13 sitesThe Popeye the Sailor franchise spans over 90 years of entertainment, originating from Elzie Crisler Segar's 1929 comic strip before evolving into iconic theatrical shorts, television series, and merchandise.Quick Franchise Overview
The Eras: The animated legacy is split into three main eras: the classic Fleischer Studios theatrical shorts (1933–1942), the Famous Studios run (1942–1957), and the television revivals by King Features and Hanna-Barbera (1960s–1980s).
The Core Cast: The stories revolve around the spinach-loving sailor Popeye, his fluidly-coiffed girlfriend Olive Oyl, his brutish rival Bluto (or Brutus), and the hamburger-obsessed Wimpy.
The Music: The franchise is immortalised by the iconic theme song "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man", originally composed by Sammy Lerner for the 1933 Fleischer cartoon.
Popeye Media & MerchandiseIf you want to collect the classic cartoons or own a piece of the sailor man's history, check out these options:
Popeye the Sailor: The 1930s (Vols 1-3): These definitive, uncut DVD/Blu-ray collections are available via Amazon and feature fully remastered black-and-white theatrical masterpieces from the Fleischer era.
Popeye Classic Apparel: Retro t-shirts, caps, and socks featuring vintage comic line art can be found at retailers like Target and specialty pop-culture apparel sites.
Mezco Toyz One:12 Collective Popeye: Highly detailed premium action figures featuring fabric outfits and interchangeable heads, popular on collector platforms like eBay.
1979 POPEYE SERIES (This DVD)
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 on 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.
PRODUCTION
The 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. 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 featured in his white United States Navy uniform. 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. 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".
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. 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.
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. 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.
EPISODES
1) The Spinach Bowl
2) Pedal-Powered-Popeye
3) Olive's Shinning Hour
4) The Loneliness of the long
Distance Popeye
5) Popeye's Self Defense
6) The Umpire Strikes Back
7) The decathlon Dilemma
8) Take me out to the Brawl Game
9) Olive Goes to Dallas
10) The Great Speckled Whale
VOICE CAST
In 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 was asked by Hanna-Barbera to recreate Olive Oyl, but she declined due to scheduling conflicts).[6] It would ultimately serve as Mercer's final work (apart from a brief voice cameo in the 1980 live-action film).
Main
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
Roger Behr
Ted Cassidy
Richard Erdman
Joan Gerber
Ross Martin
Virginia McSwain
Pat Parris
Barney Phillips
Jane Roberts
William Schallert
Jean Vander Pyl
Janet Waldo
Lennie Weinrib
HOME MEDIA
The 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. As of 2026, the series has yet to have a complete series DVD box set.
The show was removed from the CBS lineup in September 1983, and the cartoons were immediately sold to local stations in nationwide syndication as The All New Popeye Show. 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").