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01/21/2004: That's Entertainment?

Popeye at 75
with thanks to Yelmo

popeye (10k image)

Watertown, MA resident and "Drawing With Fred" star Fred Grandinetti was all over the news last week, as last Saturday, January 19 was the 75th anniversary of Popeye's debut in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip. Reprinted below are two articles featuring quotes from Fred from the Southern Illinoisan and the Daily Tennessean.


I yam what I yam! Popeye flexes 75 years of laughs
By KEN BECK
Staff Writer

He's bald, ugly, wears tattoos and smokes. He's got the homeliest, if not skinniest, girlfriend on the planet, and what about that spinach fetish?

The sailor with the 7-inch biceps and 20-inch forearms, Popeye turns 75 Saturday, and the Empire State Building will be lit with green spotlights this weekend in honor of the comic-strip character's favorite veggie.

''Popeye is definitely in my top five of the greatest American cartoon characters,'' said cartoon historian Jerry Beck. ''We love this character. There's something appealing about this old guy who has this funny voice, but the bottom line is he's strong and beats up the bad guys.

''They're such outrageous characters. An old, balding guy who's got this skinny girlfriend. Beauty changes, but Olive Oyl was never it. And Bluto was this mammoth, overweight, big guy with a beard. Part of the charm was the voices, the mumbles.''

Popeye advocate and free-lance writer and cartoonist Fred Grandinetti of Watertown, Mass., is waging a one-man war to get Popeye back in the spotlight, especially pushing for the classic cartoons to be released on DVD or video.

''Popeye is the only major cartoon character today not to have a commercial release of his classic films,'' Grandinetti said.

''The Popeye cartoons are not yet out today because the theatrical films are owned by Warner Bros., but the characters are owned by King Features. Warner Bros. now is talking to King Features, and they are very close to making a deal this year,'' Beck said.

''They are in the middle of restoring them, and it will be mind-blowing when they come out. It looks like they were made yesterday. You won't be able to tell the difference in the quality of the picture image of these and the Powerpuff Girls. ''

Popeye first appeared Jan. 17, 1929, in the comic strip Thimble Theatre by cartoonist Elzie Segar. He made his premiere on the silver screen in a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon titled Popeye the Sailor, made by the Fleischer Studios. Since the 1930s, the sailor man has starred in about 600 Popeye cartoons, produced by Fleischer Studios, Famous Studios and Hanna-Barbera, among others. He made it to the big screen in human form in 1980, with Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl.

''On Sunday, I'll have a panel that congratulates Popeye and pays tribute to Segar,'' said Hy Eisman, the fourth artist to draw the Popeye comic strip and who now is in his 10th year of illustrating the beloved sailor man.

''Popeye exemplifies all that's good, the things we're supposed to stand for. He protects the weak and overcomes the bullies,'' said Eisman, who tries to keep his characters true to the forms of Segar and Bud Sagendorf (another famous Popeye illustrator). ''Popeye today uses cell phones and computers, and the gags are more up to date, but I try to keep the drawings in the old classic style.''

A big-time star

''Popeye was only intended to appear once in the strip, but because he didn't take any baloney from anybody, well the newspaper-reading public loved Popeye and wanted to see more of him,'' Grandinetti said. ''By 1932, it became Thimble Theater Starring Popeye. He was one of the very first comic-strips characters to be merchandised in a big way. He really knocked the lid off the can with licensing of comic-strip characters. He wasn't a kid's character at the time; Segar wrote an adult strip.

''In about 1935 or so, they cleaned up the character and had him stop swearing and playing craps on the docks. Segar was known as the Charles Dickens of comic strips because of his writing style and way of inventing characters. He treated each individual character as a star in their own right.''

Not only a star in the funny papers, Popeye also became a movie star due to 109 Max Fleischer cartoons made from 1933 to 1942. In September 1956, the Popeye cartoons hit TV and were a huge hit. Today, the cartoon sailor still has staying power.

''There will be a year-long celebration culminating in the airing of a brand new animated 3-D Popeye special on Fox for the 2004 holiday,'' said Claudia Smith, director of advertising and PR at King Features. ''There will be a lot of new Popeye merchandising coming this year, really fun stuff.''

Smith will not confirm a deal with Warner Bros. regarding release of classic Popeye cartoons. She simply stated, ''We have been in discussion.''

As for the upcoming Popeye cartoon, Grandinetti is afraid the politically correct crowd will ruin the sailor guy.

