Thursday 14 December 2017

Stars of Christmas

Stars swirl around a fir tree and pop to form Christmas decorations at the end of the Popeye outing Seasin’s Greetinks! (1933). The stars are formed after Popeye punches Bluto twice, the first time uncasing him from the snow that’s turned him into a snowman.



Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall are the credited animators. Mae Questel isn’t playing Olive.

5 comments:

  1. Fleischer's first holiday themed Popeye short.

    Sounds like Bonnie Poe is doing Olive.(she plays her again in a few more outings after this, it seems..)

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  2. Nice, but hard to top Bluto's stars forming the Paramount mountain logo in Alpine for You.

    "Seasin's Beatinks!" seems a more appropriate title.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, jeez, wasn't that cut on the AAP prints? My aging memory remembers a Popeye cartoon where stars were formed and then it was cut.

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    2. That was the one, Yowp.

      Kneitel earlier in "Seasin’s Greetinks!" does a background iris scene change, where Olive's problems on her skates go from the porch of her house to the frozen lake as the characters remain in place on screen. He'd do the same thing a decade later in "The Marry-Go-Round". UPA would later draw praise from the critics for the background-changes-while the animation-stays-in-place scene transition, but it was done as early as this short (and it wouldn't be a shock if someone had done it prior to Kneitel, once the cell-and-background style of animation was invented).

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