Thursday, December 6, 2007

Sexual Tension Via Jim Tyer - The Island Fling

The animation in the clip below has to be one of the most funny sexually tense scenes ever in a golden age cartoon. You can really feel Bluto burning with frustration as Olive ignores his advances, the action stopping just short of a dry hump. I love the subtleties in Bluto's animation, his body language, and his lecherous expression. It's a great piece of business that gives us a taste of Tyer's range and the possibilities of what he could have done had he stayed at Famous. The animation following Tyer's scenes was done by William Henning.

Unfortunately the animation in the clip really suffers due to the compression of Youtube. You'll have to wait for Popeye DVD Vol.3 to see just how great this cartoon really is!!


'The Island Fling' clip - 1946

2 comments:

Thad said...

You can really feel Bluto burning with frustration as Olive ignores his advances, the action stopping just short of a dry hump.

Best description of a Popeye scene ever.

Steve Bierly said...

"The Island Fling" is one of my all-time favorite Popeye cartoons. And sexual tension was definitely a part of the Famous Studios Popeye films. Even some of the cartoons from the 1950s feature it, although with more limited animation.