The All New Popeye Hour is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and King Features Entertainment. Starring the comic strip character Popeye, the series aired from 1978 to 1983 Saturday mornings on CBS. Despite the series' mixed reception (mostly being criticized about its cheap animation, writing and PSAs), it was a hit for King Features Entertainment.
| The All New Popeye Hour | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre |
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| Based on | Popeye by E. C. Segar |
| Directed by |
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| Voices of | |
| Theme music composer | Sammy Lerner (arranged by Hoyt Curtin) |
| Opening theme | "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" |
| Composer | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 56 (164 segments) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | |
| Producers |
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| Editors |
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| Production companies | |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 9, 1978 – September 5, 1983 |
| Related | |
| Popeye and Son (1987) | |
Production
editThe show was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, which tried to retain the style of the original Thimble Theatre comic strip while complying with the prevailing content restrictions on violence.[1] Featured characters, aside from the popular main stars of Popeye, Bluto, Olive Oyl and Wimpy, were Swee'Pea, Poopdeck Pappy, Eugene the Jeep and Popeye's quadruplet nephews. Popeye's outfit reverted to his original blue sailor's uniform, except for his white hat, which retained the "Dixie cup" style. Bluto's name was restored, as it had been changed to "Brutus" for the early 1960s Popeye cartoons because of an incorrect understanding by King Features over who owned the rights to the character.[2] Olive Oyl also reverted to her 1930s look.
At the start, The All New Popeye Hour had three segments: "Popeye", "Popeye's Treasure Hunt" and "Dinky Dog", a non-Popeye segment about the misadventures of an enormous sheepdog that was later spun off into its own show. In 1979, the show added "The Popeye Sports Parade".[3]
Because of restrictions on violence on television cartoons for children at the time, Popeye did not throw punches in retaliation to Bluto; he often lifted him, with his own hands or with machinery, and hurled him away.[4] The series marked the last time Jack Mercer would voice Popeye; he died on December 4, 1984, fifteen months after the show's cancellation. Unlike most other cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, The All New Popeye Hour did not contain a laugh track.
Each episode also contains a PSA interstitial called a Safety Tip or a Health Tip about things that include but are not limited to washing hands before dinner, brushing teeth, nutrition, crossing the street the right way, protection against sunburn, and spray paint safety. Some Safety Tips feature an anthropomorphic wolf named Mr. No-No who would engage in dangerous or destructive activities like consuming toxic substances, drinking alcohol, smoking, and recreational drug use. He would tend to get Pipeye, Peepeye, Poopeye, and Pupeye to do the same until he is either stopped in some way or turned away by Popeye.
During the time the series was in production, CBS aired the half-hour special The Popeye Valentine Special: Sweethearts at Sea on February 14, 1979.[5]
The All New Popeye Hour ran on CBS until September 1981, when it was shortened to a half-hour show and retitled The Popeye and Olive Comedy Show. The show added two new segments. The first segment was "Prehistoric Popeye", which is similar to The Flintstones.[3] The second segment was "Private Olive Oyl", where Olive and Alice the Goon join the Army, then proceed to drive their drill instructor, Sgt. Bertha Blast (voiced by Jo Anne Worley) nuts, yet impress the base commander, Col. Crumb (voiced by Hal Smith). This cartoon is based on the idea of Private Benjamin; Hanna-Barbera was also concurrently producing a virtually identical concept with sitcom characters Laverne and Shirley called Laverne and Shirley in the Army for rival network ABC at the time.[6]
The show was removed from the CBS lineup in September 1983, and the cartoons were immediately sold to local stations in nationwide syndication. They have also been released on VHS and DVD. The syndicated version can currently[when?] be seen on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi (as "Popeye: The Continuing Adventures") and on YouTube (as "All-New Popeye").
Voice cast
editIn addition to providing many of the cartoon scripts, Jack Mercer reprised his voice as Popeye, while Marilyn Schreffler and Allan Melvin became the new voices of Olive Oyl and Bluto, respectively (Mae Questel auditioned for Hanna-Barbera to recreate Olive Oyl, but was rejected in favor of Schreffler).
