Take a look at the background painting. It seems like the diner wall is right up to Bluto's back. And how did they ever manage to squeeze through that tiny door? No matter. The perspective is deliberately off and it works fine.
Anyway, Olive does a sexy strut back and forth through the scene and Popeye and Bluto go bananas. I love the look on Bluto's face which is simultaneously lecherous and completely innocent.
I love the the fact that Olive is so close to them. The counter separating them is really only as wide as a plank, and the dishes on the counter are drawn as ovals to fit them in. That's the way cartoon characters should be sometimes...real close...violating each others space.
To save blog space I eliminated the closeups where Popeye and Bluto resolve to go to a barber shop. Here they get up together, which is funny. Look at the position of their arms, and how massive Bluto is.
Bluto completely covers Popeye for an instant...
Olive Oyl is huge in the foreground. I love it when characters do something simple in the foreground while other characters do something more complex in the background.
Man. all this space and we've only covered the start of the cartoon!
Lovely - if the German Expressionists had made cartoons they would have looked like this, except not as funny.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, great example of the kind of animation that, with the possible exception of John K's work, is impossible to create today.
ReplyDeleteI thought Olive Oyl was supposed to be one of the ugliest women in all of cartoons?! Why would Popeye and Bluto even want to swoon and flirt with someone like that? I've never been able to figure that one out. Yet again, Popeye and Bluto are really ugly themselves, but in an appealing way. Great animation though. Nice and gritty, just how I like my cartoons.
ReplyDeleteThis HAS to be one of the best Popeye cartoons they ever did! Everything that happens is funny and interesting. Popeyes peach fuzz is so right!
ReplyDeleteHow about the music in these cartoons? I hum Clean Shavin' Man, Brotherly Love and We Aim to Please all the time. Whoever did the music for these cartoons should be held in great regard too!
You should do more of these cartoon commentaries. As much as I enjoy your theories about every topic under the sun, your theories about cartoons have a special interest since you are one of the few articulate cartoonist-philosophers, who can really describe how and why cartoons are distinct from other art forms. This post, for example, reminds me of some of your posts about George Herriman, and the sheer pleasure of finding comedy in objects and how we go about drawing them.
ReplyDeleteStephen: Wow! Thanks for the compliment! I'll try to more posts like that.
ReplyDeleteKurt: Do you really think it would be impossible to be that cartoony today? I don't see why it wouldn't.
Joshua: Yeah, we need more good songwriters in the present day animation biz.
I like John K's "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy." I wish John would write more songs for his animation shows. He wrote an absolutely dynamite song for one of his new properties, but he hasn't been able to sell it yet. Wait til you hear it!
What few songs John has done in his cartoons have been great. He had one written for a Betty Boop cartoon he was planning, it was just lyrics but it was hilarious!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you may have heard but sad news; Ernest Borgnine has passed at 95. I've heard nothing good things about what he was like in person.