Drawing The Sailor

Our buddy Oscar Grillo (above) writes about his latest exhibit of drawings and paintings inspired by a certain spinach eating sailor-man. Drawing The Sailor was part of Animacor ‘07, an international animation festival in Cordoba, Spain held last week. Grillo has posted a photo report on his blog.

Click on this image at right to see a full-size newspaper ad from March 16th 1934 (a Friday), promoting the the first-run release of George White’s Scandals. This Fox film shared the bill with the latest Paramount Popeye cartoon, The Man On the Flying Trapeze, which was released the same day. This rare original newspaper ad demonstrates that block booking was not always in practice during the golden age – that a cartoon from one studio could (and often did) play with a feature from another studio.

While we’re at it, here’s one more plug for Bob Jaques’ excellent new blog which studies the great Popeye animators from the Fleischer era. He’s updating it regularly and posting a lot of good information – go here often: Popeye Animator ID.