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Popeye: The Lost Episode |
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Last updated
10-24-08. |
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Popeye: The Lost Episode The
summer 1992 issue of the Official Popeye Fanclub
News-Magazine has an article about a Famous Studios cartoon that was never produced,
but that exists in the form of storyboards. (I have seen some of these
storyboards for sale on the NET, mistakenly labeled as being from I'LL BE
SKIING YOU, probably because Popeye and Olive ski during part of this lost toon.) The article
describes all the jokes and scenes and plot devices and much of the dialogue
that would have been used had this been made into a full cartoon. The story
begins with Popeye, Olive, and the nephews coming to Bluto's tourist
attraction, a cavern. The nephews
want to know how the cavern was formed and Popeye tells them. Through a
flashback we learn that as Popeye and Olive once were on a skiing trip, The
Devil (Bluto) appeared and took Olive
as his bride down into Hades. Popeye followed. He encounters an out-of-control
burning elevator, a lava pit, little devils, an electric chair, and a Tabasco
popsicle before finally losing a fight with The Back in the
present, the nephews don't believe the story and give Popeye a hotfoot to
prove he would have been burned. Then the nephews transform, through Popeye's
eyes, into little devils. The character
designs have Popeye in his blue uniform and Olive is Fleischeresque. Bluto,
though, as himself and The Devil, is muscular, not flabby. The cartoon was
probably scheduled somewhere between the war toons and MESS PRODUCTION. It
has the wild, anything for a laugh, everything in constant motion, incidental
characters popping in and out, and the Popeye muttering characteristics of
the war cartoons ("Somebody must be talking about me. My ears are
burning," he says at one point as the elevator car catches fire around
him.) And it also has
some of the romance FS became known for - Olive is chosen because she's
"The Prettiest of Ladies"; Olive lingers at the ticket gate
because Bluto is flirting with her; The Devil's kiss turns her into melted
butter and then she pulls herself together and grabs him and gives him an
equally passionate kiss that makes him burst into flame; the two sit down to
a romantic dinner together (but The Devil's choice of fare - logs, coal, and
gasoline, and of dinner entertainment - a humanoid flame doing a striptease
are too much for Olive); the wolfish villain pulls Olive close as she tries
to escape and then chases her around his place (as he transforms into a blast
furnace and a locomotive). As Tom Bertino, the author of the article, points out,
censorship probably pulled the plug on this one. "The whole concept, and
some of the specific dialogue and imagery would have been quite out-of-bounds
in those days. It's a shame: it would have been a great cartoon!!"
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BOOKMARK
ME!!! |
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My
home page with links to my Buffy, Popeye, TV/Movies, Beliefs, and
other pages. |
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Return
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All
the aspects of Bluto I could think of are discussed on various Bluto
pages. Go here for a complete listing. |
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As
the title says, lots about Olive Oyl. You can choose from a number of
titles to link to many other of my pages about this lovely lady. |
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My
Popeye Page. Lots of links to my pages about the King Of Spinach. |
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Discuss
the Famous Studios and KFS cartoons featuring Olive Oyl with other fans . |
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Steve R. Bierly. |