Popeye and Pals

Back when Hector was a pup, during the fuzzy glory days of local television, in the afterschool hours, there used to be half hour programs that strung together ancient theatrical shorts for the entertainment of kids of all ages. These cheapy productions, some introduced by a wily host or some merely bridged by a panoply Duncan Yo-Yo and Wham-O commercials, were a staple of many an American kid growing up in the 60s and 70s. Usually one character would be deemed the tentpole for the program, the program of which would cast a long and wide penumbra that would cover a smorgasbord of disparate (and often edited and truncated) shorts, from the always cool Warner Bros. set, to Little Rascals/Our Gang comedies, to the Three Stooges of course, to, if the programming manager was hip enough, a UPA collection, or, if the station was cheap, wretched recent vintage Terry Toons crap like Deputy Dawg. Of course, Popeye was a perennial tentpole character, but the cartoons were hit or miss too. The Famous Studios color cartoons were pretty good, but the ones produced by the King Features Syndicate were horrible (they also produced the craptastic Beetle Bailey cartoon).

But the black & white Fleischer cartoons were sublime. Such depth and richness in their look, and the detail and throwaway lines in their sound design! They were the only b&w cartoons we saw on televison back in the 70s, but soon fashion took over and the color cartoons took precedence over ancient dusty monochrome. That these cartoons are not available in a pristine and remastered collection today (although you can find them in public domain collections). In the meantime, check out this wonderful tribute to the Fleischer Studio Popeye run by the Calma brothers of Canada. There's a nice collection of posters and stills, even streaming video cartoon samples (Real format). There's also a tidy explanation of the very messy rights issue that has held up any official video release of these cinema classics.