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\nWith last Saturday being the 108th birthday of the Sailor Man\u2019s most well-known voice, here\u2019s a celebratory look at an LP featuring his voice on almost every groove.<\/p>\n\n
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POPEYE\u2019S FAVORITE STORIES<\/strong> Released in 1960.<\/strong> Producer: Arthur Pine. Writer: Richard Kleiner. Music: Bill Simon. Running Time: 42 minutes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Voices:<\/strong> Jack Mercer (Popeye, Brutus, Wimpy, Waiter, Indian). Mae Questel (Olive Oyl, Swee\u2019 Pea). Hearing the actual speaking voices of some of our favorites cartoon voice actors can be as startling as seeing what they look like. You almost expect to hear a crowd coming out of their mouths, but they are mere mortals with astonishing talents. Some have voices that favor the timbre of certain characters a tad here and there, some sound more like their famous voices then others.<\/p>\n But having the \u201creal Jack\u201d on this disc is a cool factor to historians and fans. Any album with Mercer and Questel is a treasure. If there were any real criticism to make, it would be to have just a little more Mae, perhaps at the center of a Popeye-Brutus rivalry story.<\/p>\n It\u2019s \u201cBrutus,\u201d not \u201cBluto.\u201d That\u2019s part of the 220-cartoon TV blitz of 1960, when King Features hired several animation companies to produce five-minute limited animation shorts specifically for the small screen. To some of us–for better or worse–these were the ones we grew up on\u2014the ones where the pen writes \u201cthe end.\u201d<\/p>\n Sloppy research made King Features believe that \u201cBluto\u2019s\u201d name or likeness was owned by Paramount, so they made the character obese and changed his name to \u201cBrutus.\u201d The error was discovered and he reverted back to his rightful identity in the 1978 Hanna-Barbera TV version.<\/p>\n Jack Mercer<\/p><\/div>\n The album is written by Richard Kleiner, who could also be the author of the long-running \u201cAsk Dick Kleiner\u201d show business column (probably also syndicated by King Features). The liner notes, if he wrote them, have the jaunty tone of a breezy showbiz column. Yet the notes reveal nothing about what qualifies Popeye writer Kleiner to write Popeye stories other than having three kids who love to watch Popeye on TV. (The columnist Dick Kleiner also had three children.)<\/p>\n Whoever wrote the liner notes didn\u2019t do very good research, if any. Mercer and Questel were not the first Popeye and Olive voices, as it states. The stories are original, as claimed\u2014or at least, as original as Popeye stories can be. But how many premises can you do that haven\u2019t been done? But while they are amusing and true to Popeye\u2019s basic style (the Wimpy tale is especially fun: \u201cA hamburger! My favorite fruit!\u201d), they don\u2019t delve very deeply into Popeye lore, even as much as the TV cartoons did.<\/p>\n Peter Pan produced an album at the same time as this one on their Diplomat<\/a> and Rocking Horse labels<\/a> that used six actual cartoon stories from the King Features series. It\u2019s interesting how there was an overlap\u2014each LP even has a scuba diving story. But that album is performed by Harry F. Welch, who also plays Olive and Swee\u2019 Pea.<\/p>\n The RCA album has Jack Mercer and Mae Questel. So there you go.<\/p>\n GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPopeye\u2019s Favorite Stories\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \n It\u2019s such a marvel to hear these two legends make their vocal magic for 42 glorious minutes.<\/p>\n \n
\nRCA Camden Records CAL-1046 (12\u201d 33 1\/3 RPM LP \/ Mono) CAS-1046 (Rechanneled Stereo)<\/p>\n
\nSong:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m Popeye The Sailor Man\u201d by Sammy Lerner.
\nStories:<\/strong> \u201cBaby Sitter Popeye,\u201d \u201cPopeye, The Cowboy,\u201d \u201cPopeye and the Man from Space,\u201d \u201cPopeye, the Skin Diver,\u201d \u201cPopeye Goes to the Jungle,\u201d \u201cPopeye Flies a Rocket.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/PopeyeCamdenBack-600.jpg\")
<\/a>In the case of Jack Mercer, being the longtime voice of Popeye sets a fan up to expect something a little more boisterous than the quiet, pleasant fellow you hear on this record. True, he is being directed here as a children\u2019s narrator, thus delivering the words in an ever-so-slightly over-pronounced way. Also, he rarely served as narrator, despite the fact that by this time he had already played hundreds of characters in hundreds of films!<\/p>\n<\/a>\n