Sunday, February 22, 2004

The Spinach Eater

My TiVo, which now knows what I want to watch better than I do, took it upon itself to record the Cartoon Network Popeye show today. As a result, I just got through watching the 1933 "I Yam What I Yam," the first official Popeye cartoon. Mr. Segar's squinty sailor had previously appeared in a Betty Boop cartoon, then soloed (along with Olive Oyl and Wimpy) in this one...which, by the way, the title card above is not from. You forget how clever some of those Popeye cartoons could be, especially before they fell into the formula of Bluto wooing and/or wronging Olive until Popeye finally, at long last, hauls out the can of green stuff. This one was interesting because it was the only cartoon in the series that did not open with the well-known Popeye theme song. It's heard as underscore...and so is "I'm Against It," the song Groucho sang in Horse Feathers (previous year, same distribution company). But the opening song here was some tremulous bass voice singing, "Strike up the band for Popeye the Sailor." It was also interesting to hear William Costello, the first voice of Popeye, in the role that didn't make him famous.

I keep hearing we're about to get a major DVD release of the Fleischer Popeyes but I'll believe it when I can click on an Amazon link. There's a DVD coming out in April called Popeye - 75th Anniversary Collectors Edition but it's all cartoons from the sixties TV version, and all the others out seem to be bad copies of public domain stuff or the Hanna-Barbera version. So don't be fooled.

• Posted at 7:44 PM · LINK

Cover Stories

My longtime pal Bruce Reznick points out to me an odd convergence of covers this week on Time and Newsweek. Often, they come out with nearly-identical covers and sometimes not about the most obvious current topic. This sometimes prompts folks to speculate that the two magazines consult one another and plan such things...as if there's a reason for two competitors or even conspirators to say, "Hey, let's make it hard to tell our products apart this week." Sometimes though, their covers complement each other and provide an unintentional commentary. This week, we find Time with a cover that asks the musical question, "Are too many jobs going abroad?" I suspect the overwhelming answer to that, even from those who are downsizing employment here and outsourcing to India, is "Sure." The controversy all relates to what, if anything, can or should be done about it.

Meanwhile, Newsweek offers the world according to Donald Trump: "He's back and bigger than ever. Why we love to hear him say 'You're fired!'" As Bruce notes, the "we" in such blurbs never includes him, and it never includes me, either. At a time when even Americans with jobs rarely view them as permanent, do people really love anything about Donald Trump, especially those words? They may watch but, hey, we watched O.J. What these two covers taken together make me think is that we've really come to a day when a "job" is a short-term thing, almost like a sweepstakes, which is what the Trump show really is. If I were a young person entering the job market today, I think I'd read all these articles about low and mid-range positions disappearing and I'd think, "Hmmm...I may have a very short time to earn enough money to last me the rest of my life." We hear a lot about the decline of "traditional values" as they relate to sex. How come we don't hear more about the traditional value that you go to work for a company and try to make such a valuable contribution that you can work there until retirement age, making a good living and establishing a pension?

• Posted at 1:17 PM · LINK

Faster Fiore

Mike Rhodes sends me this better link to the political animated cartoons of Mark Fiore. There's also an archive there of many of his past efforts. (Though beware: This website has the dreaded DoubleClick ads that sometimes put noxious, snooping cookies on your computer. If that matters to you, make sure you have a good cookie blocker working.)

I'm going to bed. Sweet dreams, all.

• Posted at 3:52 AM · LINK

An Odd, Early A.M. Thought

A lot of Democrats are irate at news that Ralph Nader is apparently about to launch another presidential bid. I'm disappointed, not so much because I think it will take away votes that might otherwise go to defeat Bush but because, once upon a time, I liked Nader. Didn't agree with everything he said or did but I thought he achieved a fair amount of good and turned a spotlight on a lot of matters, including corporate crime, that needed some exposure. It's sad to see him turn into a guy who seems to stand primarily for self-promotion. He isn't even out to build a viable third party any more. He's just out for Ralph Nader.

That said, I have a thought...one that is probably not relevant but which I'm pondering, nonetheless.

We have this new rule that says that candidates must endorse their own campaign commercials. Somewhere down the pike, this law will probably be declared unconstitutional but right now, a commercial for John Kerry (for example) must close with Kerry himself appearing on camera and saying, "I'm John Kerry and I approved this message," or words to that effect. The idea is that this way, a candidate cannot play Good Cop and distance himself from his own commercials that insult the other guy. If he wants to say, "George W. Bush is a lying puppet of the oil companies," he can but he has to place his signature on that ad.

So here's my question: If Ralph Nader is an actual candidate with his name on some or all of the ballots out there, can't he in effect run attack ads for someone else? Kerry runs positive, non-attack ads for himself and Nader, who's running against George W. Bush after all, runs the ads that say, "George W. Bush is a lying puppet of the oil companies." And so what if Nader takes the heat for such negative campaigning? He's not going to win one state, anyway.

This is all academic, I'm sure, since Nader is not getting in as a stalking horse for the Democratic nominee. Nader is in for Nader, and will probably attack the Democrat as forcefully as the Republican. But in theory, couldn't it work the way I describe? At least a little?

• Posted at 3:45 AM · LINK

Screen Gems

I'm really enjoying a new website by Pietro Shakarian. It's devoted to the Columbia Cartoon Studios, a much-neglected producer of theatrical animation. Go there now.

• Posted at 2:03 AM · LINK