Monday, November 3, 2014

From Comics to Toons: Popeye in Ancient Fistory (1952)

Popeye (Jack Mercer) parodies Cinderella in the 1952 short, "Ancient Fistory". In this story, Bluto (Jackson Beck) owns a pub, and Popeye is his chief cook, bottle washer, and servant.



As it happened, even though I never saw the film, it seems Jerry Lewis did it better a few years later in "Cinderfella". Go figure.

Rating: C. Not one of Popeye's best.

4 comments:

Mr. Sig said...

To be honest, "Ancient Fistory" isn't very fitting for a title of a Cinderella spoof. 'Cinder-fella' would've sounded better.

hobbyfan said...

It all depends on when Jerry Lewis made Cinderfella, which, oh, by the way, if memory serves, was also a Paramount picture.

magicdog said...

It was made and released in 1960, eight years after this short.

hobbyfan said...

Thank you, Magicdog. Seems to me the writers of "Ancient Fistory" thought the pun in the title made more sense than "Cinderfella", which they might've thought was too obvious, and they must've felt they didn't want to offend Disney......