Bob posted a clip that Ben Solomon animated from We’re On Our Way to Rio, so I thought I’d post the whole thing. This was one of the last cartoons done at the Miami studio, the key tipoff being Dave Barry voicing Bluto. This is a very well-directed and animated cartoon (save those creepy band members). Solomon’s dance animation of Popeye has real weight to it and is wonderful at showcasing the sailor’s dancing incompetency. Jim Tyer’s animation is hysterical and really captures the ugly insanity that is the Popeye-Olive-Bluto triangle. I bet this was pure eye candy to see in Technicolor, but alas, all we have for now is a faded TV print.
(This version was planned for Cartoon Network’s THE POPEYE SHOW when they found the opening and closing titles’ soundtrack, but was shelved.)
[dailymotion id=x9vk62]
Also made when animators were still alternating between four fingers and five fingers.
Wonderful stuff (…and you won’t catch me saying that often about Fuh-Fuh-Famous Popeyes).
I love both this cartoon and the title you gave for the video itself! Though, guys actually searching that kind of stuff on Dailymotion are going to be quite dissapointed…
OK, I know the band leader is supposed to be Bob Hope, since the cartoon is a takeoff on Paramount’s Hope-Crosby road pictures. But where the heck is the Crosby characture?
Great cartoon. I loved the fish gag. It was such a fun cartoon. I loved the music, the atmosphere, the animation, everything was wonderful.
That’s…quite good actually! Makes you wonder why they didn’t do that good a job on the REST of the color Famous Popeye shorts.
Geez, it’s been years since I’ve seen this. Who’s doing Bluto’s voice here?
Thad says at the beginning of his post that it’s Dave Barry voicing Bluto.
Thanks, Matt (and Thad). I had no idea Barry could sing.
It’s interesting that the dance footage immediately after Popeye eats the spinach is rotoscoped, while later dance scenes are not.
It is. I wonder why they did that.
I’m probably showing my major Popeye ignorance here, but does Margie Hines do the singing in this? I think I’m addicted to her song.
Not Margie in this one — if you want to her her attempts at vocal Latina, it’s there in the earlier cartoons “Bulldozing the Bull” from 1938 and “Kickin the Conga ‘Round” from 1942 (and with both a similar plot to “Rio” as well as serving as Dave Barry’s debut at Bluto’s voice, so he was basically picked up and dropped off the series in South America).
I worked with Ben at Topps for many years and would upon occasion try to get him to talk about his animation & comic book days.. he was usually pretty reluctant. He was clearly tickled though when I showed him the anecdote that Shamus Culhane wrote about him in TALKING ANIMALS. He clearly had alot of respect for Shamus.
This is a beautiful cartoon, one of a handful of my favorites from the post-Fleischer era. I gather from the table scenes that it was made after “Red Hot Riding Hood.”
If ever there was a reason to WANT the Famous Paramount Popeyes on DVD, this cartoon is IT!
Funny, as a kid, I didn’t like this one – too much singing and dancing, and not enough “fighting action”. But, does your perspective ever change as you grow older!
Thanks for posting it, Thad!
I’ve loved this cartoon since I first saw it nearly fifty years ago. Not only do I think it was one of the best Popeye shorts ever made; it also displays, as no other Famous cartoon ever did, the [usually woefully underused] talents of Win Sharples as an arranger and conductor. His orchestra is wonderful here. I assume he wrote Olive’s solo(?).
If Margie Hines didn’t do Olive’s voice in this cartoon, who did?
What makes this one hard to figure is while the cartoon was at the very least started in Miami, with Jack Mercer and Dave Barry’s voices recorded there, the music was already being recorded back in New York. So with Olive having both speaking and singing lines here, whoever did the voice could have been a contract singer based either down in Florida or back up in the Big Apple (similar to the way the Superman voice recoding sessions for Fleischer and Famous were divided between the New York-based radio actors like Bud Colyer and the regular stable of studio voices like Mercer). The only thing that’s certain is that in the cartoon before this, “The Marry Go-Round”, Margie was doing Olive’s voice in Miami, and in the cartoon released after “Rio”, “The Anvil Chorus Girl,” Mae Questel was back in the role and Jackson Beck was debuting as Bluto, both based in New York.
When did Winston Sharples take over Sammy Timberg’s role as musical arranger? From what I know of the Fleischer/Famous history, they shared responsibilities for quite a number of years, but there is no mention of Timberg in any Famous cartoons after around 1944. Did he continue to work for Famous after that?
. . . Then there’s also the question I’ve LONG wondered about — why some of the early ’40s Popeye shorts — the first ones put out by Famous — sound as though they were recorded in a large garbage can. There’s a clunkyness to the sound quality, and the Timberg orchestra sounds like it’s been decimated.
There were problems with the sound system used by the studio in Miami. The higher frequencies were clipped and/or muffled and even when the music recording sessions were moved back to New York (starting with the Fleischer releases in the early part of 1940), the dynamic range of the sound system just isn’t what it was when the Fleischers were in New York.
When the Popeye series went color, the dynamic range of the music immediately improved, which may have been due to the film stock or because the mixing was now being done on equipment up in New York, pending the move of the full studio back from Miami. But you can still hear a little bit of the lower dynamic range on the voice and sound effect tracks of the first three color Popeyes (as well as on the initial Noveltoon, which also appears to have been at least started and voice tracked before the return to New York). The upper dynamic range clarity on the voices and sound effects doesn’t show up until “The Anvil Chorus Girl”, which was the first Popeye fully recorded back in New York.
Thanks, Thad! This is my second favorite Famous Studios Popeye cartoon, after “Shape Ahoy”. Both are packed with Jim Tyer goodness.
“When did Winston Sharples take over Sammy Timberg’s role as musical arranger? From what I know of the Fleischer/Famous history, they shared responsibilities for quite a number of years, but there is no mention of Timberg in any Famous cartoons after around 1944. Did he continue to work for Famous after that?”
Timberg officially stopped in 1946, with some of his last cartoons being the 1946 Popeye “House Tricks?”.
Thad, do you have a copy of this Popeye with original titles, or do you know someone (besides Jerry Beck) who has the copy of the original print? Please post some “screenshots” if you have it.
Dave Barry was my grandfather – THANK YOU for the great info! Wonderful. Here is a sampler video I created of some of his work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CWJK4Ou20