Although THIMBLE THEATRE premiered on AMERICAN NEWSTANDS in 1919,
POPEYE himself didn't first appear until January 17 1929.
But that small cameo of his allowed him to take over the comic
and eventually in 1933, FLEISCHER STUDIOS in NEW YORK CITY
Purchased the rights from E.C SEGAR to create cartoons about the SAILOR WITH THE SOCK
Now I know that this whole story about the difference between MICKEY MOUSE vs. POPEYE has already been described ad nauseum by other journalists and bloggers but I want to chime it up with my own views.
Compared to a lot of the other AMERICAN CARTOONS that dominated the U.S market during the 1930s,
BEFORE we I start with that, let me start with this:
Cartoons before 1934 were even more ribald than what you'd expect.
The many things that a cartoon character could do often meant breaking the law or even do ribald things like FLIP THE FROG ogling a woman or him saying damn after falling down the stairs.
And let's not forget BETTY BOOP herself
But when the U.S GOVERMENT, senates, and preachers decided to raise a stink about all the ribaldry that permeated the AMERICAN FILMS in the wake of FATTY ARBUCKLE's controversial murder trial to which he was acquitted from,
The only thing left to do for these cartoon studios was COPY DISNEY's shtick in order to clean up their act without incurring the HAYS OFFICE's wrath.
But until WARNER BROS. could find it's footing with their own characters which didn't enter it's golden age until the beginning of the 1940s,
FLEISCHER STUDIOS refused to follow the path of DISNEY in terms of FANTASY SETTINGS.
Instead, they chose FUNNY
and GRIT
And most of the setting,
(unless you count the TECHNICOLOR ARABIAN TRILOGY)
is set in the modern-day.... for the 1930s.
Compared to all those other studios affected by the HAYS OFFICE, they knew that things were really in deep shit due to the GREAT DEPRESSION so....
The reason they copied DISNEY was so that movie goers could at least have some form of escapism to escape to....
away from all the horrors of financial ruin
or a disgraced U.S President who refused to accept the new reality.
No, HOOVER....
Prosperity was never around the corner during the depression.
POPEYE took a much different approach.
They want to make people laugh but at the same time, refused to use FANTASY SETTINGS.
To FLEISCHER, LAUGHS were the most important.
They had characters like POPEYE, OLIVE OYL, WIMPY, BLUTO, etc.
Traversing their NEW YORK setting, punching out the palookas, getting the girl,
That's what POPEYE does best.
EC SEGAR made the right decision to replace both HAM GRAVY & CASTOR OYL when he introduced POPEYE to THIMBLE THEATER.
"Well Blow me down!"
Another thing that made POPEYE stand out from the crowd was that the company behind the animated cartoons were also AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION.
I've mentioned in past blogposts that FLEISCHER STUDIOS made their PATENTED Setback Camera that allowed their 2D Animated Cel Characters to interacted with MODELED 3D Objects laid on top of a turntable.
If you want to know more about that TURNTABLE CAMERA and it's influence in 2D/3D integration, here's the link to my earlier blogpost I made during SUMMER 2026:
This camera allowed for certain scenes to stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Believe it or not, these screenshots above were shot with FLEISCHER's tabletop camera.
Also, You may have noticed that You've seen some shots that are in full
3-STRIP TECHNICOLOR
But the majority of POPEYE Cartoons from FLEISCHER are all in monochrome.
That's because it was the 1930s.
Only a few Cartoons were allowed to get color but most couldn't afford 3-Strip due to things like cost of film development and for a short while: DISNEY having exclusive use of the technique.
Many cartoons at the time before the exclusivity contract expired were made using the inferior 2-Strip techniques
But FLEISCHER, having learned their lesson from POOR CINDERELLA, decided against making COLOR POPEYES.....
With the exception of 3 Cartoons(dubbed POPEYE'S ARABIAN TRILOGY)
POPEYE THE SAILOR MEETS SINDBAD THE SAILOR(1936)
POPEYE THE SAILOR MEETS ALI BABA'S FORTY THIEVES(1937)
&
ALADDIN & HIS WONDERFUL LAMP(1939)
I've already done 3 Blogposts for each of these COLOR POPEYEs back in 2023 so If you want to read them, feel free to click on the
POPEYE Tag on this blogpost.
Another thing that differentiate POPEYE from other Cartoon characters in the 1930s was that FLEISCHER encourage POPEYE's actors to ADLIB.....
or more like
MUTTER-UNDER-HIS-BREATH lines that weren't in the script but still correspond with the plot
"Woah! This is not time for hanging around!"
Also,
POPEYE often lived in a dilapidated NEW YORK Apartment as to show that He too felt the financial burdens of the DEPRESSION era.
and probably cursing at HERBERT HOOVER.....
Don't know what he thought about FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT though.
In the waning years of the 1930s,
FLEISCHER moved away from NEW YORK to MIAMI, FLORIDA
(Still East Coast thankfully).
In order to weaken union control as well as take advantage of TAX BREAKS,
Though audiences noticed something off with the newer FLORIDA produced shorts where the artwork was brighter and less detailed.
The dialogue also began doing more PRE-RECORDED DIALOGUE for LIP SYNC but at least actors like JACK MERCER were still allowed to AD-LIB to provide improvisational touch.
By the time of the 1940s, due to an escalating FEUD within the FLEISHCER BROTHERS during production of MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN,
POPEYE was transferred over to PARAMOUNT's FAMOUS STUDIOS and this led to CARTOONS that while still classic, lacked the uniqueness of the FLEISCHER ERA.
Not helping matters was that the UNITED STATES was also heavily involved in WWII so that meant POPEYE had to trade in his trusty SAILOR UNIFORM
for a white NAVAL Uniform as the character had joined the U.S NAVY by this point
However, I much prefer POPEYE from before he joined the NAVY in December 1941.
You can't beat DEPRESSION ERA POPEYE without really appreciating the glory of his pre-1941 days.
As to where you can find a place to watch POPEYE?
For the FLEISCHER CARTOONS, they vary but a majority of them are in the PUBLIC DOMAIN due to them not having their copyrights renewed on time.
So watching them on YOUTUBE is pretty sweet....
But for me, I often prefer to stream them(and download them) from ARCHIVE.ORG because I can.
But if Traditional TV is your thing(whether it's cable or devices like a ROKU),
then MeTV TOONS is your other bet.
And to end this blogpost:
"I'm strong to the finich,"
"Cause I eats me spinach,"
"I'm POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN!"
*TOOT TOOT*
Why is he disheveled here?
He got smacked in the head with a broom....
