrives and the Bluto-problem is given a surprisingly quick and easy solution.
Taxi Turvy: Popeye and Bluto run rival cab firms chasing the same fare. As one of the earlier cartoons in this collection there is a little more attention to detail and not so much corner cutting as in later entries in the series. Although again the print used suffers from some wear and tear, this is one of the best looking selections both artistically in the animation and in the video transfer.
Bride And Gloom: The big day finally arrives – Popeye and Olive are to be married! Popeye is on cloud nine, but Olive’s dream turns into a nightmare when she imagines that the marriage is doomed from the start, especially when little twin Popeyes arrive and, not knowing their own strength, "playfully" destroy the house! When Popeye turns up the next day for the wedding, Olive has had a change of heart, closing this collection with more of a whimper than a bang.
==========
Popeye The Sailor: When Popeye Ruled The Seven Seas
The Disc:
Okay, from the outset I have to confess that I’m biased when it comes to the spinach guzzling sailor-man and always have been, since I became a slave to taping every original black-and-white Popeye short from television. I still have the two three-hour tapes chock full of these amazingly inventive cartoons – probably my favorite character series. When I heard that I was to be assigned the review of the new Popeye disc, I was frankly feeling as indestructible as the sailor on a can full of the green stuff! These were not just the cartoons that I had on tape, but the three, pretty hard to find full color two-reel featurettes of the late 1930s – some of the finest character animation the Fleischer Studio did this side of Superman!
First created in 1929, Popeye became a quick favorite in Elzie C. Segar’s Thimble Theater comic strip, which ran ten years prior to Popeye’s introduction based around Olive Oyl’s family. With Popeye came the rest of the popular gang: hamburger aficionado Wimpy, Popeye’s "infink" Swee’Pea, Eugene the Jeep, Alice the Goon and Brutus, who had designs on Olive! Popeye was soon the star of the Thimble strips and was spotted by animation producer Max Fleischer and his director brother Dave as a possible replacement for the Betty Boop cartoons that they were releasing, but which had become hampered by the new Hays Code, which ordered Betty’s risqué routines be toned down. Although the Boop shorts continued to be made, Popeye made his cinematic debut in a Betty cartoon, Popeye The Sailor. Max had gone to King Features to ask about the animation rights to the character and they were surprised that anyone would want to animate a character as ugly! Fleischer assured them that the more ugly he was, the funnier it would be, and a deal was soon arranged. The 1933 Boop cartoon introduced the sailor-man as well as his famous theme I’m Popeye The Sailor Man and his well-known catchphrases "Well, blow me down" and "I am what I am"!
Mae Questel, who was also the voice for Betty, took on double-duty at the Fleischer Studio by speaking for Popeye’s sweetheart Olive Oyl too. Her only competition was a can of spinach, but for Popeye, it wasn’t so easy. Following the sailor to the screen was Bluto, another original comic strip cast member, who became the main thing standing between Popeye and Olive. In the later Famous-era shorts, Bluto was "replaced" by Brutus, a composite heavy combined from various tough guys found in the comic strips, since King Features didn’t do their homework correctly and thought that the Fleischers owned the Bluto copyright!
The general consensus is that if you’re watching a Brutus cartoon, it’s not the real deal, but with Popeye up against Bluto, it’s classic Fleischer stuff (of course, several of the cartoons here make that even more confusing, since the character also appears as Sinbad and Ali Baba)! Baritone Gus Wickie provided Bluto’s grunts, while Popeye’s comments and hilarious ad-libs were created originally by William Costello, the popular "Red Pepper Sam" on radio. Costello, a little too flushed with his own success, was replaced by Studio in-betweener Jack Mercer, who developed the voice to what we know as Popeye today and continued the role for over 30 years! All the characters translated very well to film due mainly to their unusual designs and their natural adaptation to movement. Popeye – and the Fleischers – were a big hit, and the sailor and his friends soon had their own cartoon shorts series.
