As a kid, I used to watch Popeye cartoons almost every day on Channel 5. They were presented by an ultra-genial gent named Tom Hatten who dressed as a sailor and hosted from a cheapo set that was supposed to look like a ship's cabin. Tom could draw and he often gave lessons on how to draw Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy and others from the Popeye property…and I suppose one of the reasons I could draw at all when I was a kid was because Tom Hatten taught me.
For a long time, the cartoons he ran were the ones made by the Fleischer Studio from 1933 to 1942 and by the Paramount/Famous Studio from 1942 to 1957. Channel 5 did not seem to have all of those cartoons in their library — or if they did, they'd elected to not show certain ones. Between the two studios, there were 231 cartoons made and I'm going to guess Hatten ran and reran about half that number. Even at that age, I knew that some were way better than others. The ones that looked cleaner and shinier were the ones made by Paramount/Famous. They weren't as good as the Fleischer ones…but they weren't bad, at least when I was seven.
One day in 1960, Tom announced on his show that if we were tired of seeing the same old Popeye cartoons over and over — which we were —, we should not despair. We would soon have some brand-new Popeye cartoons. That was an exciting announcement. That is, until we saw them. Even at the age of eight, I was disappointed.
King Features Syndicate had bankrolled what eventually turned out to be 220 new short cartoons, all 5-7 minutes, all meant for TV only, all seemingly done for about as much money as I spent each week on Snickers bars. Even at that age, I could recognize (mostly) poor animation.
Every so often, there was one with okay visuals. A little more every-so-often, the stories were clever. One good aspect of them was that Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy and the big nasty guy with the beard sounded right. That was always important to me about my cartoon characters; that they sound like they were supposed to. Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Jackson Beck did all the voices.
The big nasty guy with the beard was named Brutus. He was very much like the character Bluto in the earlier Popeye cartoons but not exactly. In this piece, I explained the conundrum that troubled me so back then.
These cartoons have generally been shunned and derided by animation historians but Fred Grandinetti — who may know more about Popeye than anyone has ever known — has authored a book about them, complete with a list and detailed plot summaries of all 220 cartoons. The films were made by five different studios and Fred goes into depth about each studio and notes their better efforts.
If you have any interest in these cartoons, Fred has all the information you need. I am mightily impressed by his devotion and research. You can get yourself a copy here.