ALWAYS on the lookout for new material and fresh "faces" to bring to their animated films, the Brothers Fleischer, Max and Dave, had apparently struck some sort of deal with Hearst's King Features Syndicate to bring some of their humorous comic strips to the screen.* Consequently we saw the likes of 'HENRY' by Carl Anderson, 'THE LITTLE KING' by Otto Soglow and the runaway hit character from E.Z. Segar's THIMBLE THEATER Comic Strip, POPEYE.
RECIPROCALLY perhaps, King Features distributed a BETTY BOOP Comic Strip in the 1930s; which was credited to Max Fleischer, but most likely was ghosted by others.
EXPERIMENTATION with the newspaper strips was limited to these three; but only the only one to come around to the full fruition** for the Fleischer Brothers, Paramount Pictures Corporation and We, the People, was the gruff, squinty-eyed, bow-legged, nearly bald, red-headed, ham fisted scrapper of a seaman, Popeye, Himself. *** THE first cartoon, titled POPEYE THE SAILOR (Fleischer Studios/Paramount Pictures, 1933), was officially part of the BETTY BOOP Series; although Miss Betty graciously defers to the Spinach Man, taking a supporting, almost cameo, sort of a part as a Hula Dancing Girl at the carnival, which was the setting for the story.
AMAZINGLY, this initial outing seemingly contained all of the basic elements that were Popeye stuff, right from the start. It was almost as if it was a sort of genetic code for cinematic productions; with all that would come later over the next 6 decades being present in primitive form in the very first outing.
OUR STORY: Popeye meets up with Olive Oyl (they're obviously already 'goin' steady.') as he disembarks his ship for some much needed shore leave. Bluto shows up to provide some rivalry and the means of providing some fisticuffs. Miss Boop as we said before, comes in well into the second half of the picture; but manages to get in some really neat hoofing with Popeye, both being products of the Fleischers' Patented Rotoscope Process.****
REALLY, Schultz, that's about it; of course it's all embellished with plenty of those famous sight-gags, for which Director Dave Fleischer had become so well known.
NONE of the other cast of Mr. Segar's characters from the strip make an appearance. There's no Roughhouse, no Wimpy, no Swea' Pea. Missing in action are Castor Oyl (Olive's brother), Sea Hag, Poop Deck Pappy and Eugene, the Jeep. However, they would all be highly visible in future cartoons, coming series in Popeye's venerable and prolific cinematic output.
THE cast of voice actors was a little different than what we later would become used to. Popeye and Olive were rendered by William Costello and Bonnie Poe. Mae Questel was there, but did her usual Betty Boop; but not Olive, yet. Jack Mercer hadn't signed on as Popeye until some time later; although we did view a print of this cartoon that apparently had been re-dubbed with Mr. Mercer's unmistakable rendition of the Sailor Man's golden tones.
BIZARRE is the only way that to describe many of the supporting characters; be they part of a carnival crowd or one of Popeye's co-worker sailors taking their shore leave. It seemed to be out of place (at least to this writer) to have the being anthropomorphic funny animals. Whereas this , we're certain, had been a common practice in the BETTY BOOP world, no POPEYE picture ever would repeat its use; opting for adherence to the principle of depicting only humans (and Parrots) as talkers.
NOTE: * King Features' adventure strip properties such as TIM TYLER'S LUCK, JUNGLE JIM and FLASH GORDON were adapted to the screen by Universal Pictures as Cliff-Hanging Serials.
NOTE: ** Oddly enough, the one cartoon "Star" Fleischer Studios had copyright on was Miss BETTY BOOP, herself. Their two most successful series were the All Color SUPERMAN Cartoons of the 1940's (owned by D.C./National Comics) and our guy, POPEYE (Hearst's King Features Syndicate).
NOTE: *** Yeah, Schultz, just the same as yours truly, Popeye is a Red Head, poor guy!
NOTE: **** The ROTOSCOPE is an animation production device of MAX & DAVE FLEISCHER'S which is used to make realistic animated movement by allowing animators to trace individual frames of film of live action persons and animals even.
POODLE SCHNITZ!!
RECIPROCALLY perhaps, King Features distributed a BETTY BOOP Comic Strip in the 1930s; which was credited to Max Fleischer, but most likely was ghosted by others.
EXPERIMENTATION with the newspaper strips was limited to these three; but only the only one to come around to the full fruition** for the Fleischer Brothers, Paramount Pictures Corporation and We, the People, was the gruff, squinty-eyed, bow-legged, nearly bald, red-headed, ham fisted scrapper of a seaman, Popeye, Himself. *** THE first cartoon, titled POPEYE THE SAILOR (Fleischer Studios/Paramount Pictures, 1933), was officially part of the BETTY BOOP Series; although Miss Betty graciously defers to the Spinach Man, taking a supporting, almost cameo, sort of a part as a Hula Dancing Girl at the carnival, which was the setting for the story.
AMAZINGLY, this initial outing seemingly contained all of the basic elements that were Popeye stuff, right from the start. It was almost as if it was a sort of genetic code for cinematic productions; with all that would come later over the next 6 decades being present in primitive form in the very first outing.
OUR STORY: Popeye meets up with Olive Oyl (they're obviously already 'goin' steady.') as he disembarks his ship for some much needed shore leave. Bluto shows up to provide some rivalry and the means of providing some fisticuffs. Miss Boop as we said before, comes in well into the second half of the picture; but manages to get in some really neat hoofing with Popeye, both being products of the Fleischers' Patented Rotoscope Process.****
REALLY, Schultz, that's about it; of course it's all embellished with plenty of those famous sight-gags, for which Director Dave Fleischer had become so well known.
NONE of the other cast of Mr. Segar's characters from the strip make an appearance. There's no Roughhouse, no Wimpy, no Swea' Pea. Missing in action are Castor Oyl (Olive's brother), Sea Hag, Poop Deck Pappy and Eugene, the Jeep. However, they would all be highly visible in future cartoons, coming series in Popeye's venerable and prolific cinematic output.
THE cast of voice actors was a little different than what we later would become used to. Popeye and Olive were rendered by William Costello and Bonnie Poe. Mae Questel was there, but did her usual Betty Boop; but not Olive, yet. Jack Mercer hadn't signed on as Popeye until some time later; although we did view a print of this cartoon that apparently had been re-dubbed with Mr. Mercer's unmistakable rendition of the Sailor Man's golden tones.
BIZARRE is the only way that to describe many of the supporting characters; be they part of a carnival crowd or one of Popeye's co-worker sailors taking their shore leave. It seemed to be out of place (at least to this writer) to have the being anthropomorphic funny animals. Whereas this , we're certain, had been a common practice in the BETTY BOOP world, no POPEYE picture ever would repeat its use; opting for adherence to the principle of depicting only humans (and Parrots) as talkers.
NOTE: * King Features' adventure strip properties such as TIM TYLER'S LUCK, JUNGLE JIM and FLASH GORDON were adapted to the screen by Universal Pictures as Cliff-Hanging Serials.
NOTE: ** Oddly enough, the one cartoon "Star" Fleischer Studios had copyright on was Miss BETTY BOOP, herself. Their two most successful series were the All Color SUPERMAN Cartoons of the 1940's (owned by D.C./National Comics) and our guy, POPEYE (Hearst's King Features Syndicate).
NOTE: *** Yeah, Schultz, just the same as yours truly, Popeye is a Red Head, poor guy!
NOTE: **** The ROTOSCOPE is an animation production device of MAX & DAVE FLEISCHER'S which is used to make realistic animated movement by allowing animators to trace individual frames of film of live action persons and animals even.
POODLE SCHNITZ!!