Most - though not all - cartoon characters in the early years of animation were adaptations of popular comic strip stars. This isn’t surprising seeing as these characters would of already had an audience, were generally easy to port over to animation, it also must of helped that the comic industry had an interest in the upcoming animation one. By 1933, sound syncing had become a part of animation and Fleischer had pretty of success putting jazz numbers into their Betty Boop cartoons, although where dialogue was concerned, the Fleischer’s tended to post synced most, if not all, of their shorts. Also in 1933 Fleischer brought a license from King Syndicates Inc. for the character Popeye. The deal would change Popeye in many ways, none more so than bringing Bluto into the status of regular character from the one-shot story in happened to be appearing in at the time. It also would mark Spinach as the source of Popeye superhuman strength, although Segal did invent that as a source of power. In many ways this was Fleischer’s Popeye, rather than Segal’s.

A part of the deal was to allow Fleischer to make a test cartoon within their Betty Boop series: this short is the result. However Betty Boop plays a tiny, tiny role, this is really a popeye short through and through. Yet it also shows the hallmarks of being an introduction cartoon, being neither a shiny example of his career or a really great cartoon; but then how many characters first appearances have been their best? Or is that just me, I hope not because I do have some belief that as a character goes through several cartoons, the studio has a chance to refine a character, whether that’ll be Popeye, Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse, many of their better cartoons come at least a few years into their careers. Of course you can also say that too much refining can also be almost as counterproductive as none at all.

Popeye’s best cartoons are from the Fleischer era, but they arguably reach their zenith when story writer/gag man Jack Mercer took over the role of Popeye. William Costello did mumble over the action of many shorts (thanks to Fleischer’s post-syncing), but he wasn't as manic as Jack was, or as good. However I'll get to those as I come to them, as he really doesn't do much of that on this one.

Popeye the Sailor does, however, does bear the marks of a ‘new’ characters first appearance, more concerned with introducing the characters than an inventive story. In the next few years Popeye would become an icon of animated film, but this theatrical debut is about on par with so many others, well animated yes, but you would be better of seeking out the Fleischer’s later Popeye shorts.

This was after all, merely viewed as a test cartoon.

I always wonder when Popeye started his animated career,until I've watched this cartoon online, I found out that this short was intended as a test cartoon to see if Popeye could work as a animated character (he is a character from a comic strip by a guy named E.C. Segar). It's like a combination of my two favorite Fleischer characters coming together - Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor; though Betty's appearance is more of a cameo then an full-time character in the short.

The one thing that bother me about is cartoon, is Olive's voice, I didn't really like it; I really prefer Mae Questel's take on Olive; but since she was doing Betty's voice around this time, so I had bear with what they got. My favorite scene is when Betty & Popeye do the hula on stage.