Main
edit- Jack Mercer as Popeye, Poopdeck Pappy, Pipeye, Peepeye
- Allan Melvin as Bluto
- Marilyn Schreffler as Olive Oyl, The Sea Hag, Swee'Pea, Alice the Goon, Poopeye, Pupeye
- Julie Bennett as Monica
- Daws Butler as Wimpy
- Jackie Joseph as Sandy
- Don Messick as Eugene the Jeep
- Frank Nelson as Uncle Dudley
- Hal Smith as Col. Crumb
- John Stephenson as Mr. No No
- Frank Welker as Dinky
- Jo Anne Worley as Sgt. Bertha Blast
Additional
editEpisodes
editSeasons 1–3 (1978–1980): The All New Popeye Hour
editSeason 1 (1978)
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "A Bad Knight for Popeye/Ballet-Hooey/The Big Wheel" | Unknown | September 9, 1978 |
| 2 | 2 | "Bluto's Bike Bullies/Boola Boola Hula[a]/Bully Dozer" | TBD | |
| 3 | 3 | "A Camping We Will Go/Captain Meno's Sunken Treasure[a]/Chips Off the Old Ice Block" | TBD | |
| 4 | 4 | "Close Encounters of the Third Spinach/Coldfinger[a]/The Crunch for Lunch Bunch" | TBD | |
| 5 | 5 | "A Day at Muscle Beach/A Day at the Rodeo/The Decathlon Dilemma[b]" | TBD | |
| 6 | 6 | "The Delmonica Diamond[a]/Free Hauling Brawl/Getting Popeye's Goat" | TBD | |
| 7 | 7 | "Heir-Brained Popeye/Here Stew You/A Horse of a Flying Color[a]" | TBD | |
| 8 | 8 | "I Left My Spinach in San Francisco/I Wants Me Mummy[a]/The Loneliness of the Long Distance Popeye[a]" | TBD | |
| 9 | 9 | "The Mask of Gorgonzola[a]/Mother Goose Is on the Loose/Olive's Shining Hour" | TBD | |
| 10 | 10 | "Play It Again, Popeye[a]/Polly Wants Some Spinach/Popeye's Engine Company" | TBD | |
| 11 | 11 | "Popeye's Finest Hour/Popeye's Roots/Popeye and Bigfoot" | TBD | |
| 12 | 12 | "Popeye and the Beanstalk/Popeye and the Pest/Popeye and the Pirates" | TBD | |
| 13 | 13 | "Popeye at the Center of the Earth/Popeye of the Klondike/Popeye the Carpenter"[a] | TBD | |
| 14 | 14 | "Popeye the Carpenter/Popeye the Plumber/Popeye the Robot" | TBD | |
| 15 | 15 | "Popeye the Sleepwalker/Popeye Goes Hollywood/Popeye Goes Sailing" | TBD | |
| 16 | 16 | "Popeye Goes Sightseeing/Popeye Meets the Blutostein Monster/Popeye Out West" | TBD | |
| 17 | 17 | "Popeye Snags the Seahag/Popeye Versus Machine/A Seal with Appeal" | TBD | |
| 18 | 18 | "Shark Treatment/Ship Ahoy/Ship Ahoy" | TBD | |
| 19 | 19 | "The Ski's the Limit/The Spinach Bowl/Spinach Fever" | TBD | |
| 20 | 20 | "Spring Daze in Paris[a]/Steeple Chase at Ups and DownsThe Sword of Fitzwilly[a]/Take Me Out to the Brawl Game" | TBD | |
| 21 | 21 | "The Terrifyink Transylvanian Treasure Trek[a]/The Three Ring Ding-a-Ling[a]/The Three Ring Ding-a-Ling[a]" | TBD | |
| 22 | 22 | "The Treasure of Howe's Bayou[a]/The Treasure of Werner Schnitzel[a]/A Trio in Rio[a]" | TBD | |
| 23 | 23 | "A Whale of a Tale/Whotsa Matterhorn?/Wilder Than Usual Blue Yonder" | TBD | |
| 24 | 24 | "Yukon County Mountie" | TBD |
Season 2 (1979)
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 1 | "Bad Day at the Bakery/Boo Who/Building Blockheads" | TBD | |
| 26 | 2 | "En Un Lugar De La Mancha/Fantastic Gymnastics[c]/The Game" | TBD | |
| 27 | 3 | "The Great Decathlon Championship[c]/King of the Rodeo[c]/Love on the Rocks" | TBD | |