''Give the people what they want. When people think of Popeye, they think of black and white, they think of mumbling and ad libbing, and they think of the sliding doors that started most of the Fleischer cartoons. Don't take away the pipe, don't take away the tattoo, just leave him the way he is,'' pleads Grandinetti, who has written three books on the subject and has a new book, Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History (McFarland, $45), due for a spring/summer release.

Now, everybody sing along: ''I'm Popeye the Sailor Man, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man, I'm strong to the ''finich'' cause I eats me spinach, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!'' Toot-toot!

Tuning in

The Popeye Show airs at 1 a.m. Sundays on Cartoon Network.

Popeye Web sites

www.popeyethesailor.com

www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/popeye/about.htm

POPEYE FANS GEARING UP FOR SAILOR'S 75TH BIRTHDAY

BY CHRISTI MATHIS
FOR THE SOUTHERN
[Tue Jan 13 2004]

CHESTER -- The Empire State building is turning green this weekend -- spinach green that is -- in honor of the birthday celebration for Chester's world-renowned cartoon hero, Popeye.

"We're kicking off a yearlong celebration in honor of our favorite sailor man, " said Claudia Smith, director of advertising and public relations for King Features Syndicate, Inc., based in New York City. "The Empire State Building's famous tower lights will be going green-- spinach green -- from sundown the 16th until the 18th."

Popeye first appeared in ink January 17, 1929, in the "Thimble Theatre" comic strip created by Chester native Elzie Segar. Popeye was actually intended as a minor character but people fell in love with the one-eyed, spinach-chomping muscleman.

Randolph County residents proclaim that Popeye was actually based on Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, a Chester tough guy who worked cleaning up a local saloon. Popeye's co-stars were likewise based on Chester area residents Segar came to know growing up.

Popeye fans couldn't get enough of the muscular sailor and he leaped to the silver screen in a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon produced by Max Fleischer's legendary Fleischer Studios entitled "Popeye the Sailor."

As Popeye celebrates his 75th anniversary and more than 70 years in film, Popeye fans are hoping a longtime dream of theirs will come true: that the dozens of classic black and white animated cartoons Fleischer produced in the 1930s and 1940s will finally be released on DVD and videocassette.

"This is the Popeye we remember," said Fred Grandinetti of Watertown, Mass. Grandinetti and Mike and Debbie Brooks of Chester co-founded the Popeye Fan Club in 1989 and the club has thousands of members worldwide.

"He took what Segar put in the comic strip and showed their real personalities," Grandinetti said. "He got Popeye singing, eating spinach and saving the day. These cartoons are classics in the animation field. Popeye was a No. 1 box office success for Paramount Pictures. It was more popular than Mickey Mouse."

"These cartoons really popularized aspects of the comic strip," added animation historian, writer and researcher Jerry Beck of Hollywood. Beck's Web site is found at www.cartoonresearch.com and he's another of the big Popeye fans hoping those classic cartoons can become available for fans.

"The original charm of these characters is in these classic cartoons. They were a big hit in the 30s," Beck said. "These cartoons are just so good. People fall in love with the character. We, the fans and the people, don't want to see the characters disappear."

Beck and Grandinetti said every other major cartoon has been released in video/DVD format except the classic Popeye. Grandinetti said many of the mass-produced Popeye cartoons of later years lack the quality of the classics

He and Beck said the problem is the Fleischer cartoons are owned by Warner Brothers while the Popeye character is the property of King Features. Warner Brothers plan to release the classics about 20 years ago met with resistance from King and the idea fizzled, Grandinetti said.

There's good news though for the Popeye classic fans. Work is underway to restore the old films and talks are ongoing between WB and King to reach an agreement so the Fleischer cartoons can be released on video and DVD, Beck said.

"We do own the cartoons. Warner Bros. Studios runs them on Boomerang and Cartoon Network," said Ronnee Sass, executive director of publicity and Communications for Warner Home Video in Burbank, Calif. "It is our fervent wish to release these titles and we are actively pursuing it. I'm afraid that's all I can say at the moment."

"There are discussions between King Features and Warner Bros.," Smith confirmed. She said Popeye is special to King Features and while there is nothing definite yet on release of the classic cartoons, King is hopeful an agreement can be reached. In the meantime, they're planning plenty of festivities to celebrate Popeye's 75th anniversary.

"We're going to have lots of fun things culminating in the release of a brand new 3-D computer generated animation," Smith said. The 3-D cartoon will be released during the 2004 holiday season.

mathis5@hcis.net 618-357-8391