As you may know, Warner Brothers got the rights to the Fleischer cartoons a while back. Fortunately the studio's flagship property, Popeye, appears to be the second cartoon franchise to be handled by Warner's classics division (apart from Looney Tunes, most of the other DVD sets has been from their less careful "family entertainment" division). The result is Popeye the Sailor: Volume 1, 1933-1938, July 31.
Jerry Beck has more information on what sounds like a great set.
Monday, April 02, 2007
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2 comments:
Actually, Warner didn't acquire the rights to all the Fleischer cartoons, the Popeyes (Because of a long series of aquisitions) have been their property since the 1996 Turner merger, and the Superman cartoons have been theirs since at least the 80's (because of a much shorter series of aquistions). The rest are with Republic/Lion's Gate.
That said, This is history in the making because the Popeyes are not only the first Fleischer shorts to receive a legitimate DVD release, and the first in home video history to have the original Paramount openings restored (which were hacked away by TV distributors in the '50's). As a longtime Fleischer Fan i'm enthusastic about all this.
They'll have to release them all even if this bombs because they're under contract to release every incarnation of Popeye, right up through the 80s.
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