More was to come, with the introduction of the rival color Silly Symphonies from the Walt Disney Studio. Paramount, who was distributing the Fleischer cartoons, was pleased to hear that the Fleischers wanted to break tradition and present Popeye in a special two-reeler full color adventure. By this time Popeye was showing in some polls as being more popular than Mickey Mouse, and the solid animation and characterization in the Popeye shorts was a big part of the success. The first two-reeler release was also the first time Popeye and Olive would be seen in color. Much was made of the fact and the first film, Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor, from 1936, was a huge success. Popeye Meets Ali Baba And His Forty Thieves followed in 1937 and in 1939, just prior to the Fleischer Studio’s own foray into feature animation with Gulliver’s Travels, came the final color featurette, Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp. All three cartoons provided a showcase for Max’s special 3D camera set-up that used miniature sets as backgrounds for the animation. This "tridimensional" system gives an amazing quality of depth to the cave sequences in the Ali Baba film, but the expensive nature and animators’ problems and extra work in working out each character’s position in an imaginary 3D space proved the camera’s undoing. Disney’s later Multiplane Camera brought the realism of the third dimension to animation in a less jarring and cost-effective way.
This new Goodtimes disc brings all these featurettes together for the first time since an early LaserDisc release (although not strictly in chronological order) plus a few worthwhile added extras! Presented in reverse to their original release, first up is the Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp cartoon. Opening in 1930s Hollywood, we find Olive writing a big-hit script for herself and Popeye. We find that she’s written Popeye in as Aladdin, with a story set up that more than reflects the basics of Disney’s 1992 version. Here, instead of Bluto, we have a weedy villain who is after the titular lamp for his own good. Fortunately spinach wins out and Popeye and Olive are restored in their Hollywood haven. The featurette features some good gags, the best of which for me was the positively astounding way Ms Oyl has her toe nails polished!
Ali Baba And His Forty Thieves is a looser affair, lampooning desert adventure films. Popeye comes up against the villain, played by Bluto, and in the fight scenes the frames are absolutely filled with additional Thieves coming from all directions! Popeye’s ingenious way of opening the cave entrance ("Open sez me!") gets me every time, although the images that pulsate through Popeye’s arms when he eats his spinach (in this case a military tank!) are also clever additions.
Finally (or not if you switch these around and watch them by original release date) comes the best: Sinbad The Sailor. This was the first of the color featurettes and it’s clear that all the stops were pulled out. The details are unbelievable and the gags and situations are breathtaking for this time. None of these cartoons are particularly strong on plot, but all pack in a great many gags without upsetting the flow of the story. Colored lights were used on the three-dimensional model backdrops and shadows were hand animated over them, as Sinbad’s giant condor flies out to sea to destroy Popeye’s ship. Sinbad (a pirate-attired Bluto) is instantly taken by Olive and orders that she be brought to him. A seemingly unaware Wimpy is along for the ride in this one, with Popeye’s resorting to spinach to save the day just waiting to happen. He does take a pounding in this one though, from Sinbad and his menagerie of secret island monsters, but in the end, Popeye once again shows who is the king of the waves!
The disc also features two more original black-and-white Popeye cartoons from the era. Little Swee’Pea centers on Popeye’s adopted son and is the first time he made an appearance in one of the animated cartoons. Featuring the extensive 3D model background method, this short features the sailor-man’s attempts to take care of baby Swee Pea while Olive stays home and cleans up. They end up in the local zoo, where Swee’Pea manages to get caught up in all manner of escapades, leaving Popeye, and a handy can of the green stuff, to save the day again. It’s one of the shorts that I have on my VHS – and it’s great to see it again in this quality! Customers Wanted is another from my endless days and nights of compiling my own Popeye tapes. It’s a "highlights" short, featuring footage from two previous cartoons, Let’s Get Movin’ and The Twisker Pitcher, as well as advertising Bluto in Never Kick A Woman – a cartoon that was never made. It follows Wimpy’s visit to a penny arcade, the rivalry that ensues between Popeye and Bluto’s operations, and opportunistic Wimpy’s making the best of the situation!
It’s great to have these cartoons finally all together in this collection and give animation buffs the chance to see and collect these amazing treasures for the first time. And it’s almost as good as it sounds, but for a few unexpected surprises in the audio department...
============
Popeye: Fists of Fury
1. The Crystal Brawl [7:53]
2. Spooky Swabs [6:06]
3. I Don't Scare [6:10]
4. Spree Lunch [6:05]
5. Popeye's 20th Anniversary [7:34]
6. Floor Flusher [6:07]
7. Nearlyweds [6:17]
8. Parlez Vous Woo [6:13]
9. Soaky Toys Commercial [1:00]
========
