The b&w Popeye's are classic - I recall Olive Oyl's voice being done by the same woman who did Betty Boop, but I could be mistaken. Among my favorites are the three "mini-movie" color specials: Sindbad the Sailor, Ali Baba & the forty thieves, and Aladdin's Lamp. They did some cool 3-D effects in one or more of those. I remember finding bargain bin VHS tapes of these back in the day - have been thinking about finding them on DVD via Netflix one of these days.
Also I recall (and this was a long time ago now) that in the actual comics Olive had a brother named Castor - reminded me of the fourth and fifth Marx Brothers for some reason.
Yes, I remember the trapeeze cartoon too (Rawgoo) and the gay 90s style drawing of the flying artist. Mae Questal(sp) was the voice and she must have voiced dozens of characters as I recall her distinctive sound all through my childhood!
The vintage color popeyes were like little movies in themselves - I've always wanted to see one on the big screen to catch all the details. Magnificently animated too. And the rest of the old b/w popeyes had alot of the characters from the Thimble Theatre comic strip like sweepea, the jeep and Pappy as well as Wimpy and Brutus/Bluto (missing was HamNEgg and Castor). Bluto always bothered me as a kid though, esp in the later colors, as he seemed like a rapist! Having a younger sister, I was hoping that she wasn't bothered like Olive was by a goon like Brutus...
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