This fascinating and informative 1938 film below, part of the Popular Science series, offers a tour through Fleischer Studios’ newly-built Miami studio during the making of the classic Popeye film Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.

The state-of-the-art studio space, designed by Max Fleischer himself, was perfect subject matter for Popular Science which, between 1935 and 1949, produced a wide range of short films showcasing progress and recent developments in science, industry and popular culture.

Fleischer Studios is extremely grateful to Mark Punswick at Shields Pictures, Inc. and the Packard Humanities Institute for making this film available. 

Fleischer Studios' move to Florida, from its original home base in New York, made it possible for the Fleischers to gain substantially more space; something they would need in order to accommodate the huge increase in the staff and machinery needed to undertake their first full-length feature film, Gulliver Travels. 

Though this Popular Science film clip is only six and a half minutes long, it offers a wonderful introduction to the world of ‘cel animation.’ The word ‘cel’ refers to the clear celluloid sheets that, when layered together with background artwork, created the images that – painstakingly filmed one frame at a time – could be strung together to create the illusion of fluid movement. 

As you can see from this film, by the 1930s the business of making animated films had already become a large and complicated enterprise involving hundreds of people with a broad range of specialized skills, both artistic and technical. During the creation of the Popeye film featured here, the Studio had a staff of over 700 employees holding a variety of titles including: story writers, animators, inkers, paint mixers, cell painters (opaquers), timers, camera operators, musicians, background artists, voice artists and more.  

While most Popeye films were standard 'one-reel' films (6-10 minutes long), Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp - the first film to be completed in the Fleischer's new Miami studio - was a two-reel film. Running about 20 minutes long, Aladdin is one of only three longer (two-reel) Popeye films. 

It is also interesting to note that, though he is often remembered for this role in the Fleischers’ classic series of Popeye animated films, Popeye was actually created by E.C. Segar and first came to the public’s attention in 1929 as part of the King Features print comic strip Thimble Theater. He was first brought to the screen by the Fleischers in 1933.

Watch and enjoy the Popeye film that the artists of Fleischer Studios are working on in the above episode of Popular Science: Aladdin & His Wonderful Lamp!

Fun facts

There are only three Popeye films that are longer than the standard one-reel (6-10 minute) cartoon. The three longer, two-reel films, which were in color and each about 20 minutes long are: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936), Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Theives (1937), and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939). Interestingly, all three of these longer films take place in exotic settings!

Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936)

Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Theives (1937)

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Popular Science, produced by Jerry Fairbanks and released by Paramount Pictures (the same company that was releasing all the Fleischer Studios films at the time), covered an extremely diverse range of subjects. Some of the unusual topics covered in 1938, the same year as this Fleischer Studios tour, were bandleader Fred Waring and his invention of the Waring Electric Blender, the Link Trainer (a new flight simulator for pilots), the ‘Drunk-O-Meter’ (the World’s First Breath Test for Alcohol), and the Birth of Television by inventor Philo T. Farnsworth.

POPEYE and OLIVE OYL © 2014 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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