POPEYE-CARTOON

Popeye the Sailor is a fictional hero notable for appearing in comic strips and animated films as well as numerous television shows. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar,^[1] and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye has now become the strip's title as well.
Although Segar's Thimble Theatre strip, first published on December 19, 1919, was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was carried on after Segar's death in 1938 by several writers and artists, most notably Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip, now titled Popeye, continues to appear in first-run installments in its Sunday edition, written and drawn by Hy Eisman. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories.
In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer's Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount's own Famous Studios—continued production through 1957. The cartoons are now owned by Turner Entertainment, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and distributed by sister company Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Over the years, Popeye has also appeared in comic books, television cartoons, arcade and video games, hundreds of advertisements and peripheral products, and a 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman starring comedian Robin Williams as Popeye.

POPEYE

The most information I could find about Louis Zukor was in an animation union newsletter obituary on him.


'LOU ZUKOR died on March 16, 2004 at the age of ninety. From 1930 until his retirement in 1984 he worked for Romer Grey, Mintz, Screen Gems, Iwerks, Lantz, Fleischer, Famous, Hanna-Barbera, Animation Associates and Filmation.

We have lost an icon of the animation industry. Lou was a close friend of mine. He was a veteran who went from the days of Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes To Town, to more recent TV cartoons such as Archie and He-Man. Lou aslo worked on hundreds of TV commercials, and on titles for The Carol Burnett Show, The Sonny and Cher Show and others. Lou was a producer of a cartoon called Q. T. Hush, that showed on the Sheriff John TV show in the late 'sixties. Producing, animating, directing, painting backgrounds ... Lou did it all.'


I assume that Zukor made the trek to New York in 1938 to work on Gulliver's Travel's and continued on working for the Famous Studio until sometime in 1946. His work at the Fleischers was primarily for Orestes Calpini's crew and when the switchover was made to Famous, he animated primarily for Graham Place's crew.

'Females is Fickle' - 1940

'Me Feelins is Hurt' - 1940

'Nurse Mates' - 1940

'Wimmin Hadn't Oughta drive' - 1940

'I'll Never Crow Again' - 1940

'Mess Production' - 1946

'House Tricks?' - 1946

'The Fistic Mystic' - 1946

Lou Zukor animation from 'Me Feelins is Hurt' - 1940

Max’s Animated Heroes

Max Fleischer, the American animator, was the subject of Chapter 3 of Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic. This was because he was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon, introducing such animated characters as Betty Boop and Koko the Clown. Fleischer was also responsible for a number of technological innovations such as the rotoscope, the rotograph and the “Song Car-Tune” – better known as “follow the bouncing ball.” But to me, most impressive was his introduction of hero and superhero, with the animated characters of Popeye and Superman, respectively. Both Popeye and Superman were introduced as animated movie shorts for the big screen.

Fleischer’s Popeye – or Popeye the Sailor Man – made his animated film debut in 1933, introduced in the Betty Boop short Popeye the Sailor. Popeye was considered an immediate hit, and his popularity would grow to rival Disney’s Mickey Mouse by 1935. The plot line of these animated cartoons was a simple one. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye’s gal-pal, Olive Oyl; the bad guy then clobbers Popeye until Popeye eats spinach, which gives him superhuman strength which he used to defeat the villain and win the day and the girl. The fundamental character of Popeye paralleled that of another Fleischer’s animated character and icon, Superman. Both these characters invoke traditional values and possess uncompromising moral standards, resorting to force only when threatened, or when he “can’t stands no more” in the case of Popeye, or when “truth, justice and the American way” are threatened in the case of Superman.

Fleischer’s Superman was more than just a landmark in superhero animation, it became the foundation for a number of Superman series that succeeded it. Fleischer created 17 Superman film shorts for theaters in 1941-42. At 10 minutes in length, each film had just enough time to run the opening credits, establish the threat, let Lois Lane rush into peril, allow Clark Kent to change to his alter ego, and have Superman save the day. A theme that holds true with Superman even today – be it in television cartoon form, or live action motion picture.

I came across an interesting confluence of Popeye and Superman, when in 1944 Paramount released a Popeye cartoon titled “She-Sick Sailors” in which Olive is more interested in her Superman comic book than in Popeye. Bluto overhears this and dresses as Superman, as you can see in the frame below. You can also take a look at this cross-over cartoon below.

Popeye the Sailor Man‘s Bluto as Superman