| 28 | 4 | "Old McPopeye Had a Farm/Olive's Bugged House Blues/On Mule-itary Detail" | TBD | |
| 29 | 5 | "Paddle Wheel Popeye/Pedal-Powered-Popeye/Plunder Down Under[a]" | TBD | |
| 30 | 6 | "Popeye's Aqua Circus/Popeye's High School Daze/Popeye's Poodle Problem" | TBD | |
| 31 | 7 | "Popeye in Wonderland[a]/Popeye the Painter/Queen of the Load" | TBD | |
| 32 | 8 | "The Reel Hollywood Treasure Hunt[a]/Roller Rink-a-Dink/Sky High Fly Try[c]" | TBD | |
| 33 | 9 | "Swee'Pea Plagues a Parade/Take It or Lump It/Tough Sledding" | TBD | |
| 34 | 10 | "Water Ya Doin'?[c]/Westward Ho! Ho!" | TBD |
Season 3 (1980)
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 1 | "Abject Flying Object/Alpine for You/Around the World in 80 Hours[a]" | TBD | |
| 36 | 2 | "Bad Company/Beyond the Spinach Brick Road[a]/Cliff Hanger[a]" | TBD | |
| 37 | 3 | "Dublin or Nothin'[a]/Forum or Against 'Em[a]/A Goon Gone Gooney" | TBD | |
| 38 | 4 | "The Great Speckled Whale/Hail, Hail, the Ganges All Here[a]/In a Little Spinach Town[a]" | TBD | |
| 39 | 5 | "I Wouldn't Take That Mare to the Fair on a Dare/Merry Madness at the Mardi Gras/No Fuel Like an Old Fuel[c]" | TBD | |
| 40 | 6 | "Olive Goes Dallas/Pappy Fails in Love/Peask and Quiet" | TBD | |
| 41 | 7 | "Popeye's Perilous Pursuit of a Pearl/Popeye's Self Defense/Popeye of Sherwood Forest" | TBD | |
| 42 | 8 | "Popeye of the Jungle/Popeye the Lone Legionnaire/Popeye Stumps Bluto" | TBD | |
| 43 | 9 | "Popierre the Musketeer/Ships That Pass in the Fright/Spa-ing Partners" | TBD | |
| 44 | 10 | "Top Kick in Boot Camp/Tour Each His Own/The Umpire Strikes Back" | TBD | |
| 45 | 11 | "Unidentified Fighting Object/W.O.I.L." | TBD |
Season 4 (1981–1983): The Popeye and Olive Comedy Show
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 | 1 | "Reptile Ranch[d] / Mission Improbable[e] / So Who's Watching the Bird Watchers[d]" | "Reptile Ranch:" Glenn Leopold "Mission Improbable:" Cliff Roberts "So Who's Watching the Bird Watchers:" Tom Yakutis | |
| 47 | 2 | "Computer Chaos[e] / Chilly Con Caveman[d] / Here Today - Goon Tomorrow[e]" | "Computer Chaos:" Glenn Leopold "Chilly Con Caveman:" Glenn Leopold and Cliff Roberts "Here Today - Goon Tomorrow:" Glenn Leopold | |
| 48 | 3 | "Come Back, Little Stegosaurus[d] / Troop Therapy[e] / Olive's Devastating Decorators[b]" | "Come Back, Little Stegosaurus:" Cliff Roberts "Troop Therapy:" Glenn Leopold "Olive's Devastating Decorators:" Tom Dagenais | |
| 49 | 4 | "Goon Native[e] / Cheap Skate Date / Alice in Blunderland[e]" | "Goon Native:" Glenn Leopold "Cheap Skate Date:" Doug Booth "Alice in Blunderland:" Cliff Roberts | |
| 50 | 5 | "Neanderthal Nuisance[d] / Wreck Room[e] / The Incredible Shrinking Popeye" | "Neanderthal Nuisance:" Glenn Leopold "Wreck Room:" Frances Novier, Cliff Roberts, and Glenn Leopold "The Incredible Shrinking Popeye:" Glenn Leopold | |
| 51 | 6 | "Private Secretaries[e] / The First Resort[d] / Goon Balloon[e]" | "Private Secretaries:" Cliff Roberts "The First Resort:" Cliff Roberts and Glenn Leopold "Goon Balloon:" Glenn Leopold | |
| 52 | 7 | "Vegetable Stew[d] / Tanks a Lot[e] / Winner Window Washer" | "Vegetable Stew:" Coslough Johnson, Glenn Leopold, and Cliff Roberts "Tanks a Lot:" Glenn Leopold "Winner Window Washer:" Bryce Malek | |
