Popeye The Sailor (animated Cartoons) - Famous Studios

Famous Studios

By the early 1940s, Max and Dave Fleischer found themselves at odds with Paramount over the control of their animation studio. The studio borrowed heavily from Paramount in order to move to Florida and expand into features, and Gulliver's Travels (1939) and Mister Bug Goes to Town (1941) were only moderate successes. In May 1941, Paramount Pictures assumed ownership of Fleischer Studios, and by the end of the year, Max and Dave Fleischer were no longer on speaking terms with each other, communicating solely by memo. Paramount fired the Fleischers and began reorganizing the studio, which they renamed Famous Studios. With Famous Studios headed by Sam Buchwald, Seymour Kneitel, Isadore Sparber and Dan Gordon, production continued on the Popeye shorts.

In 1941, with World War II becoming more of a source of concern in the United States, Popeye was enlisted into the U.S. Navy, as depicted in the 1941 short The Mighty Navy. His regular costume was changed from the dark blue shirt, red neckerchief, and light blue jeans he wore in the original comics to an official white Navy sailor uniform. Popeye, in these cartoons, became an ordinary, downtrodden, Naval seaman always getting the blame for mishaps. Film historian Leonard Maltin notes that the studio did not intend to make light of the war, but instead make the character more relevant with the time and show him in action. The early Famous-era shorts were often World War II-themed, featuring Popeye fighting Nazis and Japanese soldiers, most notably the 1942 short You're a Sap, Mr. Jap. As Popeye was popular in South America, Famous Studios set the 1944 cartoon We're on our Way to Rio in Brazil, as part of a "good neighbor" policy between the US government and the rest of the continent during the war.

In late 1943, the Popeye series was moved to Technicolor production, beginning with Her Honor the Mare. Though these cartoons were produced in full color, some films in the late-1940s period were released in less-expensive two-color (usually) processes like Cinecolor and Polacolor. Paramount had begun moving the studio back to New York that January, and Mae Questel reassumed voice duties for Olive Oyl. Jack Mercer was drafted into the Navy during World War II, and scripts were stockpiled for Mercer to record whenever he was on leave. When Mercer was unavailable, Harry Welch stood in as the voice of Popeye (and Shape Ahoy had Mae Questel doing Popeye's voice as well as Olive's). New voice cast member Jackson Beck began voicing Bluto within a few years; he, Mercer, and Questel would continue to voice their respective characters into the 1960s. Over time, the Technicolor Famous shorts began to adhere even closer to the standard Popeye formula, and softened, rounder character designs – including an Olive Oyl design which gave the character high heels and an updated hairstyle – were evident by late 1946.

Many veteran Fleischer animators stayed aboard Famous Studios and produced the new Popeye cartoons, but the loss of the founders was evident. Throughout the 1940s, the production values on Popeye remained pretty high. Animation historian Jerry Beck notes that, however, the "gag sense and story sense fell into a bit of a rut." By the mid-1950s, budget at the studio became very tight and staff was being laid off, all the while still producing the same number of cartoons per year. This was very typical of most animation studios at this time period, as many considered shutting their doors and ending their current series. Paramount renamed the studio Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956 and continued the Popeye series for one more year, with Spooky Swabs, released in August 1957, being the last of the 125 Famous shorts in the series.