Yesterday morning we
broke the news about Warner Home Video's plans to release
Popeye & Friends - Volume 1, a single-disc "family-friendly" release (8 color cartoons, and no extras) coming out on
June 17. That's the same day Warner is also releasing the two-disc
Popeye the Sailor - Volume 2: 1938-1940 "collectible" set filled with 31 classic black-and-white fully-restored theatrical short, complete with bonus material produced by animation historian Jerry Beck, and a follow-up to a similar 4-DVD set ("
Volume 1: 1933-1938") released last summer.
Later in the day yesterday we moved quickly to bring you
the first look at package art for
Popeye & Friends - Volume 1, just as soon as Warner made it available. However, we still didn't have the list of titles for the included cartoon shorts yet, and what our friends in the industry had told us was to expect these to be culled from various different
Popeye shows from different eras, especially from the 1960s King Features Syndicates television series.
Well, leave it to the man himself to find out what's what with this release! Although not producing the one-disc release, Jerry Beck has
gotten the word, and posted it at his Cartoon Brew blog, about which shorts are included. They are:
- Abject Flying Object
- Ship Ahoy
- I Wouldn’t Take That Mare to The Fair on a Dare
- Popeye Goes Sightseeing
- Chips Off The Old Ice Block
- Popeye The Plumber
- Swee-Pea Plagues A Parade
- Polly Wants Some Spinach
What's more, while I wouldn't be able to recognize the names of these shorts and where they are from, Jerry's been able to do so immediately (being the animation expert, and all). He states that all of these are from the "
1978 CBS Saturday morning series, The All-New Popeye Hour"...which is why we're now filing these reports under that show's name.
Some of you may recall that the 1978 series was produced by Hanna-Barbera. And some of you may also remember that Popeye shared the limelight in this program with
Dinky Dog. Dinky has recently
had his own DVD release, in Canada, from VEI of Toronto.
Head on over to Jerry's write-up at CartoonBrew.com and read his entire write-up to get a feel for his take on this release. We thank Jerry very much for shooting us a note and letting us know about the post!
