Thoughts on a new year, sharing classic animation — and Popeye, the public domain sailor man.
Happy New Year everyone!
I’m pretty happy to say goodbye to 2024, honestly! There have been some really cool things that have happened, but I do think 2025 has greater promise!
In Thunderbean News: Late this week, we’re finally sending a batch five of the special disc sets, with more on their way in January. Over this next year new special discs will most likely be discontinuing entirely we catch up on the ones already announced and in progress. It’s been lovely being able to scan a lot of things and share them all these years.
Right at the beginning of the break here, a film friend of mine gave me a great gift: a bunch of 35mm reels of trailers, and it turns out, more 35mm Technicolor cartoons than I’ve ever acquired together. There’s too many cool things on these reels to *not* scan, so we’re doing at least one more special set called “IB Technicolor Cartoon Parade”, available for another week at the Thunderbean shop.
Some thoughts on a new year and classic animation — and Popeye!
I would never have guessed that the things I really loved when I was a child would be some of the most important things in my life, and that I’d actually be able to share those things with younger generations. I also wouldn’t have been able to guess that when I grew up some of my best friends would share that same love for classic animation, and would have also found ways to have the love they had for the films that were made in the past stay in their lives and share them with others.
How we share these old films varies a lot, and there’s a lot more outlets than in the past. A lot of my students saw old cartoons on YouTube growing up for the first time. Other saw them on VHS tapes rented from the local video store. My experience, like many of you, was watching these films as a child on sometimes fuzzy UHF stations. The next generation has even more opportunities to find the classic films, yet often doesn’t see them unless they really pursue them.
My friend and a Thunderbean collaborator Scott Christy projects old cartoons for his grade school students each year from his 16mm prints. It brings a smile to my face when I think about how making the *way* films are shown a special occasion. It sort of reminds me of how when a cartoon ‘special’ was on at night it was always exciting as a kid. Especially seeing (and HEARING) this, on CBS:
Rob Hedrick did a nice little video showing where that piece of music came from. It’s from Mort Stevens’ “Call to Danger’- part of some music written for the television show Hawaii Five-0.
This is a lovely example of why YouTube and the internet in general can be an absolutely amazing place for the next generation to not only enjoy things, but to start to understand the history of it by doing a little deeper of a dive. I’ve often said to our very own Jerry Beck that Cartoon Research as a website is the best book ever on animation history. It’s collaborative in the way old fanzines always were and varied enough to be one of the greatest tomes of the history of the medium here in the US, and sometimes other countries. I think that if I hadn’t discovered a trove of ‘Mindrot” zines at a used bookstore in the early 80s I may never have really started to understand— and love — the history of films and animation to the level I did. Just seeing other fans enjoy and share is such an important thing.
And, onto one the character that introduced me to black and white cartoons:
Since Popeye, as a character, is in the Public Domain for the first time starting now, get ready to see him used in all sorts of terrible ways (although at least there won’t be “Popeye – Blood and Spinach”- but for sure there will be some sort of horror film garbage). I honestly don’t care much about that and all the *new* stuff that will get some attention, but there’s actually *good* news attached to that- since there will be more attention to the classic comic and animation of Popeye.
The internet as a place to post doesn’t discriminate against what is true and what isn’t in animation history, but I think it’s safe to say that if you are searching for real facts you will find them in troves compared to the misinformation — and if things are just sort of made up it’s usually caught pretty fast. If you’re making a TV show though, you’d hope that you could do some really, really basic fact checking before writing your script. In this case below though, I don’t think there *was* a script, at least not for some of it — and whatever script did exist may have used whatever came out of the mouth of the host as fact. It would be fun to do an interview with the host and see what else is said! For your enjoyment, here’s a quote from something I watched on Christmas Day, and my eyes kept popping out of my head as I watched and listened:
“Now, in the late 1920s, Popeye the Sailor man first burst out of the inkwell as part of a Betty Boop Cartoon. He was Betty Boop’s date. But audiences seemed to love him. The Fleischer Studios needed a new cartoon character to replace the waning Koko the Clown character. They decided to give Popeye his own cartoon show. The question was: would Popeye make it in cartoons without his date, Betty Boop?”
You can learn more about the alternative history of animated cartoons by watching the 12 part series “Cartoon Wars”. The above is from Season, 1, episode 8, available free on Tubi.
If you want to see a more accurate version of wot happened, with lots of folks you might have seen before, this ‘Popumentary’ from the first Warner Bros Home Entertainment DVD of Popeye The Sailor: 1933-1938 is a good place to start:
Perhaps the best thing about this period is that, as some things are becoming Public Domain, a young generation will hear about them, and, like us, the people that really love what they see will take a deeper dive and, hopefully, share what they’ve seen and heard with others, making new fans as well.
