Background
There were legal problems between King Features Syndicate and United Artists in the early 1980s regarding the availability of Popeye on home video. United Artists had television rights, but King Features disputed whether that included home video distribution. In 1983, MGM/UA Home Video attempted to release a collection of Popeye cartoons on Betamax and VHS tapes titled The Best of Popeye, Vol. 1, but the release was canceled after MGM/UA received a cease and desist letter from King Features Syndicate, which claimed that they only had the legal rights to release the collection on video. While King Features owned the rights, material, comics, and merchandizing to the character, King Features did not have ownership to the cartoons themselves.
Throughout the years, there have been many bootleg VHS cassettes and DVDs featuring public domain Popeye cartoons, where the copyright had lapsed. While most of the Paramount Popeye catalog remained unavailable on VHS tape, a handful of shorts fell into the public domain and were found on numerous low-budget VHS tapes and DVDs. Most used a.a.p. prints from the 1950s, which were in very poor shape, thus resulting in very poor image quality. These cartoons were seven B&W 1930s and 1940s cartoons, a handful of Famous Studios cartoons from the 1950s (many of which fell to the public domain after the MGM/UA merger), and all three Popeye color specials (although some copyrighted cartoons turned up on public domain VHS tapes and DVDs).
After purchasing Turner in 1996, it would take many years for Warner Bros. to make a deal to distribute Popeye on home video. In 1999, home video rights to the Turner film library were reassigned from MGM/UA Home Video to Warner Home Video. It was reported in 2002 that Warner and King Features parent Hearst Corporation were working on a deal to release the Popeye cartoons on home video. Over 1,000 people signed an online petition asking Warner and King Features to release the theatrical Popeye cartoons on DVDs.
Popeye cartoons were never officially released in any form until the late 2000s. In 2006, Warner Home Video and King Features Syndicate along with KFS' parent company Hearst Entertainment finally reached agreement allowing for the release of the theatrical Popeye cartoons on home video. The original Paramount logos appear on these cartoons because Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures cross-licensed each other's logos in a deal which also involved Paramount-distributed John Wayne movies originally released by Warner Bros., and therefore preserving the artistic integrity of the original theatrical releases. Three volumes were produced between 2007 and 2008, released in the order the cartoons were released to theaters. The first of Warner's Popeye DVD sets, covering the cartoons released from 1933 until early 1938, was released on July 31, 2007. Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1, a four-disc collector’s edition DVD, contains the first 60 Fleischer Popeye cartoons, including the color specials Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves. Volume One and Three of the series had the "Intended For Adult Collector And May Not Be Suitable For Children" advisory warning. Historians supervised the release as consultants, assuring no colorized versions of unrestored prints were used.
Restoration timelines caused Warners to re-imagine the Popeye DVD sets as a series of two-disc sets. Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2 was released on June 17, 2008, and includes the final color Popeye special Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3 was released on November 4, 2008, and includes three seldom shown wartime Popeye cartoons: You're a Sap, Mister Jap (1942), Scrap the Japs (1942), and Seein' Red, White, and Blue (1943).
The first volume was included, either erroneously or through fraud, in a batch of boxed sets sold in discount outlets for $3 or less in the summer of 2009.
Read more about this topic: Popeye The Sailor (animated Cartoons), Home Video
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