I remember watching the black and white Popeyes as a kid in Kansas City in the 1970s. One element that was common to a great deal of them, particularly during the war years, was a blatant racism that I'm sure would be quite shocking to modern audiences. Japanese soldiers with huge buck teeth and thick glasses, for example.

It would be interesting to know if these cartoons were included in the DVD collection or whether they have, like some early Disney and other animations, shoved this element of Popeye down the Memory Hole. However uncomfortable the representations make us today, it would be a shame if they are not reflected in the set reviewed.

I don't know about the Popeye cartoons, but Disney has slowly been making available their wartime cartoons, many of which have rascist caricatures of the Japanese. Alot of these can be seen the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures: On The Front Lines, which includes the Oscar-winning short "In Der Fuhrer's Face". Fleischer also had Japanese caricatures in their Superman shorts, as in the infamous "Japateurs" cartoon.

The new DVD collection stops short of the War years so there's none of that material here, apart from a couple of references in some of the accompanying docs. There are, however, several typical-for-the-period-not-tha­t-that-excuses-anything
moments of stereotyping, particularly in the shorts where Popeye travels to foreign lands.

My; dad fought in the Pacific theater during WWII. Other than using the term "Jap" to describe our then enemy, I never heard a derogotory word about the Japanese (or their Geman or Italian counterpatrs) from him. Many cartoons, (Disney & Warner Brothers) during that time used caractures of the Japanese & Germans to riducle or deride the (then) enemy as a means of bolstering morale for the folks at home.

We've progressed so far today that we can't even refer to our present day enemies as terrorists without fear of being called racists.

I remember one Popeye cartoon I saw which affected me as a young boy. Does anyone else out there remember it? I have not seen it again since that time (about 40 years). I wonder if it is one of those films that disintegrated in the movie vaults.

This episode had Bluto stomping on Popeye as usual. A voiceover announcer came on to appeal to the audience; "is there anyone out there who can help Popeye?"

The next scene is a film shot (not a cartoon) of a young boy sitting in a movie theater dressed in a sailor suit (white with black stripes) who is watching. He sheds a tear for Popeye. Then in a moment of inspiration, the boy pulls out a can of spinach (from I think from his satchel), he winds up and throws the can of spinach right at the screen.

Popeye catches it, downs the spinach, and whallops Bluto. I still remember that Popeye cartoon. I identified with that little boy.

Bill McNamara, Cleveland Ohio

I definitely remember that one, so it would have been in TV syndication in the 1970s.