Sometimes the newer generation shares these things like *this*, below, but I’m never a big fan of these types of these ‘outrageous’ breakdowns of cartoons since they’re often trying to get a laugh from their sophomoric presentation rather than the great things about the cartoon. It’s informational about how films are viewed differently by the newer generation in some ways at least:
So, instead, if you want to visit Popeye from the classic Fleischer years, here’s my favorite to run on New Year’s eve and day, for this article’s sake, the 2nd day of the year. This cartoon perhaps embodies everything I love about the Fleischer Popeyes, and gets heart better in seven minutes than almost anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve loved this one since I was 5 or 6 years old. That, to me, is the magic of the best of these films. Let’s Celebrake (1938):
Who would have thought these films would be around and loved for a century? Happy New Year everyone!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Happy new year! Yes, I am very hopeful for 2025 and discovery of great new cartoons both from here and from the major studios when they will cooperate to restore their classic cartoons. Otherwise, when they fall into the public domain, there is always you to revise these cartoons through. You are wonderful sources. I wish you the best of luck in this coming year and further projects completed. Glad to hear of this new “special“ disc. I’m sorry to hear that you’ll be discontinuing these because they were getting really, really good now! I’ve been very, very happy with the last group of special discs that you were able to produce and I hope that now everything is“fixed“ and ready to go for the new year as far as your technologies available to you are concerned. The best of everything in 2025! I have already pre-ordered this new desk.
Thanks for the shout out! I recently screened “The Small One” from my 16mm LPP print, along with some other Christmas cartoons, for my fourth graders. They were engaged for the whole program. While I’m grateful the internet has made accessibility to these shorts much easier, nothing quite matches screening cartoons for an enthusiastic audience.
As more and more cartoons enter the public domain, I hope they find a new, appreciative audience. It’s never been a better time to be a fan of vintage animation with so much of it available in immaculate quality, quality research documented here and in various books, and more and more material entering the public domain. Here’s to another great year in Thunderbean land!
We need to be careful about declaring the Public Domain issue over Popeye. We have the same issue as we had last year with STEAMBOAT WILLIE, PLANE CRAZY, and GALOPIN’ GAUCHO falling into The Public Domain. The 1928 form of Mickey Mouse as contained in those films has become a Public Domain image. This does not legally make Mickey Mouse a Public Domain character, especially since the character was redesigned over the years. This also applies to the first appearance of Popeye in 1929. That early form of the character is a Public Domain image now. But the later versions, including those developed by Fleischer Studios as well as carried on through the comic strips over the decades continue to be under Copyright and Trademark protection by King Features. What has been established for 40 some years is that four of the theatrical cartoons have been in the Public Domain, which includes the three two-reel color Specials, and A DATE TO SKATE. These cartoons did not have their copyrights renewed between 1964 and 1967, which was the end of their first 28 year term. So that’s how that came about. But the later versions of Popeye as an image would still be covered. So people should be careful in assuming that Popeye is a Public Domain character. The nuance to understand is the 1929 image, not the character as we know him that has entered into The Public Domain. This will become the same issue next year over Betty Boop, which is left for another discussion.
Yeah, something tells me that whoever doing that awful looking horror grindhouse film will have to face King Features lawyers for that title and likeness of Popeye.
Exactly… also characters like Mickey Mouse and Popeye are not just copyrighted, but also trademarked. Unlike copyrights trademarks don’t actually expire unless you stop using them… which, you know, companies like Disney and King Features will obviously never do.
Now TBF, trademarks cannot legally be used to replace copyrights, so some will argue the OG designs of Mickey and Popeye are now PD… BUT that’s a little bit of a dicey area. You still cannot CALL THEM Mickey Mouse or Popeye (at least not in the title of your work) nor can you use them: “…in a way that might mislead consumers into think your product is produced or associated with Disney or King Features”… which is a pretty broad statements, and these companies could easily argue that ANY use of these characters could potentially confuse audiences.
Unless of course it’s something like a parody (like what the makers of that awful looking Popeye horror movie are doing), which would constitute under fair use laws.
Overall the use of characters who’s copyright has expired but are still under active trademark use is a bit of a grey area, and there will probably have to be some sort of litigation to determine weather they’re PD or not. Until then, you still have to be REALLY CAREFUL how you use images of Mickey Mouse and Popeye.
