Popeye the Sailor: Volume One - He's strong to the Fin'ich!

In 1919, Elzie Crisler Segar was writing a daily comic strip for the newspapers called Thimble Theater, featuring characters like Harold Hamgravy, Olive Oil and the like. It ran for a number of years, dailies and Sundays, with little notice - until January 17, 1929 and the introduction of a squinty, one-eyed runt of a sailor man with horrible diction and really huge forearms.

And an animation icon was born.

Popeye quickly became the main focus of the strip, which quickly became King Features' most popular strips during the 1930s and it remains one of the longest running strips in syndication today. He went on to star in 234 theatrical shorts, produced by Fleischer Studios, and over 500 cartoons were produced for television by Associated Artists Productions. The theatrical run of the shorts continued well into the eighties on television (I remember getting home after school just in time to catch the Popeye Show on my local UHF station as late as 1984). The Sailor Man has gone on to spawn quite literarily countless spin offs, comics, books, toys and pretty much anything else you care to mention - save for one area,

Unfortunately, Popeye also holds the dubious honor of being the only major cartoon character to never see release on VHS or DVD, aside from a handful of shorts that fell into public domain.

United Artists had planned a VHS and Beta release in 1983 of the Fleischer and Famous Studios films, but King Features Syndicate insisted that only they held the copyright to the shorts, and did their best to kill the release. While King Features own the rights to the Popeye characters, it has never owned any part of the Fleischer/Famous cartoons. King licensed the rights to Paramount Pictures to use the images of Popeye and his crew in the theatrical cartoons, but did not retain ownership of the films. Still, King Features Syndicate did such a good job bullying United Artists that the release never happened. Fans have had to suffer with low rent DVDs of dirty and damaged prints of the same 30 cartoons released over and over again from the usual public domain houses.

No longer!

On July 31, 2007, the drought was over. Warner Brothers collected the original Popeye cartoons into a four DVD package, containing the first 60 original black and white Popeye cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios. I was fortunate enough to find a local video store that broke the street date - and being a life long Popeye fan (home after school, remember?), I eagerly laid out far more than the MSRP to get my hands on the set just a bit early.

The premiere volume covers the first sixty shorts, over nine hours of cartoons produced from 1933 to 1938, beginning with his first appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon aptly titled Popeye the Sailor and wrapping up with 1938's amazingly politically incorrect Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh. Even better, Warner went back to the original negitives (that managed to escape destruction despite King Features' explicit orders to destroy the prints) and restored them right down to the original credits not seen for fourty years.

While it's good that the set looks jaw droppingly fantastic, the important question is - how does Popeye stand the test of time?

It's surprising how well these stood up. While I'll admit that the memory of youth cheats, there are very few bad shorts here. Popeye has some of the best one-liners, often half mumbled under his breath. Sure Olive is a fickle broad, she's also sweet to her squinty eyed lug. Even Wimpy, being pretty much a one note character, has a certain charm about him.

Even in an overly sensitive, politically correct era where violence and smoking are frowned upon (ironic of course, because the lesson Popeye teaches isn't suitable for children OR adults - the best way to solve problems is to grow muscles and beat the everluvin' crap out of whoever's aggravating you.), I still think Popeye is some solid, fun entertainment.

Even better - we're not done yet. Warner Studios plans to release one volume of Popeye a year for the next four years. Volume 2 should contain the remainder of B&W Fleischers, plus all 14 black and white Famous studio shorts (63 total shorts). Volume three will contain the 1940's output of Famous Studios (46 shorts total), and volume four will take us into the fifties (62 shorts total)

THE DVD -
There are still a couple of shorts that have a touch of print damage, Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh springs to mind as kind of dark and grainy - but the set as a whole looks fantastic. Easily as on par with the Looney Toons golden collection sets. The two color shorts look downright fantastic.

