Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s: Volume 1

This review is for the Blu-ray release of: Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s Volume 1 Distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Catalog #2000147371 UPC: 8 88574 77070 9 The quality is impressive! All of the cartoons appear to be complete without any edits whatsoever. I grew up watching most of the cartoons from this collection with the a.a.p. intros. I always hated the fact the poor editing of those intros made it obvious the cartoons hadn't been produced that way originally. The music would skip or change drastically also. That is NOT the case here!!! The intros all smoothly transition to the beginning of each cartoon without any unexpected change in picture nor sound quality. In fact, the quality is so good, I thought some of the initial frames in the intros might have been one frame frozen for clarity. I was wrong. The animation with Popeye's head popping out of a twirling star begins, yet the background is rock-solid stable. I didn't detect any jitter at all!!! That's practically unheard of with animation and live-action sources dating from over 70 years ago. I didn't detect any scratches at all either. I've only watched the disc two times all the way through, so it's possible I may have missed some. I did find it incredible how consistent the colors and the brightness were from the top of the frame to the bottom, and from cartoon to cartoon. This makes the cartoons appear to have been produced in modern times. Warner did an amazing job with this release. There is some film grain visible throughout, but that's such a minor detail. Yes, the disc is barebones. However it is an actual pressed, silver disc BD (Blu-ray Disc)---NOT a BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable). The cover artwork is used for the menu, albeit in a re-arranged format. The menu has 3 options: PLAY ALL SUBTITLES: OFF EPISODE SELECTION Selecting "SUBTITLES: OFF" toggles it to "SUBTITLES: ON" and back. Choosing "EPISODE SELECTION" displays a cartoon titles list with an arrow on the right: Her Honor, The Mare The Marry-Go-Round We're On Our Way To Rio The Anvil Chorus Girl Spinach-Packin' Popeye Puppet Love Pitchin' Woo At The Zoo Pressing the right arrow on your player/remote replaces the cartoon titles list with the remaining cartoon titles list along with an arrow on the left: Moving Aweigh She-Sick Sailors Pop-Pie A La Mode Tops in the Big Top Shape Ahoy For Better or Nurse Mess Production Pressing the left arrow on your player/remote replaces the remaining cartoon titles list with the initial cartoon titles list. These cartoons have reportedly been mastered in 4K from the original nitrate negatives. I don't know why they weren't also released in the 4K Blu-ray format. Perhaps that will be done in the future. Warner Brothers added this statement on the back of the case artwork: "Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s, Volume 1 is intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children." I think the only cartoons that may offend some people are: The Marry-Go-Round - The character Shorty may possibly be found offensive by some. We're On Our Way To Rio - Some may not like Popeye stating he's no "Sambo dancer" rather than "Samba dancer" Pop-Pie A La Mode - Black cannibal stereotypes may be perceived as offensive. One thing Warners didn't add to the Blu-ray case artwork was a list of the cartoons included. If you decide to select the "PLAY ALL" option from the menu, there is no way to know what is going to play next. Warners chose to put the list of cartoon titles on the disc itself! That's great for those with photographic memories. For other people, it's a bit of a drag! This set of cartoons is subtitled "THE 1940s VOLUME 1". It includes 14 cartoons. If it is successful, it's probable each new volume will contain about the same amount of cartoons: THE 1940s VOLUME 2 - 15 cartoons 1946-1947 THE 1940s VOLUME 3 - 17 cartoons 1948-1949 If we're lucky, hopefully they'll continue on with: THE 1950s VOLUME 1 - 16 cartoons 1950-1951 THE 1950s VOLUME 2 - 16 cartoons 1952-1953 THE 1950s VOLUME 3 - 17 cartoons 1954-1955 THE 1950s VOLUME 4 - 13 cartoons 1956-1957 ...and finish with completing the 1960s releases too: THE 1960s CLASSICS VOLUME 2 - 72 cartoons THE 1960s CLASSICS VOLUME 3 - 72 cartoons

Absolute gold for the Popeye animation fan! Usually, watching these same14 Popeye cartoons in a row, of bad prints on a degenerated video, would be taxing but with the crisp clean restoration they are like watching for the first time and I am seeing details I have never seen (in the ones I have seen before). Please Time Warner, complete the series of Famous Studio's Popeye cartoons!

Popeye is one of those iconic figures of the cartoon world that crossed over, from the second most popular comic strip character of the Great Depression, to shorts, and finally, even a big-budgeted movie musical. While most critics will concur that the shorts made after Paramount fired the Fleischers and took up the franchise, pale artistically by comparison, there is nothing pale about these gorgeous new image harvests. The Warner Archive has taken great pains to restore and remaster Popeye for posterity on Blu-ray and the results could not be better. You are going to LOVE the way these vintage shorts look. My one regret is that WAC did not start at the beginning, remastering the Fleischer franchise first, and releasing not only 'volumes' on Blu, but also one whopping comprehensive box set of these wonderful examples of hand-drawn animation. Otherwise, this one is a no brainer. Buy with confidence and fall in love with 3-strip Technicolor all over again. Vintage Technicolor - there is NOTHING like it today!

Fantastic transfers of previously unavailable Popeye cartoons post Fleischer Studios. These cartoons just do not hold up. They are well made, but juvenile, offensive, and often just bad. The few gems on each set hardly justify the purchase price, sadly.

Popeye wins again! I remember all of these when originally broadcast on TV before the restrictions. Although the Flescher Popeye's all had greater detail than the Paramount/Famous Studios cartoons, the picture quality and color of these prints are outstanding! They look like they were made yesterday. ANVIL CHORUS GIRL sound quality is on the raspy side however. And Popeye's voice is not Jack Mercer's or Mae Questal's in SHAPE AHOY and FOR BETTER OR NURSE. FOR BETTER OR NURSE and MESS PRODUCTION's background scenery is very detailed. Over all, this is a great disk and I cannot wait for Volume 2 to finish my classic Popeye collection. Now if they would only do the corrected TOM and JERRY Blu-Ray Volume 2.