It's insane how animation actually declined in quality since its Golden Age. First, in the 1930's we had the outstanding Fleischer cartoons, with great characters like Popeye and Betty Boop most animation fans know and love. Back then, cartoons were well-thought out and the designs, voice work and flowing movement were all outstanding. The Popeye ones were particularly the best - whether the old black and white ones of the 30's or the Paramount color ones of the 40's and 50's, they were always immensely entertaining. This TV series of 1960-1962 is an attempt to revive those classic cartoons that proceeded it - but because of the rise of studios such as Hanna Barbara and their cheaply animated shows, the quality of such cartoons had hugely dropped. Popeye the Sailor went from an amusing and action-packed cartoon series to a poorly and cheaply animated show with not nearly enough imagination to work even fairly decently.
It surprises me how many positive reviews this show has received. If you've seen the old cartoons, it really does stink in this context and is at best quite mediocre. First of all, let's look at the animation. As stated above, cartoons really went into a steep decline from the late 50's and remained poorly done for decades afterwards. Popeye used to have great animation as I said before, but because of how animation came to television, this reduced the flowing movement of before to stiff, unmoving and severely lacking designs. Studios wanted to make as many episodes as they could before the show got cancelled, and despite the fact "Popeye the Sailor" lasted only three years in the early sixties, its grand total of episodes was 220. How did they manage to churn out so many in such a short time? Once again, quantity was taken over quality. Just looking at the different episodes, it shows that they didn't take enough time to make each one good.
Secondly, the creativity is seriously lacking, in part due to the first problem. I've seen two cartoons of this series, and they both lack in good sight gags and amusing titles. Because the animation was so much more quality before, this gave the writers plenty of room to exercise creativity and satisfying action. Because it has now been reduced to being so poorly done, there is next to no sight gags at all. Instead, the trickery is entirely out-of-character, for instance the episode where "Brutus" (why? why rename Bluto?) keeps stealing Popeye's and Olive's boating equipment forcing him to buy more from him. Come on, it's pretty unlike Bluto to just cheat Popeye out of money. The real Bluto would play some nasty prank and maybe kidnap Olive. So when it comes to this serious flaw, you have two options: either blame the animators for being so cheap with their animation and preventing the show from having its trademark creativity, or the writers for their lack of creativity in the first place. I think it's a combination of both, because both work towards the overall entertaining quality of the show.
To conclude, this show is simply not that good in how poorly it is made. There's not enough imagination or good design to bring it up to the standards of before, although I suppose if one had never seen the classic cartoons and saw this they would probably enjoy it to some extent. But why would you see it? Why watch this lame series when a whole slew of great cartoons made previously far outdid this and featured the exact same characters? In the end, just watch those - there's no reason to see this unless you're interested in checking out a few new minor characters they decided to introduce.
It surprises me how many positive reviews this show has received. If you've seen the old cartoons, it really does stink in this context and is at best quite mediocre. First of all, let's look at the animation. As stated above, cartoons really went into a steep decline from the late 50's and remained poorly done for decades afterwards. Popeye used to have great animation as I said before, but because of how animation came to television, this reduced the flowing movement of before to stiff, unmoving and severely lacking designs. Studios wanted to make as many episodes as they could before the show got cancelled, and despite the fact "Popeye the Sailor" lasted only three years in the early sixties, its grand total of episodes was 220. How did they manage to churn out so many in such a short time? Once again, quantity was taken over quality. Just looking at the different episodes, it shows that they didn't take enough time to make each one good.
Secondly, the creativity is seriously lacking, in part due to the first problem. I've seen two cartoons of this series, and they both lack in good sight gags and amusing titles. Because the animation was so much more quality before, this gave the writers plenty of room to exercise creativity and satisfying action. Because it has now been reduced to being so poorly done, there is next to no sight gags at all. Instead, the trickery is entirely out-of-character, for instance the episode where "Brutus" (why? why rename Bluto?) keeps stealing Popeye's and Olive's boating equipment forcing him to buy more from him. Come on, it's pretty unlike Bluto to just cheat Popeye out of money. The real Bluto would play some nasty prank and maybe kidnap Olive. So when it comes to this serious flaw, you have two options: either blame the animators for being so cheap with their animation and preventing the show from having its trademark creativity, or the writers for their lack of creativity in the first place. I think it's a combination of both, because both work towards the overall entertaining quality of the show.
To conclude, this show is simply not that good in how poorly it is made. There's not enough imagination or good design to bring it up to the standards of before, although I suppose if one had never seen the classic cartoons and saw this they would probably enjoy it to some extent. But why would you see it? Why watch this lame series when a whole slew of great cartoons made previously far outdid this and featured the exact same characters? In the end, just watch those - there's no reason to see this unless you're interested in checking out a few new minor characters they decided to introduce.