| 53 | 8 | "Rocky Rolls[e] / Hogwash at the Car Wash / Snow Fooling[e]" | "Rocky Rolls:" Cliff Roberts "Hogwash at the Car Wash:" Gary Greenfield "Snow Fooling:" Cliff Roberts and Glenn Leopold | |
| 54 | 9 | "Bronto Beach[d] / Infink-try[e] / The Midnight Ride of Popeye Revere" | "Bronto Beach:" Cliff Roberts "Infink-try" & "The Midnight Ride of Popeye Revere" Glenn Leopold | |
| 55 | 10 | "Goon Hollywood[e] / Popeye Stumps Bluto[f] / Basic Train-ing[e]" | "Goon Hollywood:" Glenn Leopold and Cliff Roberts "Popeye Stumps Bluto:" TBA "Basic Train-ing:" Glenn Leopold and Cliff Roberts | |
| 56 | 11 | "Up a Lizard River[d] / Jeep Thrills[e] / Olive's Moving Experience" | "Up a Lizard River" & "Jeep Thrills" Glenn Leopold "Olive's Moving Experience:" Bryce Malek |
Special
edit| Title | Directed by | Written by | Storyboarded by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "The Popeye Valentine Special: Sweethearts at Sea" | Oscar Dufau | Tom Dagenais and Jack Hanrahan | George Singer and Paul Sommer | February 14, 1979 |
Home media
editThe first DVD that features The All New Popeye Hour was released on May 16, 2000, by Rhino Home Video with eighteen segments from the series. A few years later, Warner Home Video released Popeye & Friends - Volume One, a single DVD featuring eight unedited episodes.[7] As of 2024, the series has yet to have a complete series DVD box set.
Notes
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab Episodes that are part of Popeye's Treasure Hunt.
- ^ a b In their TV title cards, these episodes are titled or credited with some orthographic errors, which are "The Decathlon Dilemna" and "Olive's Devastatingk Decorators"
- ^ a b c d e f Episodes that are part of The Popeye Sports Parade.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Episodes that are part of Prehistoric Popeye.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Episodes that are part of Private Olive Oyl.
- ^ Rerun of an episode from the Season 3.
References
edit- ^ "When Popeye was Popular Without His Punch!". Skwigly. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
- ^ "Popeye and Friends, Vol. 1". DVD Talk. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
- ^ a b Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. p. 637. ISBN 978-1476665993.
- ^ "Popeye's Less Violent Return to Television! - Popeye-Expert Fred Grandinetti Talks The All New Popeye Hour". Searchmytrash.com. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
- ^ Woolery, George W. (1989). Animated TV Specials: The Complete Directory to the First Twenty-Five Years, 1962-1987. Scarecrow Press. pp. 311–313. ISBN 0-8108-2198-2. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ^ Perlmutter, David (28 March 2014). America Toons In: A History of Television Animation. McFarland. ISBN 9781476614885. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
- ^ "Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation » Popeye and Friends". 12 March 2008. Archived from the original on 12 March 2008. Retrieved 20 August 2017.