Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy

As of this writing, Popeye has just turned 76 years old, or at least has celebrated that number of years since he first appeared as (at first) just a minor character, bit player. Little did has creator know that the one-eyed sailor would take over the spotlight in such short order following his January 1929 debut.

The comic strip, THIMBLE THEATER by cartoonist Elzie C. Segar, dated back to 1919 and featured Olive Oyl and her brother Castor Oyl, as well as others such as Wimpy, Hamm Gravy, Rough House.

Within a few short years,this scene stealing Sailor Man, Popeye, emerged as the Star of the show. Soon, the daily strip was joined by a Sunday version in the Hearst Newspapers' Color Comics, PUCK,THE COMIC WEEKLY. This in turn led to master animators Max and Dave Fleischer negotiating the rights to produce Popeye cartoon shorts for release through Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Over the ensuing years, other animated series Paramount's Famous Studios as well as several made for T.V. products appeared. There was also a Popeye radio show and who could forget the 1980 POPEYE feature with Robin Williams. Changes were sure to show up in the story lines, such as Popeye's donning the uniform of the U.S.Navy for his service aboard the mythical Battleship,"the U.S.S.Pennsyltucky", during World War II.

The latter cartoons suffered from becoming extremely formula. It was always Popeye and Olive have some sort of spat, Bluto enters picture offering what is eventually too much attention,after the obligatory cries of "Help!Help!"from Miss Oyl, Popeye fights Bluto to save Olive by using his can of Spinach.

POPEYE's VOYAGE puts the venerable seaman back into really good light. Though it features modern computer processes, he hasn't looked better in years or rather decades. (The appearance of fullness and depth gives it a sort of 3 D look which is somewhat reminiscent of the Fleischer Brothers' Table Top Process. Let's hope that we'll see more of the old Thimble Theater gang from this production team.

UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!..........Dateline Chicago, Illinois, June 11, 2011. Although the film is still listed as being just in Video (V), it was shown over the NBC TV Network(I believe).It was in the Year of Our Lord, 2004. Our whole family watched it while visiting Grammaw Jones (my Late Mother-in-Law, Clarice Jones) in Central City, Kentucky on THANKSGIVING Weekend, 2004.

I loved this Popeye adventure. From the voice renditions, to the off-hand muttering by Popeye, right down to Pappy's scrappy lovable nature, Bluto's rough and tumble ignorance, Olive Oyl's firm-handed yet loyal nature, Sweet Pea's way of communicating without actual words and Wimpy's gad-about hand-out always hungry silliness, this movie had all the flavor of the great black and white classics!! Mainstream entertainment should be proud of this accomplishment. With beautiful textures, picture perfect models and beautiful atmospherics, they managed to capture everything I loved about Popeye as a boy. My hat is off to Paul Reiser and everyone else involved.

After seeing this special, I like it. Created by Mainframe Animation, the company responsible for TV shows like ReBoot and Beast Wars Transformers, this special takes Popeye back to the glory days of the original shorts, mainly in terms of slapstick violence, as Popeye does not punch still, but there are still gags that remind of the good old days. Billy West does a good job voicing Popeye (even if it was his most difficult role), and the story is great. This is a good watch for any Popeye fan.

Been a LOYAL Popeye fan for over 40 years and this is WELL worth the purchase! Billy West's Popeye voice is EXACT to long time original voice Jack Mercer....thru the mumblings, singing, and voice characteristics hes stupendous! Olives and Bluto's is also Fantastic and VERY close to the originals. GREAT,GREAT special and 3-d animation!!! Music for the special is GREAT also...Mark M. Does a wonderful job.... For all you POPEYE fans, it is unbelievable how they redid the special to the Fleischer era and adopt for today... The only thing missing is Bluto and Popeye as enemy's, but maybe for todays children it isn't that bad.

Well, I guess Popeye is nearly dead. God rest his soul. This is IMDb, this is the place where it happens. Right? Hopefully not. Because if these putrid few comments are all this rendition gets then....Popeye is nearly dead. Long live Popeye. My six year old grandson that we are raising loved this CGI version because I had bought many DVD's of Popeye, from the original greats to the boring 60's and 70's stuff. He enjoyed them all, mostly. He enjoyed this one, too. He laughed and watched me laugh. BUT the few (2) comments here shows how popeye has died. God and man rest his soul. A legend gone. Only a memory,soon to be forgotten. History. Sad but true.

Long live Popeye, my hero. Sincerely, Jeff Johns, and Nathan Dale McKee Thank you, Ezekiel Norton, Jim Hardison and Paul Reiser. I loved Popeye, too. I know y'all did.