That's the forthcoming Popeye DVD release that excites us so. It also, judging from my e-mail, upsets a few folks on account of its announced price tag of $64.92. Even though the set includes sixty great cartoons, lovingly restored and joined by commentary tracks and documentaries and other extras, that sounds steep to some people. One person wrote me, "You don't care about what it costs since you're on the DVD and you're getting paid, plus you'll get a case of them free."
This person is wrong about the last part. There's a little coterie of animation and TV buffs, of which I am a part, who get called upon to help out with these things and who do so out of fannish devotion to the material. I probably have about three dozen friends who have assisted DVD companies in finding footage, researching history, locating interviewees and doing commentary tracks and interviews. Sometimes, one of us is paid for our services. I've never been but sometimes, people are paid…a little. We always get promised free DVDs — one or two, never a case — and I'd say that promise gets honored about half the time. By that time, they don't need us.
This is kind of a sore spot with some of us — make that, "with all of us." You feel stupid buying a DVD you're on, especially because if you do, the free one will arrive the next day. On the other hand, if you don't buy it, the free copy never arrives. I don't know why it works like this but it does.
Back to Popeye. Yeah, $64.92 is kinda steep but keep in mind that's the official price, the one nobody pays. It'll probably be $55 or so when it first comes out, then drop down to around fifty bucks. Secondly, there's a ton of material on this and it all went through a painstaking (I'm sure) restoration process. By comparison, some of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets list for the same price and contain 320 minutes of material as opposed to the 550 minutes of content you'll get with the spinach-eater's collection.
While you're at it, save some cash for three more releases which have just been announced in the Walt Disney Treasures series. When I think about how difficult it was to see — forget about "to own copies of" — just to see this stuff years ago, I have to conclude it's the best time ever for animation buffs. The collecting can get expensive…but hey, the work is available and it's not only being restored for us but for all posterity. Very happy news.