Sunday, October 28, 2007

Super Fleisch'

In case you were worried about not getting another Popeye DVD (I was, a little, since the character doesn't have any real name recognition any more), Dave Lambert is hearing that Popeye, volume 2 (1938-43) will be released next June. This will bring us all the Fleischer-produced Popeyes and a few of the Famous Studios ones with early animation by the likes of Jim Tyer, though we'll have to wait a couple of years to get all the theatrical Popeyes.

This would be a good time to point you, in case you haven't already been directed by another blog, to Bob Jaques's Popeye animator identification blog, where he's doing for the Popeye team what others have done for Disney and Warners -- helping us to see and understand the animation styles of people who weren't well-known or, in some cases, even credited.

7 comments:

Thad said...

Unrelated, but happy birthday!

Anonymous said...

One Popeye set a year. That sounds more like the way these things usually work. Thought that "one Popeye box set every six months" announcement that floated around earlier sounded way too optimistic.

Anonymous said...

Well, we still get four Jim Tyer cartoons on Vol. 2, and Bob Jaques already has said he's doing commentary on one, "Too Weak To Work". I'm guessing if they let John K back on the commentary track after Vol. 1, he's probably going to do at least one of the other three, though Tyer's animation for "Seein' Red, White & Blue" and "You're A Sap, Mr. Jap" would be considered very un-PC today.

Anonymous said...

John K's doing commentary on "Me Musical Nephews"

I got into an argument with Kali Fontecchio about this, but does anyone think the look of the Famous Popeyes were influenced by Clampett? She said no, and I said they were.

I think we both agreed that they were more West Coast.

Anonymous said...

"Stealin Ain't Honest", the other cartoon Jaques is commenting on, is to me the first Popeye cartoon to really feel the West Coast influence in terms of story -- that's definitely a different, more comical Bluto than anything the Fleischers had done before.

As far as the animation, it really took Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini to bring out the West Coast speed in the series. The World War II cartoons demanded a faster pace, and by the time the staff was finished working on "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" they had absorbed enough of the West Coast techniques to actually pull it off. But to me, it appears as though with the exception of Tyer's unit, the late Fleischer/early Famous crews were influenced by Avery more than Clampett (and never moreso than in "The Hungry Goat" and "Cartoons Ain't Human").

Thad said...

>>John K's doing commentary on "Me Musical Nephews"<<

Why???

Anonymous said...

`Cause he loves that cartoon and requested it.

Hey, at least
Peter Bogdanovich isn't dong any commentaries, eh, Jaime?