Here’s a great video by LegalEagle who goes into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N61Ho-gVpnE
Surely the claims for Popeye being in the public domain are overstated.
Popeye and his image will remain under trademark protection even if publications that include Popeye lose copyright.
To quote a Fleischer cartoon, “What — No Spinach?”
From the fact that we don’t have to fear a horrid horror feature about Farmer Al Falfa, I wonder what your thoughts are on public domain for things less in the popular consciousness.
I was interested to learn about the origin of the music accompanying the CBS Special promos of the 1970s. I saw very little of “Hawaii Five-O” back in the day; it was one of those shows, like “Mission: Impossible”, that I lost interest in as soon as the theme music ended. Splicing audio tape wasn’t as difficult as Rob Hedrick seems to think it was. I’ve done it myself, and professional recording engineers would have been a lot more adept at it than I ever was.
It distresses me that the likes of Dr. Reich and Das Zuber are at large on the Internet promulgating their disinformation and buffoonery. I’ll stick with Cartoon Research, thank you. And I do mean, thank you!
If you think that bad, Steve himself pointed out on Facebook about some doc show on Tubii where a guy is trying to talk about the history of animation via Public Domain clips and he keeps giving misinformation about. Unfortunately/fortunately, I forgot the name of the show and have trouble trying to search for it.
Steve already mentioned one of the episodes in the above article – but it’s “Cartoon Wars” by Thomas Reich (of ‘Cartoon Crazys’ fame).
Sorry, I only skimmed the article before the post and didn’t notice the link for “Cartoon Wars”.
Is THIS the guy who claimed that Max Fleischer was seriously thinking about linking the SUPERMAN cartoons into a feature-length cartoon?
Hi,
I just started to look at the Cartoon Wars on Tubi I don’t know who wrote the scripts but they never checked any facts nor does he know anyting about cartoon history. All of the years that they reference are wrong sometimes by 20 years or so. Also they don’t even have the names of some of the characters so wrong it’s a joke. As an example Betty Boops nephew is called Puggy not Little Jimmy and that is just on example. Saying that Betty was started in 1925 and the first use of rotoscope was in Gulliver’s Travels! Poor Cinderella was in Technicolor – Please
These are just a few of the problems in the first 2 chapters
I skimmed through a few episodes of that “Cartoon Wars” series, and wow…the misinformation in what I’ve seen is “Cowboy BeBop at his Computer”-levels of bad. If you thought “Popeye was Betty Boop’s date” was bad, take a gander at what else I heard:
– Stating that “Bray Brothers” distributed films from both the Fleischers and Disney (likely meant M.J. Winkler, who did distribute short films by both)
– Claiming Bosko was a Disney character
– Claiming Betty Boop was created in 1925
– Claiming the Fleischers were the first to utilize three-strip Technicolor (that’s just not true)
– Attributing Famous Studios Popeye cartoons to Fleischer Studios, specifically the 1950s ones produced long after the Paramount takeover
– Stating rotoscoping was introduced in “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor”, which is mistakenly labeled as “Big Bad Sindbad”, and mixing it up with the multiplane process.
– Not crediting the folks who arguably created or defined the popular characters the Fleischer Studios adapted into animation. For example, in the Betty Boop episode, there’s no mention of designer and animatior Grim Natwick, nor Betty’s inspiration Helen Kane. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are completely absent from the Superman episode, and the same goes for E.C. Segar in the Popeye episode Steve mentioned in his article.
– Stating Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” was 54 minutes long
While I am sad to hear that the “special discs” are being phased out, you’ve been putting these out for about 20 years by now, so I’d say a “special disc swan song” is well-earned! (I still have some very early GAC-era discs myself.) I’ll be eagerly looking forward to any film preservation adventures you have to offer!
Only the best from Thomas R. Reich! The Cartoon Research Facebook’s FAVORITE user!
(this is all sarcasm if you couldn’t tell)
Regarding the Superman episode, I was wrong when I said Siegel and Shuster weren’t mentioned. They are…about 1/3rds of the way through a 24-minute episode, and not at the start as would be expected.
If I remember correctly in regard to Rob’s detective work, I believe I heard that Morton Stevens track before Hawaii Five-0. There was a pilot that CBS commissioned in 1965-66 that was called “Call To Danger” and it had Peter Graves and Daniel Travanti (Then known as Dan Travanty) which preceded Mission: Impossible. I remember the entire clip Rob played which involved a scene when Travanti was required to crack open a safe while a mobster’s face was covered by a hot towel and he barely got the safe closed in time before the mobster took the hot towel off.