Popeye the 3-D Man

“Extra!” shouted the theatre ads. “Two reels!” “Technicolor!”

Those were some of the words used to entice people to come in and see Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor. It was “officially” released on Friday, November 27, 1936, but it was screened by theatres before then; the Paramount in New York first showed it on the 18th with Mae West in Go West Young Man.

Being a two-reel cartoon was historic; employing full Technicolor (which only Walt Disney could legally do until mid-1936) enhanced its appearance tremendously. But one other thing audiences noticed couldn’t be described very well in a newspaper ad. It was the Fleischers’ wonderful 3-D effect, with backgrounds really looking like they were in the distance. Cartoon lovers noticed it 30 years later on black-and-white TV screens. As a kid, I marvelled at it. It was a major achievement for the Fleischers who, unfortunately, didn’t have the PR machine of Mr. W.E. Disney which left the world with the impression that Uncle Walt was cartoondom’s creative genius.

The background effect must have aroused the curiosity of movie goers at the time, as a newspaper article was syndicated describing how it was done. This appeared in the Mexia Weekly Herald of December 18, 1936. It didn’t publish an accompanying drawing but another paper did.

Popeye Slams Foes Thru Fleischers Complex Invention
Gives Illusion of Depth
(Advance Feature)
For the first time, Popeye the Sailor swaggers and fights his way through a three-dimensional world of color in the two-reel animated cartoon, "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor " coming Friday to the screen of the National Theatre.
The film, longest cartoon picture yet released by any company, was made for Paramount by Max Fleischer, pioneer film cartoonist who is himself the inventor of the complex technique through which Popeye's screen world is given the illusion of depth.
To bring Fleischer's method to realization, a mass of technical problems were solved. Special lenses and special machinery were developed and involved formula to figure angles of perspective were drawn up. Yet the idea itself seems simple.
Uses Miniature Sets

Two-dimensional animated cartoons have been made, in the past, by photographing the animated characters, drawn on sheets of celluloid, against backgrounds drawn on white paper. The news system substitutes, a mimature "set" for the flat background.
It's as easy as that, in principle. But the technical problems solved to make it possible were not so simple. An examination of the machinery used indicates a few of them.
Sinbad's Island, in the new Popeye, was constructed in pie-slice sections on a huge turn-table, 12 feet in diameter, which is mounted in front of the movie camera.
Between camera and turn-table is a specially designed frame, into which transparent "cels" bearing the individual colored drawings of the characters are slipped, one at a time.
Camera Combines
Picture by picture, the camera snaps a scene which combines the figure and the background. As Popeye walks, the set behind the frame is rotated, so that scenery moves past him. At other times "props" are placed in front of the frame, so that Popeye disappears momentarily behind trees, or boulders in the Sindbad cave.
The turntable is the real secret of the “depth” feeling; always in motion, it duplicates a phenomenon of vision in nature that has been observed by every autoist driving in the open country. To the motorist, nearby things pass swiftly, while distant objects move by his machine at a slower pace. If he looks at the horizon, objects in the foreground seem to be rotating about a point just beyond the horizon-line.
Gives Same Illusion
Fleischer's turntable duplicates that imaginary wheel. Things on its rim. nearest the camera, move rapidly by. Things nearer the center pass slowly.
Fleischer developed a camera lens constructed for a "six foot infinity,” since the axis of his turntable represented a horizon vanishing point. He found formula to regulate the comparative sizes of objects on the turntable, and the askew lines of larger background objects. On the turntable, they seem grotesquely misshapes. On film, they assume squareness.
A problem of major proportions grew up around the placing of the animated figures on the celluloid sheets. They had to be arranged so that they seemed to walk on the "ground" of the set behind, and so that they increased and diminished in proper proportion of foreground.
Other Improvements
Additional refinements included putting the turntable on a geared shaft so that it can be raised or lowered at will; the camera can seem to rise into the third-dimension sky or sink to the level of the foreground.
Fleischer chose "Popeye" to make his first two-reel, full-color, three-dimension film because the spinach-eating sailor is the most popular of his cartoon characters. His newspaper friends gained by King Features Syndicate are counted in the millions; his film friends, growing daily, run into figures just as impressive.

Fleischer fans know the turntable scenics were employed in some of the black-and-white one-reelers as well, though not for great periods of screen time (unlike today’s CGI effects which continually bombard and overwhelm movie viewers). Of course, when Fleischer made its second two-reeler a year later starring Popeye and Abu Hassan, the special scenic effects appeared, arguably looking better than in the first film.

Sammy Timberg, Bob Rothberg and Sammy Lerner provided special music for Sindbad, with the animation credits going to Willard Bowsky, George Germanetti and Ed Nolan. Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and bass singer Gus Wicke supplied uncredited voices. The cartoon is still enjoyable after more than eight decades, thanks to the melding of special talents and special effects.