Hi, everyone. I tend to lurk in the shadows, reading the IAD forums everyday, but as you can see, I do not log on and say much. But, I’ve talked about this one point I’m going to bring up before in other venues.
In spite of the prints floating around out there, somewhere, someplace there has to exist a complete print of “Popeye and the Pirates”. I remember this cartoon and the missing scene as if it were yesterday. Mayor Art on KRON TV Channel 4 in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1950's would show this cartoon intact. This is how the scene would go:
After Popeye, disguised as a female, thought he took care of the Pirate Captain, he starts removing his disguise. The present day cut starts as Popeye reaches down the front of his dress to remove his "bosom". In the now missing part, he pulls out a black barbell - two small cannonballs with a bar in-between them. He tosses the barbell over his shoulder after tossing his hat and shoes, etc., but then there is a quick pan and a cutaway to the Pirate Captain who has gotten the barbell thrown into his mouth!! When the cartoon resumes after the cut, one can briefly see that is what happened, with the Pirate Captain's mouth and cheeks puffed out, with Popeye doing his "oh, no" take, running, etc. Now that you know how that scene went, this information will totally make sense when you see the cartoon once again.
As a 7 year old, I thought that scene was funny. (And I am certainly not corrupted today!) When KBHK TV Channel 44 in San Francisco started showing the Popeye cartoons in the 1960’s, that scene was cut out like it is now. At that time, I thought the channel did the cutting. When I moved from the Bay Area in 1978, the Sacramento TV Station KTXL Channel 40 was playing it with that same scene cut, also. These stations were still using 16mm prints at that time. I am guessing the distributors to the stations did the editing in those packages, with prints now all having that cut.
