The first cartoon of the 1960s Popeye television series, Hits & Missiles is a sleeper classic, in that you do not expect a made-for-TV cartoon to be this clever, funny, or well-made. This is the first Popeye cartoon made since mid-1957, and it's obvious that Paramount Pictures and director Seymour Kneitel welcome the chance to return to the spinach-eating sailor man given the cartoon's energy, much of it derived from the use of a new Winston Sharples score.
The cartoon is handsomely made, even though the animation is considered "limited" by the more free-flowing standards of 1950s theatrical animated shorts. This "limited" animation, though, is not any particular weakness; it actually gives the cartoon a nice stylized quality.
There are numerous puns and in one scene when Olive Oyl and Popeye plunge through the holes of the Swiss Cheese Alps on the moon, there is some semi-improvised Jack Mercer dialog, the use of which recalls its frequent inclusion in 1930s Popeye shorts.
Mercer voices both Popeye and his nemesis, the evil Big Cheese. There is a curious quality to the voice performances, for though they are crisply delivered by Mercer and Mae Questel, the soundtrack used sounds slightly rough compared to the backing score and sound FX tracks. Of course these latter production values were among the strongest in studio cartoons of the time and far better than those used on other entries in the series.
Most of Sharples' score is original to this short, except for the climatic showdown when Popeye downs his trusty can of spinach; here Sharples reuses the spinach cue from 1957's "Patriotic Popeye" to superb effect; this particular cue would become a standard for Paramount's entries into the TV show.
Without question this is a highlight of the Popeye series.
The cartoon is handsomely made, even though the animation is considered "limited" by the more free-flowing standards of 1950s theatrical animated shorts. This "limited" animation, though, is not any particular weakness; it actually gives the cartoon a nice stylized quality.
There are numerous puns and in one scene when Olive Oyl and Popeye plunge through the holes of the Swiss Cheese Alps on the moon, there is some semi-improvised Jack Mercer dialog, the use of which recalls its frequent inclusion in 1930s Popeye shorts.
Mercer voices both Popeye and his nemesis, the evil Big Cheese. There is a curious quality to the voice performances, for though they are crisply delivered by Mercer and Mae Questel, the soundtrack used sounds slightly rough compared to the backing score and sound FX tracks. Of course these latter production values were among the strongest in studio cartoons of the time and far better than those used on other entries in the series.
Most of Sharples' score is original to this short, except for the climatic showdown when Popeye downs his trusty can of spinach; here Sharples reuses the spinach cue from 1957's "Patriotic Popeye" to superb effect; this particular cue would become a standard for Paramount's entries into the TV show.
Without question this is a highlight of the Popeye series.