Wednesday, July 11, 2012

POPEYE'S MOUNTAIN CLIMBING CARTOON



I thought I'd comment on the opening of another Popeye cartoon in the recent Warners DVD set: "I SKI-LOVE SKI-YOU SKI." It's not one of the better cartoons in the collection, but it manages to be professional, and the mistakes of pros working at this level are always worth studying.

The biggest mistake the film makes is in the writing: everything good in the story is at the beginning, when it's a musical. After that it's nothing but predictable mountain climbing gags.

Also, the story has a generic feel to it. Let's face it, this is a story that has no reason to exist, apart from a commercial one. You can't imagine that it came out of something funny one of the artists saw on the street, or out of someone's unique and funny view of the world.

The story has Popeye and Bluto each sing their own invitation to Olive to come out and climb the mountain. This is the part of the story that works. The dialogue and the animation are expertly paired with the music.


Nice layout (above), and a nice Bluto pose, too.


Bluto ends his song with a gesture to Popeye, as if to say "See if you can beat that." Acting this good might have saved the film if there had been more of it. Unfortunately it's only in the beginning.

Olive (above) chooses who she'll climb with using "Eeney, Meany, Miney, Moe." Done to a musical beat as it is here, the scene works fine. 


Popeye wins and the couple walk off leaving Bluto angry and wanting revenge.


 As I said earlier, most of the rest of the film (above) is mountain climbing gags done on long shots with minimal acting. This kind of thing looks fine in live action but almost never works in animation. Okay, there's a few exceptions like the Goofy sports cartoons, but only a few. In general, my advise is NEVER, EVER DO SPORTS CARTOONS.

Come to think of it, if you're a TV animation writer, never write about standard theme ideas like boxing, building construction, car racing, etc. Stories like that don't lend themselves to comedy or to comedic acting. They're a creative dead end. Write about the things that genuinely make you laugh and which spark the spontaneous enthusiasm of everybody you tell the idea to.


My favorite Popeyes tend to be the ones like "A Clean Shaven Man" where there's an earthy Seger influence, and where the Fleischer tradition of innovation still prevails. This after all, was the studio that did "Bimbo's Initiation" and Betty Boop's "Snow White."


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9 comments:

Joshua Marchant (Scrawnycartoons) said...

In addition to Sports cartoons, I'd like to request legislation banning cartoons about two restaurants next door to each other competing for a passing customers patronage. I saw one the other day and got mad at how unimaginative it was.

Is Fleischers Snow White good? I've never seen it. Bimbos initiation, Swing you Sinners and Mysterious Mose are my favorites.

kurtwil said...

What about sport cartoons that concentrate on close ups and acting?
The Fleischers did some good early Popeyes based on swimming, football, baseball, etc.

BTW Eddie, what do you think of the Goofy sport cartoons Disney did in the '50's? I remember their being energetic and more inventive than the typical 50's Disney short.

Joshua, Fleischer's Snow White is very surrealistic, but avoid at all costs its "made in korea" colorized version which replaces many of the backgrounds and puts the animation on 2's instead of 1's.

Nicholas John Pozega said...

Hm, I always thought this was a good cartoon. Maybe I'll have to watch it again and see.

Btw Eddie, I did my own post on Popeye recently, with a frame grab of a funny Popeye run cycle! Check it out below and tell me whatcha think! I'm also gonna post frame grabs from "Popeye Meets William Tell" today! Think you could do a post on that short as well?

http://classiccartoonreviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/popeye-sailor-1933-run-cycle.html

Nicholas John Pozega said...

Ok Eddie, I did that post on "Popeye Meets William Tell", framegrabs and all. Check it out and tell me whatcha think of this as well!

http://classiccartoonreviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/popeye-meets-william-tell-1940-bouncy.html

Joshua Marchant (Scrawnycartoons) said...

Kurtwil, that's probably why I haven't seen it.
I saw a copy of the Korean version on youtube and the thumbnail had garish colors and looked generally uninviting. I'll check out the original.
Thanks for the heads up!

Anonymous said...

Great job evaluating the beginning of this Popeye cartoon! The animation is pretty solid and the layouts at the beginning are second to none, but otherwise, pretty forgettable cartoon. You really need to do a post on one of the Famous Popeyes that Jim Tyer animated on, especially "Shape Ahoy." There are so many unique animation theories in that cartoon like the fight scene between Popeye and Bluto near the end when they're fighting over Olive Oyl. Jim Tyer animated that scene I believe.

Jorge Garrido said...

Remember the tumblr post I did trashing your dvd commentary about this cartoon that caused a firestorm of controversy, Eddie?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Jorge: Yes, I do remember! When the day came to record I was shocked to see the films that we were supposed to comment on were ones I had a lot of criticisms of, so I just receded into the background.

The sets are still worth having, though.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Kurt: I'm glad you brought those up! I'm a huge fan of the best Goofy sports cartoons! I hope you are too.

But, really....they're the exception that proves the rule.