Oh, and I should mention that the set is uncut - amazing, considering the racial and ethnic stereotypes these early shorts often had (although it's the next set that will push the buttons of the PC Police, covering the World War II years with propaganda shorts like You're A Sap, Mr. Jap.)

THE EXTRAS -
My god, but we get a bounty of extras! There's commentary from historian Glenn Mitchell and Daniel Goldmark, animators Jorge Gutierrez, Sandra Equihua and Mark Kausler, filmmaker Greg Ford, director Eric Goldberg, John K, and Paul Dini. We get documentaries, mini documentaries, stuff from the vault, and some bonus shorts not related to Popeye like Krazy Kat and Mutt and Jeff. We also get some trailers for upcoming Warner sets like Superman: Doomsday and this year's Looney Toons set (which looks just as tasty as this one is)

After holding back this long, it looks like we've hit paydirt!

IF SOMEONE STOLE THIS, WOULD I REPLACE IT?
No, but only because I would eat a can of spinach, grow muscles and beat the everluvin' crap out of the thief. However, should that plan not work, I'd buy this set again in a heartbeat.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Despite some very, very minor flaws, Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938 Volume 1 is well worth the price. The set is laden with extras, looks fantastic and is a great way to waste an afternoon.

DISC ONE
01. Popeye the Sailor (1933)
02. I Yam What I Yam (1933)
03. Blow Me Down! (1933)
04. I Eats My Spinach (1933)
05. Seasin's Greetinks! (1933)
06. Wild Elephinks (1933) **Commentary**
07. Sock-a-Bye, Baby (1934) **Commentary**
08. Let's You and Him Fight (1934)
09. The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
10. Can You Take It (1934) **Commentary**
11. Shoein' Hosses (1934)
12. Strong to the Finich (1934)
13. Shiver Me Timbers! (1934)
14. Axe Me Another (1934)
15. A Dream Walking (1934)

DISC TWO
16. The Two-Alarm Fire (1934)
17. The Dance Contest (1934)
18. We Aim to Please (1934)
19. Beware of Barnacle Bill (1935) **Commentary**
20. Be Kind to 'Aminals' (1935)
21. Pleased to Meet Cha! (1935)
22. The 'Hyp-Nut-Tist' (1935) **Commentary**
23. Choose Your 'Weppins' (1935) **Commentary**
24. For Better or Worser (1935) **Commentary**
25. Dizzy Divers (1935)
26. You Gotta Be a Football Hero (1935)
27. King of the Mardi Gras (1935)
28. Adventures of Popeye (1935)
29. The Spinach Overture (1935)
30. Vim, Vigor and Vitaliky (1936)

DISC THREE
31. A Clean Shaven Man (1936)
32. Brotherly Love (1936)
33. I-Ski Love-Ski You-Ski (1936) **Commentary**
34. Bridge Ahoy! (1936)
35. What -- No Spinach? (1936)
36. I Wanna Be a Life Guard (1936)
37. Let's Get Movin' (1936)
38. Never Kick a Woman (1936)
39. Little Swee' Pea (1936)
40. Hold the Wire (1936)
41. The Spinach Roadster (1936)
42. Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936) **Commentary**
43. I'm in the Army Now (1936)
44. The Paneless Window Washer (1937)
45. Organ Grinder's Swing (1937)

DISC FOUR
46. My Artistical Temperature (1937)
47. Hospitaliky (1937)
48. The Twisker Pitcher (1937)
49. Morning, Noon and Night Club (1937)
50. Lost and Foundry (1937) **Commentary**
51. I Never Changes My Altitude (1937)
52. I Likes Babies and Infinks (1937)
53. The Football Toucher Downer (1937)
54. Protek the Weakerist (1937) **Commentary**
55. Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves (1937) **Commentary**
56. Fowl Play (1937)
57. Let's Celebrake (1938)
58. Learn Polikeness (1938)
59. The House Builder-Upper (1938)
60. Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh (1938)