Review of Seventy Years Of Popeye

Introduction

PopEye the sailor man. Those mere words were enough to send shivers down my spine & turn my stomach inside-out when I was just a snotty rug-rat. Not much as as a whole has changed since then, with my hatred for all things PopEye still burning with a passion. Yes people, not only do I despise most retro-short-stint-cartoons, but I loathe PopEye & his whole lame spinach-oriented gimmick. Oh & I won`t begin to mention the horrible mental & emotional scars the movie left me with, urgh! So I guess it could only be up-hill from here, right?

With all that said, who am I to trash one of the longest-running & most popular cartoon flicks ever. I mean I think back & reminisce of some the greatest cartoons to grace our screens, I mean genuine FUN & COOL stuff like Wacky Racers, stuff that you`d think kids would enjoy. But nothing lasted anywhere near as long as the seven decades PopEye spawned. And that`s what this DVD is in aid of, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of the all-time greats in animation.

Video

Not good I`m afraid, this is more full-frame garbage. Unlike most recent animated DVDs out there, PopEye appears blurry throughout, which is one flaw of monumental proportions when dealing with a release like this. The colors have so many apparent problems & are just totally washed out, and at times the contrast is vastly un-stable & shows signs of pixilation. It`s border-line un-watchable at times. Clearly allot of room for improvement.

Audio

This is seriously getting drastic, the sound on the disc is a terrible follow-through on the image quality, and rounds off the terrible presentation of the product. What we have here can only be described as a feeble attempt at restoration. Everything has been changed for the worse, with new additional sounds implemented only to result in an all-round tedious effect. I, like most I`m sure, would have preferred the original track, as the re-mastering here is futile.

Features

Pretty poor for a celebrated release, as the majority of the extras are all text-based, with the exception of "The Complete History Of PopEye", which is very brief & un-interesting. There`s a synopsis of each episode supplied, as well as production notes and cartoon-histories. For god sake just stick them in a pamphlet.

Conclusion

Although equipped with a good selection of episodes, this disc leaves allot to be desired. The picture & sound presentation is just awful, the extras are futile & un-imaginative, all resulting in a second-rate release. Definitely not a definitive release, and I wouldn`t even say it`d tide PopEye fans through until there is one. To quote the man himself, I can`t stands this, I can`t stands no more.