Ancient Fistory

Really like to love a good deal of Popeye cartoons and like the character of Popeye. Love Bluto more and his chemistry with Popeye has always driven their cartoons. Will admit though to preferring the Popeye cartoons from the Dave Fleischer era, the cartoons tend to be funnier and there is more originality and more risk taking in some of them.

'Ancient Fistory' is a late Popeye cartoon and made near Famous Studios' roughest and most variable period where budgets were much smaller in particularly the animation and deadlines and time constraints were shorter and tighter. All things considered, while there are infinitely better Popeye cartoons (especially during the Fleischer era) and there are signs of what made this period an inferior one for Famous Studios, 'Ancient Fistory' is not a bad late Popeye cartoon at all, actually really very enjoyable.

As to be expected, the story is standard and formulaic at times.

Similarly the animation quality is uneven, never terrible but never fantastic. The colours are fine and there is smoothness and nice detail but there are many moments where the backgrounds are sparse and the drawing rough.

What is fantastic about 'Ancient Fistory' is the music score, the best thing for me. It's beautifully orchestrated, rhythmically it's full of energy and there is so much character and atmosphere, it's also brilliant at adding to the action and enhancing it. The gags, ranging from very amusing to hilarious and creative for Famous Studios/Popeye, are executed very well, the interplay between the characters is lively and witty if in need of more variety at times and the pace is never dull. There are some nice creative touches with the Cinderella role reversal and the ancient history references are both entertaining and educational.

The three main characters do a great job carrying the cartoon, Bluto being the funniest and most interesting. Olive Oyl is a good charming character where you can totally see what Popeye sees in her, but it's everything with the alternate universe that provides the most fun. Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Jackson Beck give great vocal characterisations, Beck in particular and Mercer and Questel are the voice actors that spring to mind generally for me for Popeye and Olive's voices.

Concluding, very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This must be the most brilliant thing I've seen recently.

This is latter-day Popeye in relation to his original beginnings. So Popeye indeed is a legend of sorts. His general backstory -- the eating of the spinach to transform his persona -- is absorbed into our collective consciousness. As is the Cinderella backstory, which involves a similar transformation of worlds.

So somebody spotted this correlation and put together one brilliant cartoon. Popeye eats the spinach and not only enters HIS alternate universe, but he also enters the alternate universe of that other cultural-character mainstay.

And what I really like about this cartoon is the total anarchy that ensues. There is a lot of ancient history here, as promised, but all of it is purposely thrown into a half-assed, mismatched brew. We have a historical archetype from one period juxtaposed to one from a completely detached period, and so forth. Clearly the writer purposely threw down whatever recollections of historical figures he could conjure at the moment. The result is engrossing. This is brilliant.

It's the middle ages (sort of); Popeye is working in Bluto's Beanery.

Bluto is going to the ball where Princess Olive will choose her mate.

Popeye's fairy godpappy appears and it's a reverse Cinderella story, with a car created from a can of spinach.

This is the 50's Popeye.

So the animation isn't as good.

Not like to 30s Popeye.

But it's better than some of the later Popeye's.

And wasn't Altman's version the wort animation?

This short is not going to change your life but it's OK for a gay themed cartoon. Popeye plays Cinderella.

As with all cartoon series, there came a time when Famous Studios did a Popeye version of Cinderella. This one has Popeye as Cinderella, Bluto as the wicked stepmother and sisters rolled into one, and Olive Oyl as the object of their affection and slugfest.

There's a lot of 'thou-ing" and 'thee-ing" with no rhyme or reason, and a couple of good gags thrown in; they had a huge backlog of them. There's also a continuing loss of detail work, evident even from the Famous Studios cartoons of the previous season. It was a problem afflicting all the cartoon factories, exacerbated when the big ones tried to get in on the 3-D craze with exactly one big-budgeted 3-D 'toon. The rest of the seas inevitably suffered.

Ancient Fistory (1953)

*** (out of 4)

Princess Olive Oyl is having a grand ball so that men can come and hopefully marry her. Poor Popeye can't attend because he's slaving away in Bluto's restaurant but soon he gets a visit from his Fairy Godfather.

This here is an obvious take-off on the Cinderella theme and for the most part it's another winner for the series. This one here benefits from the good animation that you'd expect but there are also plenty of nice laughs. One of the highlights comes during a pistol showdown between Popeye and Bluto as well as another scene where Bluto accidentally kisses a portrait on the wall and the man in the picture has a hilarious reaction. There's also plenty of nice fights from Popeye and Bluto.