Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons by Fred M. Grandinetti

Popeye the Sailor was one of the first multimedia superstars. He made his debut on January 17 1929 in E. C. Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre. Thimble Theatre was nearly ten years old when Popeye first appeared, having debuted on December 19 1919. The comic strip originally centred on a character named Ham Gravy and his girlfriend Olive Oyl. Popeye was meant to only be a character in one storyline, but he proved to be so popular that he was brought back. It wasn't very long before Popeye became the main character in Thimble Theatre. It was also not long before Popeye expanded into other media beyond the newspaper strip. In 1933 Max Fleischer licensed Popeye to appear in a series of cartoons produced for Paramount Pictures. From 1935 to 1938 he appeared in  his own radio show. Popeye would also conquer the relatively new medium of comic books, receiving his own title, published by Dell Comics, in 1948. It was only a matter of time before he conquered the medium of television as well.

The theatrical shorts produced by Fleischer Studios and then Famous Studios proved to be very popular in television syndication. It was then in 1960 that King Features (the newspaper syndicate that owns Popeye) commissioned a new series of animated shorts made for television. This new series of television cartoons also proved to be phenomenally popular in television syndication, so that once more Popeye had conquered another medium. Despite their success, the Popeye the Sailor television cartoons have often been disparaged for their quality and even ignored altogether by historians. Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons by Fred M. Grandinetti is an indepth look at the Popeye television cartoons. While acknowledging the poor quality of many of the cartoons, Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons makes the case that many of the television cartoons were of superior in quality, with good, although limited animation and good plotlines.

Author Fred M. Grandinetti is a founding member of the Popeye Fan Club and has been writing about Popeye since 1983. He has written several books on Popeye, including Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, Popeye, the Collectible: Dolls, Coloring Books, Games, Toys, Comic Books, Animation, and He Am What He Am!: Jack Mercer, the Voice of Popeye, as well as numerous articles. It should then come as no surprise that Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons contains a wealth of information on the Sailor Man, even beyond the television cartoons. Readers will learn about a good deal about the history of Thimble Theatre and the Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios theatrical shorts.

Author Fred M.
Grandenetti and dolls he had
specially made.

Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons details the production of the Popeye the Sailor televisions cartoons from the very beginning, when King Features Television Productions was formed. It covers producer Al Brodax (the head of King Features' film and television department) and the multiple studios that created the television cartoons. Author Fed M. Grandnetti addresses the quality of the cartoons, detailing which studios produced the cartoons that are lesser in quality as well as which studios produced those that are superior in quality. There are chapters devoted to the success of the Popeye the Sailor television cartoons, the characters in the cartoons, the vocal talent behind the cartoons, and the merchandising associated with the cartoons. To cap everything off is an episode guide, with a summary of each of the 220 cartoons.

Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons features a number of photos, including advertisements from trade journals, newspaper ads, photos of the voice talent, stills from the cartoons, and more.

Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons contains such a wealth of information, both on the history of Popeye and the cartoons themselves, that even those of us who consider ourselves knowledgeable about the character will learn a good deal that they did not know. For those of us who grew up with the Popeye television cartoons, it will also bring back many fond memories spent in front of the television set. Fred M. Grandinetti writes with an amiable style, making the book a very easy read. Ultimately Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons would be a welcome addition to the collection of any Popeye fan.

Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons is published by BearManor Media and is available through multiple booksellers.