(Finally catching up here ... ) The King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons are very challenging to watch because they're really quite poorly made. The animation was distributed to about seven billion companies, for one, none of whom had the time to do basic tests to make sure they were going on model or were respecting things in Popeye's basic design, like, oh, he has five fingers on each hand, or has one squinty eye. Music is better than the Rudy Larriva Looney Tunes, but that's more or less by default; it does pretty reliably miss script cues, and sound effects are erratic where present at all.
And the writing, well. It reaches the point that one's grateful when the credits reveal the cartoon will be made by Paramount/Famous Studios -- the studios which had just ground Popeye down into a boring slop of cartoons -- because then you know the story will at minimum make any sense. You often get herky-jerky plotting and dialogue, and it's just refreshingly bracing. I miss these cartoons.
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rosecarmine
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Date: 2005-08-11 02:00 pm (UTC)(Finally catching up here ... ) The King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons are very challenging to watch because they're really quite poorly made. The animation was distributed to about seven billion companies, for one, none of whom had the time to do basic tests to make sure they were going on model or were respecting things in Popeye's basic design, like, oh, he has five fingers on each hand, or has one squinty eye. Music is better than the Rudy Larriva Looney Tunes, but that's more or less by default; it does pretty reliably miss script cues, and sound effects are erratic where present at all.
And the writing, well. It reaches the point that one's grateful when the credits reveal the cartoon will be made by Paramount/Famous Studios -- the studios which had just ground Popeye down into a boring slop of cartoons -- because then you know the story will at minimum make any sense. You often get herky-jerky plotting and dialogue, and it's just refreshingly bracing. I miss these cartoons.