Popeye's Aladdin & His Wonderful Lamp Premieres... again!

If you enjoyed Magic in Miami, the most recent exhibit in our Museum (featuring a short 1938 Popular Science film about the making of  Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, starring Popeye), then you'll love this fun fact... 

Footage from this classic, color Popeye film, released in 1939, was also used in the 1949 film Popeye's Premiere!

Famous Studios (the animation studio that succeeded Fleischer Studios), made what’s known in the world of animation, as a 'cheater’ film. In order to save money 'cheater' films mixed footage from an older film with new footage to create a film that gives the feeling (perhaps even the illusion) of an entirely new film. In Popeye’s Premiere, film stars Popeye and Olive Oyl attend the red carpet opening of "new" motion picture entitled Aladdin's Lamp, a film created entirely by piecing together chunks of footage from the 1939 animated classic Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp. 

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Olive Oyl and Popeye in Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939)

Olive Oyl and Popeye in Popeye's Premiere (1949)

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Interestingly, the original 1939 film actually starts with Olive Oyl at the typewriter writing a screenplay about Aladdin and his lamp. "I'll have to decide who the actors will be," she muses thoughtfully, then quickly casts herself as the heroine and Popeye as the hero as the scene dissolves, carrying us into the world of Olive's screenplay.

At the end of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, Olive receives a devastating note from her bosses at "Surprise Pictures" informing her that her story of Aladdin is being "thrown out," and so is she! So, while Popeye's Premiere may have been created as a 'cheater' film, it actually completes the story launched in the 1939 version, and provides some vindication for Olive Oyl and her screenwriting talents.

If you haven't done so already, we hope you'll check out our Magic in Miami exhibit, where you can watch a short Popular Science film  featuring the making of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (the first film completed in Fleischer Studio's then-new, state-of-art Miami studio space) and then watch the film itself in its entirety.