Flights of Fancy (Part 30): Cleared for Landing
We’ve just about reached the end of the runway. Your tray tables should be up and in locked position.
We’ve just about reached the end of the runway. Your tray tables should be up and in locked position.
Hanna Barbera, Format Films, King Features and other independent animation studios had pretty high flying characters during the 1960s.
Some feel the Popeye cartoons may have been formula, but the public was eating it up, like so many spinach rolls.
We’ll cover more titles than usual this week, due to several containing only rather short sequences of direct relevance to these articles.
Popeye the Sailor was “making waves” in the entertainment industry. The songs in his cartoons reflected who he “yam”.
Many a cartoonist stayed well behind the lines, each winning the war single-handedly – at least with the imagery created from their drawing boards.
Popeye was an immediate smash with both moviegoers and exhibitors, as the first official episode of the sailor’s own series came out only two months after his animated debut.
Even in the most lighthearted of films, topical wartime references were likely to pop up, leading to the inevitable coverage of wartime air activity turning up in the unlikeliest of places.
After rushing to the screen a hasty salute to the Army in 1940, it was time for equal-time for the Navy and Air Corps in 1941.
We’ll wrap up the 1930’s this week, with another barrage of cartoons about flight, both for fun and for profit.