Now then boys and girls since my review of the first Superman cartoons went down really well I thought to myself what other older cartoon shorts could I take I look at and then it hit Popeye. So as with the Superman cartoon reviews I watched the first few cartoons only this time instead of just watching the first two I watched the first three cartoons mostly because I was having such a good time watching and so here is my review of the first three Popeye cartoons.
The plot of the first cartoon called "Popeye The Sailor" is that Popeye is on shore leave and so takes Olive to the carnival and while there they run into Popeye's enemy Bluto , meanwhile the plot of the second short is that Popeye , Olive and J. Wellington Wimpy find themselves trapped on an island meanwhile in the third film Popeye must fight Bluto after he threatens Olive. Yeah all three stories are really simple which I guess works for the six or seven minuet time frame these cartoons have but at the same time they don't really leave alot of room to tell a good story.
Starring in the three shorts are William "Billy" Costello as Popeye, Bonnie Poe as Olive Oyl and Charles Lawrence as Wimpy. Also starring in the shorts are Bonnie Poe as Betty Boop and William Pennell as Bluto. You guys haven't mis read anything Betty Boop does appear in the first Popeye cartoon for reasons that i'll explain later on in the review but it is pretty cool seeing these two crossover even if it's just in one short.
In terms of what I thought about the acting in the shorts from what little dialog there is it was pretty good at best. Which for a series that started in the early 1930's is the best thing that I can say about the acting since like I said in these early shorts there's very little dialog and so its hard to fully get a grip on the quality of the acting but from what I could tell the quality of the acting is pretty good which was honestly what I was expecting to be honest.
As with the Superman cartoon shorts doing the animation for these early shorts is Fleischer Studios and like with the Superman shorts they did alot of these early Popeye cartoons before getting there name changed to Famous Studios. The one bad thing I can say about these early cartoons is that the characters are far two bouncy for my liking but the overall quality of the animation I felt to be of a very high quality heck i'd go as far to say that it rivals that of Disney especially when you factor in the Superman cartoons.
Now there 's a reason why I posted a picture of Betty Boop and that's because the very first Popeye short is actually a Betty Boop cartoon. This cartoon would also mark the only time that the two would appear on screen together and I have to say that having them appear in the same cartoon makes sense since at that time Betty Boop was a huge star and so in a way it's sort of a passing of the torch time of moment sadly tho I cannot post a picture of the two together since she technically appears topless in there one and only scene together.
Now for those that don't know Popeye and the rest of the and actually started life as comic strip characters appearing in Thimble Theatre on January 17th 1929. The character very quickly became the main start if the strip and so turning him into a cartoon series makes sense hell from this we can pretty much gather that Popeye actually made cartoon history by being the first comic book character to get turned in a cartoon since the first Popeye cartoon debuted in 1933 and lasted for decades.
Each of these cartoons runs for at least six or seven minuets and in my opinion it really feels like they should have been at least ten minuets each. Mostly because the cartoons fly by so fast that you don't have the time to take anything in and so by the time the cartoons reach there end while you are left with a smile on your face your also left wondering what you even watched in the first place which is not a good thing in my opinion.
As you can all no doubt work out all three of these cartoons are in black and white and so I will fully understand if people chose not to watch them. I will also fully understand if people chose not to watch I Yam What I Yam because it does have some shall we say questionable content with how the Indians are depicted but to that I say that that cartoon was made in a different time and so I ask that you judge that cartoon by the standards of the day it was made in and not by the standards that we have in today's society.
Now then boys and girls since these are all comedy cartoons that does mean that we have to talk about the jokes in the shorts. Which I honestly feel were really good granted alot of the jokes haven't aged well at all but that's bound to happen with a cartoon made in the 1930's but alot of the psychical stuff is still funny and alot of the jokes that they have in the action scenes are really funny and the action itself is really good.
Overall these shorts are really funny and they like all good cartoons from back in the day they hold up really well. There are only a few issues which i've mentioned in this review but most of them are very understandable as such "Popeye The Sailor" which I think is the best of the three gets an 8 out of 10 from me where as "I Yam What I Yam" gets a 7.5 out of 10 from and "Blow Me Down" gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me as well.
If this series does continue I think it'll just be one review for every one cartoon just because I think that I can get a full review just one of them. The same thing will also go for the Superman cartoons as well for the exact same reason in terms of when they'll release i'm working that out right now but i'm thinking maybe once a week or something like that just because that way I don't get sick of doing them but we'll see.