Braccio di Ferro

It is not easy or fair to define the fascination about this character. Or about Olive. And Bluto. Sure, the inner child has the answers but , after decades, Popeye the sailor remains ...the hero. Because, very late you saw him as a piece of advertising or as character of a commercial campain. And today, he remains fascinating, provocative, giving the taste of simple, basic realities defining us

I do remember well the original Popeye series of between 230 and 240 cartoons, produced between 1933 and 1957 by Paramount Pictures, later Famous Studios, with permission of Elzie Segar and King Features Syndicate. In 1957, a few months before the last of the series was made, the Popeyes came to television, syndicated by Associated Artists Productions. Then in 1960, I began to see the brand-new Popeye cartoon series. Though I had seen the oldies for three years, I had not tired of them, and had mixed feelings about the new ones. I do not remember MANY of them, but a few stuck. "It Only Hurts When They Laughs" was amusing. Two others I still recall. One was Popeye's Pizza Palace, with Popeye as pizza chef, Wimpy mooching hamburger pizzas, and Brutus (main nemesis instead of Bluto) demanding a tamale pizza. Popeye declared that they do not make tamale pizzas; is there such a pizza in real life? The other one that I still recall was Popeye's Junior Headache, in which he baby sat the bratty Diesel Oyl while Aunt Olive was having her hair done at the beauty parlor. Popeye was reluctant to baby sit Diesel Oyl (daughter of Olive's brother Castor Oyl?) as he was fatigued from lack of sleep, but still took the job. Popeye first tried telling Diesel a story about a witch; she interrupted "Which witch?" Popeye retorted "How does I know which witch?" and pleaded to be allowed to sleep and dream up an ending, but Diesel insisted that he play horse (for which he lacked energy). All in all, it was amusing.

I read, back in 1960, that this new Popeye cartoon package was result of dispute between King Features, that owned the rights, and Associated Artists, which syndicated the first Popeye series; as I recall, King Features was miffed at A.A.P. syndicating the series (to put in on television) which was not part of the original arrangement between Paramount and King Features. That was understandable as in the 1930's, when the first original Popeyes were produced, there were no televisions, not even Muntz TV's! This, together with King Features' wanting the limelight, led to this new made-for-TV cartoon package. Be that as it may, SOME of the new Popeyes were amusing, while others stank. It made watching the adventures of the spinach-eating seaman interesting, b

I remember having as a child a video of this classic series that made me laugh. The animation is good as it is vibrantly comical based and colourful. The music and story lines are also good to the comical origins of the original Popeye comic strips and earlier cinematic debuts. The characters are lively and rich that are adaptable in any imaginative setting so no matter what the story line the basis is the rich juvenile humour and the characters. The story lines were also written well and imaginative making it a nice fit with the basis of the comics. The series was very enjoyable but sadly today nobody does good cartoons any more and cartoons such as Popeye the sailor will be artistic classics as the passion, skill and humours not found any more.

In 1960, at the height of the original Popeye cartoons popularity in syndication, King Features Syndicate, who owned the rights to the character produced 220 additional cartoons for TV. Since the syndicate had no studio, they farmed out the animation to five studios, with almost half of the produced by Jack Kinney. Unfortunately, the shows suffered from inconsistency, repetitive plots, weak gags and hurried animation. On the bright side, the voicework of Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Jackson Beck was outstanding and viewers got to see characters that never turned up in the original cartoons, including Alice the Goon, King Blozo, Eugene the Jeep and the Sea Hag.

One of the cartoons I remember was when Popeye was in a rocket for 60 days and he had a tape recorder where he can hear his friends. The best remembered line was when Brutus said "I'm keeping company with poor lonesome Olive HA HA HA HA HA!!" There was also the testimonial dinner episode which showed flashbacks from previous cartoons.

After watching a number of cartoons, you'll probably get tired of hearing Olive scream "Help! Popeye! Save me! That's all we can stands and we can't stands no more.

In to the power in tin. Popeye action, comedy early childhood cartoon. Very enjoyable cartoon.