I'm hearing from several sources that the Popeye DVD set is selling quite decently. This is good to hear as it may inspire more studios to haul classic animation from the vaults for home video release and (big AND) spend the bucks to fully restore the material. This is not only great news for us consumers but it's beneficial to film fans as yet unborn. Over the years, a shameful percentage of the movies made have been lost. Negatives were allowed to rot and prints were lost because current management — whoever was in charge at the time — didn't see an immediate financial benefit to restoration and preservation.
That has changed in the era of home video, DVDs and digital storage. The negatives to the Fleischer Popeye cartoons can rot, fire can destroy the vaults, every 35mm or 16mm can of film can be thrown away…but the material will endure. I'm happy to have this collection but even happier to think that no matter what happens, they'll never be unavailable and they'll never look any worse than they do on this new DVD set. And like I said, they look pretty darned good there.