Rotograph - Popeye the Sailor

[JohnSilverfan01]

It was the great technology of the Fleischers like this that made them rivals with Walt Disney

[basiacomeout]

I vividly remember watching this when I was a kid!  We loved popeye!

[DJ1SCY]

Rotograph has more 3-D than C.G.I.

[COMALiteJ]

@DJ1SCY, heh. I showed some people who do CGI for a living these old Popeyes (including the B&W ones) that used the Stereoptical Process without telling them about it, and they were practically wondering who the time traveler was who sent CGI-capable computers and software back to the 1930s!

[tkwtube01]

The description is 99.9% complete. You just need to add the letter "d".

Because his name is "SINDBAD", not "SINBAD".

[ctdsnark]

The art of animation suffered a great loss when the Fleischer Studios came to such a premature end.

[RayPointer]

Another detail about the Stereoptical Process is that the patent record states that it was "assigned" to Max Fleischer. It was actually developed by Johnny Burkes.

[RayPointer]

The process that created the third dimensional background effects was known as the Stereoptical Process.

The Rotograph was a form of Aerial Image photography used to composite animation with live action in a self-matting process where live action film was projected behind animation cels and rephotographed frame by frame. It was a double exposure process where the cels would be shot top lit, then the film wound back and the cels reshot with the projected background frame by frame.

[KeybladeKH]

Basically, the rotograph was like Disney's multiplane camera (except it uses live action scenery).

[CurlyHayami]

I saw these as a kid (they really jumpstarted my animation interest)and loved them but WOW do I really TRULY appreciate the beauty in them now!

[tobydammit]

I love the way this looks. It must've been some seriously painstaking work but the result is amazing.

[MysticArksRevenge]

That's what happens when cartoons are put in the PUBLIC DOMAIN ARCHIVE. The film becomes faded, dusty and scratchy, that it looks awful. Small movie companies, like Mill Creek, love to use these cartoons. I just wish that ALL of the Public Domain cartoons are digitally remastered and all of the film scratches and periods are removed.

[cha5]

Yeah Warner Brothers did an outstanding job of remastering the Fleischer Popeye cartoons in their Popeye DVD collection, I just wish someone could restore all of the Fleischer Betty Boops, Screen Songs, Out Of The Inkwell's etc.

[tkwtube01]

And some of them are black and white or 2-strip (red-green only) prints. This is especially true for the 3 Popeye color specials. Even the bonus features on Popeye Volume 1 use a 2-strip print for "Sindbad the Sailor".

[someone64]

At 1:04:

Popeye: "Maybe I should trade this in."

[jsl151850b]

Google for...

Real Scenery for Popeye (Nov, 1936)

It should take you to a magazine article that describes it.

April 16, 2007 Modern Mechanix Yesterday's tomorrow, today.

[jerryaltman]

Very nice. I already saw some demonstrations of this creative technic.

[gliptitude]

i've been looking around youtube all evening trying to find the 3D looking popeye scenes. Now i found it and i find out what it is. awesome!!! some that i was looking at was this, but i could barely tell b/c yours is so much better quality. thanks!

[MamboDogFaceOne]

This is wonderful! I remember "Popeye Meets Sinbad" nad being captivated by it - now I know why! *rotograph* .. !

Do you have access to the Betty Boop toons? Would love to see them!

[rabsmiff]

this is EASILY the clearest, and best-resolution Fleischer 'POPEYE' i have yet witnessed on youtube......a benchmark of how this medium's potential SHOULD be.....

[pksmithvt]

This effect is great!

[segasonic623]

how were the flat cartoons put into the 3d world?

[matbergman]

I posted an explanation about how the Rotograph works on my blog, BlueSpill. YouTube won't let me post URLs, so I'm afraid you have to search for the page yourself! (try "popeye rotograph" in Google, the page is in the top 10 results.) Each animation cell was mounted on a vertical animation stand between the camera and the set, creating the illusion of cartoons that are integrated in the dimensional background.

[620JohnDeere]

this is awesome i remember watchin this as a kid i loved this stuff

[Jman91]

Simply stunning!.

And the sense of humor is pitch-perfect, too!.

( i always loved the way Popeye talked under his breath )

[richragsdale]

i love this effect

thanks for posting this

fleisher's stuff is some of the greatest animation ever

esp. the supermen cartoons

they kick the stuffin out of the more recent features

[furbearingbrick]

I think I also saw roto-graph in Christmas Comes But Once a Year (unfortunately, most prints are horribly faded.)

[Ghostbends]

I saw the band Yes in the 80's and they played this on a big screen before the show. Everyone went nuts Popeye started to kick-butt.

[baxterfilms]

The backgrounds were made with paper mache and cardboard.

[RubyAnimation]

The 3D moving backgrounds from the old Max Fleischer Studios Popeyes and Betty Boops are amazing! My jaw drops open everytime I see them. Because of the design, the backgrounds move naturally in perspective! They have never been duplicated!

[jbrinkerhoff]

I've always heard the term 'setbacks' used for this process. It really gives a striking effect and I've often wonder why it wasn't used on Fleischer's feature works like Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town?

[cha5]

When I first saw the Rotograph used in Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor and the Ali Baba cartoon

I was dumbstruck I had never seen anything like it,

I still love rotograph Fleischer toons,

You just don't see something like the rotograph these days in any animation Disney anime nothing,

Tis sad IMHO.

[RayPointer]

The devise was referred to as The Stereoptical Process.

The Rotograph was an Arial Image process where live action was photographed single frame with animation cels to produce an animation/live action composite.

Fleischer was doing this in his silent OUT OF THE INKWELL films from 1921 on. The first evidence is in

the first film Fleischer produced when he went independent, MODELING (1921).